RMS, Marshall & Swift/Boeckh Form Partnership to Enhance Property Valuation for Risk Analysis

Newark Calif.-based Risk Management Solutions (RMS), a leading provider of products and services for the management of catastrophe risk, and Marshall & Swift/Boeckh (MS/B), leaders in building cost solutions to the insurance industry, announced that they have partnered to integrate BVS Express, MS/B’s Internet-based property valuation system, into RiskBrowser®, RMS’ enterprise underwriting system for property insurance.

“The combined solution will offer seamless, automated property valuations within the underwriting risk assessment workflow,” said the bulletin.

“The emphasis on underwriting performance is continuing to escalate in the property and casualty insurance industry,” stated Hemant Shah, RMS president and CEO. “Many of our clients are making significant investments to improve the quality of the data they use for risk assessment and pricing. Property values are the key driver for accurate risk quantification for pricing, risk selection, and accumulation management. We are very pleased to announce that RMS will be working with MS/B, the pre-eminent provider of property valuation systems, in order to address this critical need.”

Bob Dowell, president and CEO of MS/B indicated: “Property valuation is an area of significant concern for the insurance industry. Today, 75 percent of commercial properties are undervalued by an average of 40 percent. Accurate, systematic assessment of appropriate property values is critical to improving insurance companies’ financial performance. By partnering with RMS, we can help insurers address this issue where it can be managed most effectively-at the point of underwriting.”

The announcement noted that “the integration of BVS Express into RiskBrowser is planned for release this fall, and will allow underwriters to automatically estimate replacement values for all properties in a location schedule without dual data entry. Locations where calculated values differ from submitted values by more than a pre-defined threshold will be flagged for investigation. The underwriter can then use the validated property values in RiskBrowser to improve their analysis of catastrophe risk from earthquake, hurricanes, and other natural perils, and to improve their assessment of the impact of new submissions on existing accumulations around potential terrorist targets. By quantifying the difference in risk using submitted property values versus calculated values, underwriters can improve decisions on pricing, attachment points, and accumulation limits.”