TINNIRELLO: Glen, good presentation and before I get into the details later on about the specifics of your device, I have a generic question I think the audience would be interested in. It seems to me that if data and the collection of data is really at the focal point of the underwriter, being able to assess the risk of a given property, why wouldn’t there be initiative in the industry at the point where the C.O. is given to the property to really fill out a form during the construction process which really provides the level of detail that you described in terms of meaningful data. I see this device; we’ll talk about it later, as an ‘after the fact’ type of collection tool. But what about the initiatives in the industry at large on a nationalized basis, to really capture data during the construction process prior to the CO being issued to a particular building or property whether commercial or residential. Any thoughts there?
DARASKEVICH: The initial thought is of course that makes a lot of sense to get all the data up front, as early in the process as possible to minimize your cost of collecting it. Historically some obstacles have, one, been the industry agreeing what information needs to be collected. Often times when we’ve been involved in initiatives where you’re trying to get multiple parties to agree sometimes it doesn’t transpire as quickly as one would like. Secondly I think this may be above and beyond that particular initiative. Because I believe individual carriers have particular features that they feel given them a competitive advantage and a leg up on their competitors. A lot of people see this as an opportunity to get that. You have a uniform and consistent data collection initiative, which is of high value and I believe in the concept in general. A lot of people always feel that they can slice and cut the risk differently and better than someone else. They want to be able to access and get that data. This is exactly what this device allows you to do. On an individualized carrier basis you get the information that you want, that you feel is important and can inject it directly into your pricing.
TINNIRELLO: We’ll pick on this a little later. I appreciate you thoughts and now we’ll turn it over to the presentation to Barry.
McDONALD: One quick question came in and it’s the same question I had: What you showed on screen, is that tied to a particular hardware or is it independent to a series of PDAs. In other words, are you locked into some kind of particular model?
DARASKEVICH: We’re not locked into a particular model. That was one of the primary reasons behind the design decision to go with Windows Mobile, which is generally available on most of the devices out in the market today. However, in our current release we’ve been sticking with one recommended device. This is partly from testing some different products. Of course that’s something that we can always discuss with any interested party about how this could be implemented on any number of devices they are interested in.
McDONALD: I’m going to turn the presentation over to Barry Rabkin. Barry of course, is a senior analyst with Financial Insights. Paul and I are both very familiar with Barry. If you’ve experienced a ‘Barry’ presentation – Paul and I have experienced several – he’s a great walker. He loves to fill a room, get around. I get the feeling he’d like to give this presentation on his feet but we’ve got him at his desk. Barry, it’s all yours.
RABKIN: Thank you very much and thank all of you for attending. If I am walking around I guess all I have to do is stick close to the mike. What I want to do is to take this into a slightly different direction and talk about how insurers can create competitive advantage with spatial information. A lot of the surveys that we’ve run in the last few years – up until this financial crisis – the insurance companies’ executives have told us that their top three objectives were organic growth, regulatory compliance and cost improvement.
Now, of course, with the situation as it is, it probably would be reconfigured to regulatory compliance and cost improvement. That will probably show in the next survey that we take. Everyone understands that the marketplace is getting increasingly more complex. But there still seems to be a lack of a realization of the need to have a strong sense of place. And if there’s any one message that comes out of these various comments and slides is that insurance companies need to increase their sense of place in all of their initiatives, from strategic to tactical to operational. Just like they need a strategic sense in how they go to market or an operational sense in their various business processes, insurance companies need a sense of place. And so what we’ll discuss today is the landscape of risk, very quickly sub-geo or spatial area components and insurance geo-application framework, some insurable domains – three of them as a matter of fact – some spatial technology and information firms who you might look to and then some guides for insurers.
So, the landscape of risk: What I’m getting at here is that the landscape of risk, we see it moving from traditional to emerging on the type of risk and the insurability from high to low on the Y access. It’s a geo-based thing. It’s a geo thing. It’s a spatial thing. Most of these risks, particularly those in blue, dark blue, global Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11