Location, Inc.’s SecurityGauge™ Revolutionizes Crime Risk Assessment with 10-Meter Resolution Crime Forecasting

Worcester, Mass. (PRWEB) May 22, 2013

Insurance rates change when policy holders move. Why? Because a car is more likely to be stolen or broken into in one location than another. The same is true for burglary at a home or apartment.

Until recently, insurance rates were based on the overall city or zip code in which the policy holder lives, even if they live on a safe street, so they may be overcharged. Conversely, if they live on a dangerous street, their insurer may have charged too little because the insurer underestimated the risk. This approach is bad for both consumers and insurers.

For years, insurers, retailers, and other businesses have been seeking reliable crime risk data to the level of individual addresses to solve myriad business problems. With existing crime risk tools, address after address - even over a half mile or more in a city - often have identical or nearly-identical crime risks assigned to them. They are barely differentiated. Now the scientists at Location, Inc., a Massachusetts company dedicated to location-based data and risk analytics, have launched a tool called SecurityGauge™ that can pinpoint the subtle and not-so-subtle variances in crime risk as it shifts, not just by zip code, or even by block, but from one address to the next.

SecurityGauge provides instant, objective crime and security risk assessments for any address in the U.S. What makes it different from other products is that it is built on crime risk data at 10 meter resolution – spatial accuracy never before achieved – combined with proven predictive accuracy of 90 percent. (The data has been tested using nearly 1.3 million policy years of data including loss claims related to crime, as well as hundreds of thousands of loss records from major retailers.)

SecurityGauge provides exclusive insights for different industries:

   •      Insurance: assess risk and exposure proactively when setting premiums and deductibles, based on specific addresses, as well as help identify fraudulent claims
   •     Retail, pharmacy, real estate and restaurants: assess crime risk when making site selection and allocating security resources; aid in loss prevention and identifying losses generated internally versus those generated externally
   •     Security providers and independent security consultants: provide accurate assessments on specific types of risk to clients

SecurityGauge draws from a compendium of crime, geographic and demographic data from all 17,000 local law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and deploys them into proprietary big data computer models, developed by Ph.Ds. over ten years, to statistically predict the number and rates for every major type of crime. The result creates a holistic picture of crime risks at any address in the United States at unprecedented hyper-resolution and accuracy.

“Our customers are faced with making high-risk business decisions in real time with vital financial consequences and opportunities. Whether they are a pharmacy selecting a new store location or an insurer setting rates, they need accurate crime risk data that helps inform those decisions,” said Andrew Schiller, Ph.D., Location, Inc.’s CEO. “SecurityGauge meets this crucial need in the marketplace by providing our customers with the most accurate crime risk data for any address so that they can make the best decisions for their businesses. Our accuracy, combined with our spatial resolution, sets the new standard for our industry.”

Businesses can choose how they wish to access SecurityGauge crime data:

   •     Generate individual reports for any address entered, or choose a money-saving subscription, both with detailed crime risk scores and full-page heat maps of crime risk in the vicinity of the address
   •     Receive data via API, a web-based feed that connects the client server to SecurityGauge
   •     License a full installation of the data, suitable for very large companies

“Because of our flexibility in delivery, we can work with both large and small customers, from an independent retailer assessing a new location to a national insurer with millions of customers,” continued Schiller. “We know that our analytics provide our customers with the insights they need to make effective decisions in real time.”

About Location, Inc.
Based in Worcester, Mass., Location, Inc. is a geographic research and data mining company that has served more than 24 million people and businesses with its proprietary tools and analytics since its founding in 2000. The company is led by a team of pioneering Ph.Ds. focused on location-based tools to support high-risk, high-cost decisions. The company’s products and services include NeighborhoodScout®, which provides consumers with crime, school and real estate information for any location, and Security Gauge™, an instant crime risk assessment product for businesses that offers highly targeted security analysis and assessment for any address in the country. Additional information can be found online at http://www.LocationInc.com.

Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/5/prweb10750185.htm