Barbican Insurance debuts geo-demographic underwriting

In an industry first, it has adopted Risk Data Suite from Pitney Bowes Business Insight to enhance its decisions, give greater visibility to risk factors and monitor its exposure. The company also believes the approach will enhance and personalise its customer service.

Whereas conventional systems provide broad banding for factors affecting premiums, the solution combines geospatial and historical information on flood, subsidence, crime and arson risk with a mapping application and has been specially designed for the insurance industry. This allows Barbican Insurance’s underwriters to make more accurate decisions on rates and claims.

“The Risk Data Suite enables us to make sophisticated underwriting decisions based on the actual conditions and historical precedents that exist in any given location,” says David Horan, corporate catastrophe accumulations manager at Barbican Insurance. “We can look up specific risks and identify exposure hotspots in precise locations, and drill down for more information just by clicking on the highlighted areas on the onscreen map. We can also better respond to Lloyd’s Realistic Disaster Scenario events, which is important for maintaining our standing in the industry.”

He adds: “Ultimately, the solution enhances our offering to customers because our ratings are more accurate and we are able to process claims more quickly. In other words, we are able to offer a personalised service that assures our customers they are being treated on a case-by-case basis rather just receiving an off-the-shelf product.”