NU Online News Service, Aug. 12, 10:30 a.m. EDT

AIR Worldwide Corporation announced today that it is the first firm whose catastrophe modeling software will meet the requirements of industry standards group ACORD.

Boston-based AIR said the software will support the new binding authority exposure data standard (ER3001) of ACORD (Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development).

AIR noted that the goal of ACORD, a global, nonprofit standards development organization serving the insurance and related financial services industries, is to facilitate the development of open data standards and standard forms.

The announcement included a statement from Paul Nunn, head of Exposure Management, Lloyd's Franchise, saying, "AIR Worldwide has been supportive of the ACORD initiative to standardize location level exposure data from the very outset. I'm delighted to see this implementation of the standard into their software and see this as a key tipping point for wider industry adoption."

Binding authority agreements give firms known as coverholders, usually managing general agents, the authority to write business on behalf of Lloyd's syndicates.

Lloyd's said it "strongly supports and encourages U.S. property underwriters and brokers to use the ACORD standard property reporting template when reporting information regarding the risks that have been bound. By standardizing the reporting format, it will help remove the need to spend time and money cleansing and reformatting information."

Roy Laker, vice president, ACORD London office, said, "ACORD standards make it easier for coverholders to keep Lloyd's underwriters up to date with details of the risks they have written. We commend AIR for their support of this data format as it serves as a common communication method for use by multiple parties, thereby increasing the efficiency of the entire industry."

AIR said that exposure data in the ACORD format can be imported in version 11.0 of AIR's CLASIC/2(TM) and CATStation catastrophe modeling applications using AIR ImportExpress.

AIR ImportExpress is a utility that provides an intuitive, user-friendly interface and allows users to create and reuse templates for automatic conversion of future imports. A template for the ACORD binding authority exposure data standard is now included in AIR ImportExpress, the company explained.

"AIR continues to be a strong proponent of open data formats to enable the smooth transfer of catastrophe exposure data for risk analysis," said Ming Lee, AIR president and chief executive officer.

Mr. Lee said AIR will be continuing its cooperation with ACORD "to drive this emerging data standard and further promote its use industrywide."

As new catastrophe exposure data formats are adopted by ACORD, AIR said it will incorporate them in future releases of its catastrophe modeling systems.

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AIR Worldwide Says Its Software Will Meet ACORD Standard

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