Business News: American Family, Grange Insurance, Karen Clark & Co.

American Family Insurance is partnering with wireless home security provider Frontpoint (www.frontpoint.com) to make it easier and more affordable for customers to protect their homes and families using cutting-edge technology.

Starting this month, American Family customers can purchase a $600 basic wireless Frontpoint home security system for $99.95 with a 36-month monitoring price lock guarantee. The upgradable package includes a control panel, window, motion and flood sensors, a heat/smoke detector, a yard sign and window decals. The system is professionally monitored by Frontpoint – with alerts sent to customers’ mobile phones – and customers can also use the Frontpoint app to personally check their sensors and cameras. The system is expandable, as other Z-Wave devices may also be connected to the app. Because the system is cellular, it can be set up by the customer, tamper-proof and moveable to a new residence.

The system may also qualify customers for burglar and smart home discounts on their American Family policy.

Frontpoint assists when permits are required and remotely verifying proper installation.

Ohio-based Grange Insurance recently launched its new app, Grange Mobile. With an intuitive user experience user-friendly features, Grange Mobile gives customers on-the-go, 24-hour access to Grange.

The app is a mobile extension of Grange’s self-service, online customer portal. In the app, customers can view Proof of Insurance, make a payment, contact their agent, view policy information and more.

Grange Mobile is currently available to download for free on the App Store and Google Play. The app is compatible with iPhone and iPad, as well as Android.

The mobile app is just one of the technology investments the company is making to better serve its customers. Earlier this year, Grange launched its own Grange Insurance Skill on Amazon’s Alexa Voice Service, making it one of a few insurance carriers to offer an Amazon Alexa skill. Grange has also recently made enhancements to its online customer portal and company website.

Karen Clark & Company (KCC) announced the release of Version 1.0 of its Severe Convective Storm (SCS) Reference Model. The model is based on advanced scientific modeling techniques and has been validated with high resolution insurer claims data.

SCS losses have been trending upward, and this peril now dominates US insured catastrophe average annual losses. Annual SCS losses have consistently exceeded $10 billion for the past several years. In 2011, insured losses exceeded $30 billion and two individual events caused $7 billion in losses each.

Traditional catastrophe models have tended to underestimate the SCS loss potential for insurers. The new KCC SCS Reference Model is based on a physical modeling methodology and high resolution atmospheric data that more accurately capture the dynamics of this peril. The model shows that expected average annual aggregate losses are now approaching $20 billion—larger than hurricane and earthquake combined.

The KCC SCS Reference Model is a multi-peril model (MPM), and the hazards of hail versus tornadoes and straight-line winds are simulated separately. The model shows that hail dominates the SCS peril, accounting for nearly 70 percent of annual losses on average.

Along with a stochastic catalog of over 33,000 events used for pricing and reinsurance decision making, the model includes over 100 historical SCS events. Insurers use the historical events to benchmark the model against their actual losses to verify the model accuracy.

The KCC SCS model is licensed as part of the RiskInsight open loss modeling platform. All model components are transparent to the model users, and the model damage functions can be customized to reflect individual insurer claims data.