Customer Story

Location Intelligence software allows risk assessment leader Willis Re to pinpoint their advantage

150+

countries

1828

company was founded

Globe

global clientele

Overview

The Willis Group is a global company whose clients have risks in more than 150 countries. Due to their worldwide clientele and their diverse needs and risks, Willis needed to implement the latest in location-based technologies. They required a system that could carefully model catastrophe insurance and deliver enhanced service to its clients, for whom profit margins on risk depend on precise details.

Business challenge

Willis wanted to improve the speed and accuracy of their client exposure assessments based on location data. This required a more thorough understanding of the levels of risk exposure at individual points on a map. This information improved estimations of client’s potential losses and ensured they purchased the correct amount of coverage at the right price.
Willis required:

A geocoding solution capable of processing the highest resolution data available to allow consistent, comparisons across country lines
Complete systemic control to fully understand the way catastrophes model
Visibility into corporate client’s or insurer’s book of business to demonstrate the benefits of supplying Willis with the most accurate data available

INDUSTRY

Insurance

One of the world’s largest professional services firms specializing in risk management advising
Determines the best way to manage risk
Negotiates and places risk with insurance and reinsurance carriers
Advises corporate clients, insurance carriers and reinsurance companies

“The Spectrum technology from Precisely has enhanced the service we offer to our clients by enabling them to make more informed decisions about their insurance and reinsurance costs.”

Nigel Davis, Executive Director, Willis Re

Solution

Incorporating the Precisely Spectrum technology into analyst workflows enables Willis to undertake complex geographical risk analyses faster, more easily, and with greater accuracy. Its data quality tools and international geocoding capabilities provide full control over the geocoding process. This provides a better understanding of how the risk model behaves and the assumptions that the model is taking into account. The technology encompasses a larger geographic coverage area than was previously available and includes an ability to crosscheck the data supplied by clients, instilling greater confidence in the precision of the resulting estimate. This gives Willis the ability to advise their clients quickly and easily in cases for which higher resolution data might be available.

Benefits

The Precisely solution delivered the capabilities Willis needed to:

Simplify analyst workflows to increase speed, such as reducing geocoding from eight hours to one hour
Carry out catastrophe modeling and accumulation management, which now results in full control over the resulting models
Produce more reliable, precise results, and risk estimations for hazards such as flood, wind, earthquake, explosion, and bushfire
Obtain greater understanding and flexibility over input data, which has led to a more informed view of how precise a client’s projected exposure will be
Enable meaningful comparisons consistently across country lines
Improve risk and reporting capabilities, allowing Willis to fully support compliance requirements
Visualize a client’s exposure on a map in order to demonstrate to clients the benefits of supplying high resolution data

Technology used

Spectrum Global Geocoding
Spectrum Spatial
Spectrum Data Quality
Willis’s existing Microsoft technology suite

“By increasing the locational accuracy, our catastrophe modeling can now produce more precise results and risk estimations for a myriad of potential perils. The improved insight and risk reporting capabilities are also helping to address EU Solvency II regulatory requirements.”

Nigel Davis, Executive Director, Willis Re