Nordic Insurance Companies Cooperate on Loss Prevention
Four Nordic insurance companies and the research centre Nord-Star want to develop a new type of visualisation technology that can provide homeowners with concrete information on how they can avoid weather-related damage right there where they live.
Recent Danish summers have been tarnished by severe cloudbursts. The estimated costs resulting from the damage to buildings and contents caused by the cloudburst in July are expected to be DKK 5 billion. Similar extreme weather conditions also exist in the other Nordic countries. The insurance companies cannot “price” themselves out of the problems related to more extreme weather conditions, but they must focus on how weather-related damage can be prevented.
- The entire insurance industry has experienced very significant increases in claims payments during recent years, and they are expected to increase even more in the entire Nordic region in the coming years. Thus, the insurance companies must cooperate even closer on loss prevention – both individually and jointly – however, also in cooperation with researchers and homeowners, says Tom Anders Stenbro, CSR adviser in Tryg.
A joint issue
The insurance industry operates in a very competitive market place, seen from a traditional perspective. However, the Copenhagen Climate Summit in 2009 inspired the top Executives of the Nordic insurance companies If, Gjensidige, Codan and Tryg to meet and discuss potential climate cooperation. The insurers have, among other issues, agreed on supporting Nordic climate research projects developing web-based tools which can be used by the customers to determine the climate risk at their own location.
Adaptation and prevention by means of new visualisation technology
- Imagine a family who is contemplating building their dream house by the sea. We are going to develop a net-based visualisation program which, among other things, can tell them whether the area is currently subject to floods and how this trend will develop in the future. The program is also going to show whether there are any current measures to reduce the risk of damage to buildings, for instance, due to floods or heavy wind storms, and which impact such measures might have on the insurance premium, says Climate Researcher Bjørn-Ola Linnér at Linköping University in Sweden.
A very useful tool
The new data tool is first and foremost designed for private home owners. However, this also means that it is a very useful tool for other groups such as area planners and real estate agents.
- The problem is split in two, in the sense that private homeowners can do much to protect their own property. However, there are also many types of claims that can solely be prevented via public initiatives, such as ensuring that the sewerage systems have sufficient capacity. In fact, the municipalities, businesses and homeowners can learn to build in more “climate smart” ways and we would like to help them with that, says Jeanette Fangel Løgstrup, Director Corporate Communications & CSR in Codan, on behalf of all four insurance companies.
It is expected that the new tool will be ready for launch in 2014.
Additional information: For more information on Nord-Forsk here: http://www.nordforsk.org/no
Press contact: CSR Adviser in Tryg, Tom Anders Stenbro, phone +47 93 82 53 07 or
CCO in Tryg, Troels Rasmussen, phone +45 30 35 30 70