MILWAUKEE — Marshall & Swift/Boeckh (MSB) and Weather Fusion have announced the formation of a strategic partnership aimed at helping insurance carriers proactively identify pre-existing hail damage on new business and renewal portfolio. The MSB and Weather Fusion collaboration will offer advanced analytics and portfolio reviews to optimize underwriting performance and mitigate roof-related loss expenses.

Weather Fusion has developed and provides hail fall and hail size analysis techniques based on the specific needs of the insurance industry. The Pre-Existing Hail Risk Score for Underwriting represents the intensity of past storm events, as determined by property-specific hail size, frequency and proximity to the hail core.The strong correlation between this data set and actualroof losses makes application to underwriting and pricing compelling. Insurers can implement underwriting rules based on the Pre-Existing Hail Risk Score to order a roof inspection, or alternatively to waive an inspection that may be unnecessary.

“Hail storms in the U.S. cause over $10 billion in losses on average every year, but unfortunately we don’t have much information on the condition of roofs when underwriting a policy. Solving the roof problem is a top strategic priority for nearly every carrier writing in hail-prone states. Our partnership with Weather Fusion further advances MSB’s strategy to deliver best of breed, defendable property risk information to help carriers write profitable property business,” said Steven Brewer, senior vice president of Underwriting Solutions of MSB. “The intelligence provided by the Pre-Existing Hail Risk Score will help our clients to better underwrite and price roof risk and further optimize their inspection operations.”

“Underwriters can best determine which properties to inspect for pre-existing roof damage by using hail verification data designed to analyze what actually happened, rather than general climatological data or techniques built to provide public safety warnings,” said Don Giuliano, CEO of Weather Fusion. “General climatological data are designed to analyze the risk of future storms within a geographical region and cannot assess the potential for pre-existing roof damage. Techniques built to provide public safety warnings tend to identify likely worst-case scenarios and overstate both hail size and areal coverage. Our partnership with MSB helps carriers integrate the only dataset designed exclusively for hail verification directly into their existing workflow. This means underwriters can now know instantly which properties are most at risk of having pre-existing roof damage.”

For more information, visit www.weatherfusion.com.