11/26/2015
ATLANTA and TORONTO – LexisNexis® Risk Solutions, a leading provider of data, analytics and technology to help organizations predict and manage risk, today announced that the Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC) has selected the company as the lead partner to help it develop and manage its flood risk and exposure assessment initiative for Canada.
As a result of record flood losses in 2013 and the increasing threat of climate change, IBC has been tasked by the industry to accurately quantify the extent of flood risk and exposure in Canada. The goal of the initiative is to help IBC, its members and government stakeholders further explore the industry’s role in mitigating flood risk through the creation of a national flood program.
Working closely with IBC, LexisNexis Risk Solutions will lead the development of a new set of market-leading flood hazard maps and property-level exposure data, leveraging LexisNexis® Map View, its risk assessment and exposure management technology. Map View will enable IBC to perform advanced analytics and reporting against millions of data points quickly and efficiently. IBC will be able to clearly identify the number of properties at risk of flooding and the associated economic losses for virtually any geography in Canada. This initiative will provide the basis of understanding necessary for IBC and its stakeholders to have well informed, meaningful discussions about the future of flood-related insurance products and programs in Canada.
A key component of this initiative is the creation of all new pluvial and fluvial flood maps for Canada. These new models, produced by LexisNexis partner, JBA Risk Management, fully leverage local river, rainfall, snowmelt and higher resolution Digital Terrain Model (DTM) datasets, resulting in completely updated river flow and rainfall estimates based upon a much more detailed hydrological study where snowmelt is now explicitly modelled. The resulting maps will represent the most comprehensive and detailed set of Canadian flood maps, reflecting the uniqueness of the local environment and greatly improving risk assessment outcomes.
“Extreme weather events driven by climate change are increasing in frequency and severity,” said Don Forgeron, President and CEO, IBC. “Storms and flooding in recent years have turned extreme. That’s why mitigation and preparedness are vital and why IBC is stepping up to collaborate on a national flood program. IBC believes the backbone to good policy is solid research and data. That’s why we are happy to have formed a partnership with LexisNexis Risk Solutions to develop the program, which will help appraise risk and prioritize mitigation efforts.”
“This is a great opportunity to work with IBC to help quantify and address the issue of flooding in Canada as it’s important to citizens’ livelihoods, the country’s assets and the growing economy,” said Bill McCarthy, Managing Director, UK, Ireland and Canada Insurance, LexisNexis Risk Solutions. “Many of our customers today use Map View to effectively assess and manage flood risk as well as other perils risk, and to model, manage and report on their overall exposure.”
With innovative risk assessment and exposure management technology and a 30-year history of delivering insurance solutions, LexisNexis and its Map View platform provide the capability to assess exposure country-wide, as well as breakdown exposure within individual provinces and risk zones. It identifies exposure hotspots and will allow IBC to perform sensitivity testing of flood exposure and potential losses in Canada based on scenario analyses. Map View is delivered as a software-as-a-service and users have secure, 24x7, online access to a visual dashboard, allowing them to perform visualisation, data filtering and extensive reporting.
About LexisNexis Risk Solutions
LexisNexis® Risk Solutions harnesses the power of data, sophisticated analytics platforms and technology solutions to provide insights that help businesses across multiple industries and governmental entities reduce risk and improve decisions to benefit people around the globe. Headquartered in metro Atlanta, Georgia, we have offices throughout the world and are part of RELX (LSE: REL/NYSE: RELX), a global provider of information-based analytics and decision tools for professional and business customers. For more information, please visit LexisNexis Risk Solutions and RELX.
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