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How Mutual Capital Analytics Revealed the Route to Predicting Fire Loss Performance with HazardHub

Creative Use of Data + Experience + Curiosity = Moving Past the Status Quo to Unimagined Solutions for identifying fire losses.

Client’s Situation

Many carriers are currently challenged by significant increases in the frequency and severity of fire losses in their personal and commercial books of business. MCA’s client was having similar fire-loss challenges with their Homeowners book of business but was struggling to find any insights within a $20M line of business.

Traditional Approach

To determine the root cause of the trends, the client had been using traditional methods to review results. As has been done for decades, these included looking at historical loss ratio analyses based on univariate cuts of rating variables—construction type,

HazardHub announces PermitHub – a national database of building permits

HazardHub, the USA’s fastest-growing supplier of geospatial risk data, a 2020 Gartner Cool Company, and 2020 Lloyd’s Lab participant – announces a massive new database of building permits – PermitHub. By the end of 2021, PermitHub aims to be the largest repository of building permits in the United States.

John Siegman, CCA of HazardHub explains, “For the longest time, we have thought about adding building permit data to the litany of data assets available from HazardHub. Our clients use this data to help make more sound underwriting decisions by alerting them to both issues and improvements to properties. The problem is that none of the existing datasets available have met the HazardHub standard for completeness, accuracy, and cost-effectiveness. So we decided to build our own. The result is PermitHub – which will eventually become the largest building permit database in the US.

HazardHub and Bold Penguin Announce Partnership

HazardHub, the USA’s fastest-growing supplier of geospatial risk data, a 2020 Gartner Cool Company, and 2020 Lloyd’s Lab participant – announces a strategic alliance with insurtech leader Bold Penguin. The alliance allows for HazardHub to supply Bold Penguin with point-of-sale peril and property data to both speed and sharpen the risk evaluation process.

John Siegman, CCA of HazardHub says, “There is a sea-change of innovation in the commercial insurance market, fueled by innovation to make the process both faster and better. Bold Penguin has been leading the charge. We’re incredibly excited to be a key supplier that will continue Bold Penguin’s foray into the commercial space.”

Currently, far too many commercial policies do not consider the impact of peril data on rates, as the process has been too expensive to economically implement.

HazardHub Announces Exciting 2020 Results

SAN DIEGO, CA -HazardHub, provider of the industry-leading HazardHub API, today announced record company growth in 2020. In a year when Insurtech solutions became a necessity for businesses around the world, this profitable company reinforced its growth position in the market through a number of new customer wins and increased customer traction with both carriers and partners. HazardHub completed more than 10,000,000 external API calls, resulting in revenue growth of 60% over the prior year – its 4th consecutive year of high double-digit growth.

Bob Frady, CEO of HazardHub said that “2020 was certainly a shock to the Insurtech world, as many of our fellow Insurtechs either struggled to meet their revenue goals or ran out of runway and were absorbed into a larger, more financially stable company. HazardHub’s laser-focus on providing incredibly rich and powerful data at costs far below our competition – combined with a process that gets companies on-board in hours rather than months – has allowed us to thrive.

HazardHub develops the first national LUST database (Leaking Underground Storage Tanks)

SAN DIEGO CA – HazardHub, the USA’s fastest-growing supplier of geospatial risk data and a 2019 Insuretech 100 company – announced that they have developed the first ever national database of Leaking Underground Storage Tanks (LUSTs). Insurers and property specialists can easily see both the closest LUST and the number of leaking tanks within a quarter-mile of nearly any location in the United States.

Rachel Revolinski, Senior GIS Specialist for HazardHub says, “We are very excited to release the latest update to our Underground Storage Tank (UST) database that now includes whether the tank was ever flagged as leaking. We initially started with each locale’s tank data, then spent a massive amount of time cleaning, compiling, and standardizing the tank data. The result is the only national, comprehensive database of LUST (Leaking Underground Storage Tanks).”

New Data Release – April 2020!

The COVID-19 epidemic has given us even more time on building new and (we hope!) interesting data for our customers.

Today, we’ve added a number of new datasets, as well as updated some existing data. It’s the first wave of several – we’ve got a lot coming down the API pipe over the next several weeks.

Snow Load – A vexing issue among our clients with cold weather exposure is sudden roof collapse when snow occurs. Our Snow Load determines the risk of a property suffering structural roof failure due to snow load. Snow load operates on a 1-10 scale and is also accompanied by HazardHub A-F grades. If you’re concerned about catastrophic snow load, this is the variable for you. Here’s how it looks in the API return –

5 Hurdles to Insurtech Success

We like to joke that we started an insuretech because we wanted to make money as slowly as possible. It’s a funny, yet exceedingly painful, joke.

We were asked recently to discuss issues that Insurtech companies face in becoming successful. We came up with 5 things that stand between insurtechs and success. Here they are but please note – your mileage may differ.

1) The Maths – All Insuretechs have one super-challenging math equation to overcome –

Risk = Bad

Insuretech = Risk

Therefore, Insuretech = Bad

Insuretechs are busy trying to make themselves more inventive. Which only makes them riskier. As this equation shows us, that’s a bad thing. Much more attention needs to be paid to how Insuretechs can de-risk themselves and make it easier for insurance professionals to rely on them.

HazardHub Adds to its Library of Free Research Options with “Do I Need Flood Insurance” and “Property Elevation” Tools

HazardHub, the nation’s fastest-growing supplier of geospatial risk data, is excited to announce the release of the first of its kind “Do I Need Flood Insurance” tool, available immediately at HazardHub.com, under the Tools tab.

Dr. Brady Foust, Ph.D. – Chief Science Officer of HazardHub – says “Flooding is the number one disaster in the United States. We’ve spent much of the past three years creating as complete a data set as possible for flood risk. Looking at flood risk is a problem bigger than just FEMA maps. While we usually provide this data to the insurance industry, we also saw a huge need for consumers to have an easy-to-understand answer to the vexing issue of flood insurance. Our new “Do I Need Flood Insurance” tool provides answers based upon the user’s property address.”

The HazardHub flood data sets are comprised of three factors.

HazardHub zooms past 100 billion data points for Property analysis

SAN DIEGO CA – HazardHub, the nation’s fastest-growing supplier of geospatial risk data, is excited to announce that it has recently passed 100 billion data points for property analysis in the United States.

Dr. Brady Foust, Ph.D. – Chief Science Officer of HazardHub – says “We’ve worked incredibly hard to develop an unparalleled amount of data for companies concerned with property risk characteristics. Over the last three years, we’ve spent an enormous amount of time increasing the depth and sophistication of our data. We’re pleased to announce that we can currently deliver over 100 billion data points across the United States. The amount and quality of data available via HazardHub are simply unmatched by any other property data company in the United States.”

The process of getting to 100 billion data points involved building dozens of national data sets that provide unparalleled insights to the risks – both simple and complex – that can impact both personal and commercial properties across the US.

HazardHub Introduces ReplacementHubTM Property Replacement Estimations

HazardHub, the nation’s fastest-growing supplier of geospatial risk data, is pleased to announce the introduction of Home Replacement Cost estimates from our award-winning API.

HazardHub combines its high-resolution property data with the intelligence provided by e2Value to create ReplacementHub, an estimate of the amount needed to replace the existing property structure. ReplacementHub recognizes the difference in both commercial and residential properties, applying the most appropriate answer for a given location.

Bob Frady, CEO of HazardHub, says “the recent string of wildfires in California has introduced a new and expensive hazard for property insurers – underinsurance. People are surprised to find that – from a catastrophe or not – they often don’t have enough insurance to cover the cost of rebuilding a home or business. In the end, the insurance company can end up with a compliance and customer nightmare,