RMS awarded Service Provider of the Year

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Tuesday 2 November 2004

Risk Management Solutions, Inc. (RMS), the world's leading provider of products and services for the management of catastrophe risk, has been named "Professional Service Provider of the Year" in the 2004 Worldwide Reinsurance Awards, published by The Review magazine. The award goes to the company that has provided the best service to the global insurance and reinsurance industry during the past year, and is judged by an independent panel of six industry leaders. RMS was cited as having been at the forefront of innovation in the reinsurance industry, and was praised by judges for its commitment to strengthening industry standards, and for its efforts to improve exposure data quality through distribution of a free software application called the RMS® Data Wizard.

The high level of service and commitment provided by RMS was noted by the judges in the awards supplement. "The people from RMS are always in our office talking to the team. They are very much involved in our business," observed one judge. Jason Groves, editor of The Review, said: "Over the past year, RMS has delivered significant value and exemplary service to a broad cross-section of the global re/insurance industry as a consequence of a number of its initiatives. It continues to set a number of standards for the industry and has a track record for influencing industry behavior."

For 16 years RMS has been increasing the sophistication of its risk assessment models to reflect new scientific thinking and loss experience. Despite such improvements, and the widespread use of catastrophe models across the re/insurance industry, accurate analysis is often constrained by the quality of information available on exposure. To address this problem, RMS developed the Data Wizard, which enables users to efficiently process electronic submission data about insured locations and prepare the data for analysis or exchange with counterparties. In addition to creating data files that readily import into RMS products, the Data Wizard supports the ACORD Open Market Standard and provides a simple solution for the transfer of location exposure information.

"Our development of the Data Wizard was in direct response to requests from RMS clients," said Hemant Shah, president and CEO of RMS. "To have the greatest impact across the industry – among clients and non-clients alike – we felt it was important to make this tool available at no charge. By working with corporate insureds, brokers, insurers, and reinsurers, we hope to improve the efficiency and quality of data exchange for all parties."

Development of the Data Wizard is part of a larger initiative to improve the quality of exposure data. For example, building level geocoding and attributes are available to RMS customers for 27 major U.S. cities; supplementing location details and providing unprecedented positional accuracy – critical for accumulation management. In addition, a recent partnership with Marshall & Swift / Boeckh (MS/B) allows customers to seamlessly verify building valuations with real-time access to MS/B's industry standard database.