MS/B Unveils Total Component Claims Database

New Berline, Wis.-based WIMarshall & Swift / Boeckh (MS/B) has unveiled the Total Component Claims Database (TCCD), an enhanced and expanded set of data for its IntegriClaim suite of property estimating solutions. MS/B says property carriers, adjusting companies and independent adjusters will have access to more localized and comprehensive data that produces more accurate and consistent property claims estimates.

“The repair or reconstruction estimates created with the Total Component Claims Database more closely reflect the actual costs involved with property loss indemnification,” said Jonathan Kost,
director of claims at MS/B. Kost explained that there are two key
enhancements to the database: cost localization to nearly 2,700 different areas that gives rural areas their own accurate cost
database, and the total component estimating methodology that provides a more precise estimate of what is actually needed for a repair.

According to Pascal Lorthioir, vice president of research and development at MS/B, new research and technologies show that total component estimating systems provide more accurate and
consistent property loss estimates. MS/B originally developed the hallmark total component methodology to help underwriters calculate accurate Insurance-to-Value (ITV) estimates.

MS/B said in a statement that the component-based ITV has helped carriers across the United States and Canada improve policyholder protection and earn premiums commensurate with risk by reducing undervaluation in their residential books of business by as much as 8 percent.

The database consists of material and labor costs researched from and localized to the 5-digit ZIP and 6-character Canadian Postal Code levels, for over 2,700 economies across the United States and Canada. In addition, the database includes labor rates based on
wages plus subcontractor’s Overhead and Profit (OH & P).

“It’s by including the OH & P that we are able to reflect local market prices for residential work and for a room by room economy of scale,”
Lorthioir explained, “and that’s important because the estimates more
accurately reflect the prices that carriers actually pay for losses.”

Property carriers and adjusters can use the database with confidence said the MS/B statement. A staff of over 50 research and development analysts validated the database using five different processes: comparing to “plate-line” studies of hundreds of total loss claims; analyzing data from a commissioned study on OH & P; examining labor rates from a national contractors network; reviewing the “stick and stone database” previously used in MS/B estimators; and comparing with costs found in MS/B’s Insurance Data Warehouse, a repository of property claims records from across the U.S. and Canada. MS/B continuously enriches the database by collecting data monthly and comparing it with current market labor and material prices.

For more information, visit MS/B’s Web site at: www.msbinfo.com.