PERILS adds Australian hail to loss forecast tool, working on Florida hurricane

Catastrophe data aggregator PERILS AG has expanded its real-time industry loss forecasting software tool to cover Australian hail storm events and has upgraded the European windstorm and Australian tropical cyclones versions as well.

PERILS launched the software tool named Wind-Jeannie in 2015, to provide forecasts of potential insurance or reinsurance industry losses from European windstorms as they approached the continent.

In 2018, PERILS added the Australian cyclone coverage to the Wind-Jeannie tool as well.

Now, the software tool has been further expanded to cover another of the major catastrophe perils in Australia, severe hail storm loss events.

Severe hail events have driven considerable losses to local insurers and to the global reinsurance market in recent years, so this is a peril that has moved into more focus over the past decade.

Dubbed Hail-Jeannie Australia, the new addition provides real-time information on hail sizes and industry losses for severe hailstorms in Australia, with information updated every six hours and available 24/7.

PERILS said that this allows for continuous coverage of hailstorm activity across the country and that this is the first such capability for the insurance and reinsurance industry.

Hail-Jeannie takes Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) weather-radar data and converts it into best-estimates of hailstone sizes.

Using this information an industry loss for the past six hours is modelled, providing a real-time loss estimate every six hours, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

The hail and industry loss footprints can then be downloaded from Hail-Jeannie at postcode resolution for further analysis, PERILS said.

Commenting on the launch of Hail-Jeannie Australia, Darryl Pidcock, Head of PERILS Asia-Pacific, explained, “Hail- Jeannie Australia provides a new perspective on hailstorm risk for the region as we move into the upcoming storm season. It offers multiple benefits to users such as enhancing the ability to understand the potential impact of a hailstorm immediately after an event and helping insurers prepare the necessary resources to respond quickly and effectively to assist those affected by a major event.

“The research collaboration between PERILS and the Bureau around the development of Hail- Jeannie is a great example of a successful public – private partnership to accelerate the development of new and innovative solutions.”

PERILS has also updated its Wind-Jeannie platforms for Europe and Australia, adding animations of approaching windstorms seven days into the future, with detailed interactive maps to allow insurance and reinsurance market users to evaluate the industry loss forecasts.

Wind-Jeannie offers users industry loss forecasts for windstorm events for the forthcoming 72 hours, with these forecasts continuously updated in real-time every 12 hours. Each industry loss forecast is broken down into detailed footprints of the forecasted wind gusts and the resulting potential losses

Interestingly, PERILS also said it is developing a Wind-Jeannie platform for Florida hurricanes, which will put its tool up against the likes of RMS, AIR and other modelling companies offering a real-time industry loss forecast as tropical storms and hurricanes approach the United States.

Starting with Florida is likely to gain some traction quickly for PERILS, being the region with the highest insured value concentrations that are exposed to hurricane risk, so of most relevance to insurance and reinsurance market participants.

What’s even more interesting here is that underlying the Jeannie tools are PERILS exposure databases, else how could the company estimate insurance industry losses. A view of the current exposure is definitely required.

So, the development of a loss forecasting tool for Florida suggests that PERILS is now building an industry exposure database for Florida at least, if not for the rest of the United States.

This will put PERILS new service up against offerings such as RMS’ HWind, which are already widely used in the insurance, reinsurance and ILS market.

Luzi Hitz, CEO of PERILS, commented, “Our Jeannie tools are designed in a similar way to weather forecast websites. The information is instantly accessible and easy to understand, whether you use a smartphone, tablet or laptop. Moreover, users can set up email alerts for wind and hail events in excess of a defined industry loss level to remain continuously up to date. In our view, the Jeannie tools are testimony to the usefulness of PERILS exposure and loss data and the innovation it can trigger and demonstrate our continued commitment to pioneering solutions that provide greater data insight into catastrophe events.”