Towers Watson, a global professional services company, announcesthe release of its Emblem 4.3 pricing software, which includesspeed improvements, allowing it to perform 20 percent faster thanthe previous version. Emblem is used by property & casualtyinsurers to model claim experience and business demand in order toprice premiums effectively.

Emblem XE 4.3 is designed for companies with large data sets. Ittakes full advantage of multiple processors—up to 128 processorthreads—and 64-bit systems. In comparative tests on a variety oftypical pricing models and hardware/software configurations, EmblemXE 4.3 performed, on average, five times faster than its previousversion and 30 times faster than the previous standard edition.

“These are substantial speed improvements that will helpcompanies explore their data more thoroughly and maximize theirprofitability,” says Duncan Anderson, Towers Watson's globalp&c pricing and product management leader.

“This is certainly the case for P&C insurers developingtelematics usage-based insurance products, for example, where thevolumes of data involved are absolutely vast, particularly ifcompanies are collecting it on a per-second basis, which is what werecommend. As competition increases for telematics customers, dataanalysis capability will become even more important for productdifferentiation,” says Anderson.

Emblem has been developed over more than a decade. There are nowmore than 1,400 users among P&C insurers worldwide, and severalleading life insurers have also started to use Emblem to enhancemortality analysis.