LONDON, 24 September 2020 – Aon plc (NYSE: AON), a leading global professional services firm providing a broad range of risk, retirement and health solutions, is enabling re/insurers to easily convert their catastrophe data into the Open Exposure Data format to allow more vendor model choice and enable broader risk management insights.

Following the costliest decade on record, economic losses from natural disasters reached USD75 billion in the first half of 2020 and reinforced re/insurers’ need to understand and manage catastrophe risk, in addition to the impact of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. 

Catastrophe modellers are tasked with the cleansing and continuous re-formatting of exposure data to analyse in vendor catastrophe models. This is often a labour-intensive, inefficient use of a skilled resource.

Aon’s ImpactWorkbench tool enables re/insurers to transform exposure data sets into vendor input formats to save time, reduce the potential for error and increase transparency. With increasing choices of catastrophe models, a repeatable and efficient process for translating data will enable analysts to access insights more efficiently.

To support catastrophe analysts, ImpactWorkbench now includes a new feature to support the Open Exposure Data (OED) format, which means re/insurers can now produce import-ready files for Oasis-based catastrophe modelling systems, including Nasdaq’s Risk Modelling for Catastrophes (NRMC) and Aon’s ELEMENTS platform from Impact Forecasting.

As Aon continues to work with re/insurers to develop a bespoke view of catastrophe risk, there is a need to understand the underlying data assumptions and have a consistent and accurate methodology for the conversion of data. This approach to data can also serve as a means to better understand and quantify the impact of the contributors to unmodeled losses, as well as lead to a better understanding of the uncertainty in modeled loss estimates.

Dickie Whitaker, CEO of Oasis Loss Modelling Framework, said: “The exposure management function in our industry is in need of improved efficiency and Aon should be applauded for supporting clients by driving forward this standard.”

James Lay, commercial director of NRMC, Nasdaq said: “Supporting open data standards is a key enabler for the industry and Aon’s support of OED via ImpactWorkbench will help with the adoption of Oasis-based models throughout the risk transfer chain.”

Helen Attenborough, executive managing director for Analytics Software & Product Development at Reinsurance Solutions, Aon, said: “By backing open catastrophe modelling ecosystems, we are excited to bring more choice to insurers and help them better quantify natural catastrophe risk in an efficient way. ImpactWorkbench enables a transparent view of the exposure data and conversion processes, which can help to develop an understanding of the models and how they represent reality.”

Additional features for catastrophe modellers and exposure managers on ImpactWorkbench include data quality checks and reporting; construction, occupancy, protection and exposure mapping; address matching and support for complex re/insurance term translation.

ENDS

About Aon

Aon plc (NYSE: AON) is a leading global professional services firm providing a broad range of risk, retirement and health solutions. Our 50,000 colleagues in 120 countries empower results for clients by using proprietary data and analytics to deliver insights that reduce volatility and improve performance.

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