RMS to Integrate Building Permit Data from BuildFax to Enhance Its Solutions for Insurers and Reinsurers

Data to Provide Detailed Information on Building History and EnableImproved Risk Assessment

AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Risk Management Solutions (RMS) today announced a partnership with BuildFax, the leading provider of building permit data in the United States, to integrate its industry leading database of building permit data into a wide variety of RMS solutions. The partnership strengthens RMS’ data offerings, delivering further value to insurers and reinsurers.

BuildFax will provide RMS with digitized building permit information for over 60 percent of the United States, along with roof age, construction quality data points and additions/remodels data. The data, which spans over 20 years, will be available at the point of underwriting, and RMS clients will have access to an integrated package of data, analytics, and models within a comprehensive underwriting application.

With easy access to BuildFax data, RMS will now provide its clients with higher resolution information regarding residential, commercial and industrial properties. This partnership will significantly enhance the data available for fire risk assessment, valuation estimation, catastrophe modeling and assessment of all other perils. For underwriters, this represents a significant base of highly relevant data for assessing and modeling risk, and improving risk selection and pricing decisions. The BuildFax data can also be used to derive predictive analytics.

“This new data provides insurers with a unique advantage – the ability to determine a building’s history, rather than relying on other loosely related information. This will be critical to solving key market challenges, for example determining build quality as well as the presence of mitigation measures in the Florida market,” said Roger Arnemann, vice president of Global Consulting and Data Services at RMS. “Insurance and other financial institutions require more informed decisions based on better data and smarter models, and the RMS/BuildFax partnership supports exactly that.”

The availability of BuildFax data will also enable RMS clients to answer questions about data quality by making a link between constructions said to have been completed with the actual existence of building permits.

“We understand the importance of permitting data to insurers, reinsurers, trading companies, and other financial institutions, and this agreement will enable them to use RMS models and analytics to make even better risk selection and management decisions,” said Holly Tachovsky, President of BuildFax. “BuildFax is proud to partner with RMS to provide our unmatched national permitting database and allow its clients to make the most informed decisions possible.”

About BuildFax (www.buildfax.com):

BuildFax, a division of BUILDERadius, is the creator of the first and only national database of historical building permit data. Co-headquartered in Austin, Texas and Asheville, North Carolina, BuildFax has created a proprietary property intelligence engine that contains building and permitting information from 4,000+ cities and counties throughout the country. Local building departments in each of these towns across the country inspect construction to make sure it meets quality and safety standards; as such it is an absolutely critical part of the public safety infrastructure. BuildFax is then able to consolidate this information into the dataset, which is a tremendous asset to professionals in the insurance, financial services, inspection, and appraisal industries, as well as buyers and sellers of property. As the best and only source of a structure’s “life story”, the BuildFax database continues to grow, currently covering over 60 percent of the U.S. commercial and residential building stock with 6 billion data points.

About RMS:

Risk Management Solutions is the world’s leading provider of products and services for managing natural and man-made risks. More than 400 leading insurers, reinsurers, trading companies, and other financial institutions rely on RMS models to quantify, manage, and transfer risk. Founded at Stanford University in 1988, RMS serves clients today from offices in the U.S., Bermuda, the U.K., France, Switzerland, India, China, and Japan. For more information, visit our website at www.rms.com.

Red Fan Communications for BuildFaxKathleen Lucente, 512-551-9253
[email protected]

Source: BuildFax