ISO launches new initiative targeting reinsurance and ILS

ISO, a division of Verisk Analytics, has launched a new initiative that will see it targeting the reinsurance and ILS space as it seeks to develop data and analytics tools which make operating, capital and capacity management more efficient.

The initiative, which has been launched by Tom Johansmeyer, assistant vice president of Reinsurance Services, well aim to “identify and develop the data and analytics tools that reinsurers and ILS players could use to manage risk and capital more effectively, improve operations, and grow shareholder value.”

One of the focuses will be on helping insurance-linked securities (ILS) specialists and reinsurers to put their capital to work, a timely focus given the constant discussion of excess capital and capacity in the reinsurance marketplace.

The current market conditions have motivated ISO to take a deeper look at ILS and reinsurance, leading it to believe that the market dynamic requires new solutions in order to open up a wider range of strategic alternatives.

Johansmeyer aims to spend the next few months conducting market research, speaking with market participants to identify their needs and evaluating the existing wealth of data that the ISO and Verisk family of companies has at its disposal that could be put to greater use. A road map will be developed to maximise both impact and delivery speed for the industry.

“Our goal in launching this new initiative is to help reinsurers and the ILS community operate more effectively. We already have a few projects in the pipeline, and I’m particularly excited about our collaboration with the commercial property team at ISO. The early feedback we got from our reinsurance and ILS clients made it a great place for us to start. In the coming months, I look forward to coming up with a few more ways to help our clients – and help them help their clients,” Johansmeyer told Artemis.

Through Property Claims Services (PCS) the organisation already facilitates transactions in the ILS space, through the use of its industry insured loss data and indices. ISO has clearly identified that it could be working more collaboratively with the reinsurance and ILS space to provide further services, data and perhaps indices, which will enable the market to put its capital to work more efficiently and in some cases help to create new product sets.

The reinsurance initiative has already got a number of projects in progress, including collaborative efforts with ISO Commercial Property, ISO ClaimSearch, and Property Claim Services (PCS). These include the efforts to create a PCS energy and marine industry loss data service and index, which could open up more of that market to ILS capital as well as making risk transfer more efficient.

Johansmeyer was chosen for the role due to his passion for reinsurance and his unique perspective on the industry. He has developed and led a number of innovative marketing and new business initiatives for PCS in the past. Before Verisk, PCS and ISO Johansmeyer has experience in insurance and reinsurance from time spent at Guy Carpenter where he spearheaded the launch of the reinsurance industry’s first corporate blog. Before that he worked at Deloitte on system implementation and integration projects.

It makes a lot of sense for ISO to more deeply explore how the Verisk and ISO family of companies and suite of services can more readily target the evolving reinsurance and ILS space. Given the rate of change in the market right now, new initiatives which help to create more capital deployment opportunities are likely to be very well received.