Geo-risk-mapping

I love this stuff.

I’ve always been fascinated by maps and cartography and there’s a great report today on WebWire about a conference at Lloyds’ hosted by the Ordnance Survey and dealing with linking risk management to geo-mapping/-tagging:

> Underwriters from some of Britain’s leading insurance companies attended the Ordnance Survey event to see how geographic intelligence can pinpoint areas of exposure to risk to enable more competitive pricing and manage reinsurance cover.

> Layering information such as claims histories, policy details and accumulations on precise geographic coordinates can improve the understanding of trends, hot spots and scenarios to inform underwriting, delegates heard.

>>“Everything happens somewhere,” Ordnance Survey’s Gavin Lewis told the audience. “A clear geographic context, rather than simply a text-based description, can help you identify and visualise what you are insuring, where it is and what is around it. If you don’t have that information, it is more difficult to price risk accurately and be sure that accumulation management and reinsurance capacity is correct.”

This reminds me of stuff that I remember Philip Greenspun (before he “Got Money and Became – Understandably – Boring”) writing about a few years back:

> In the world of gizmos, I think the biggest changes will come from expressions of two existing technologies: (1) global positioning system (GPS), and (2) wireless Internet connectivity. Our gizmos will know where they are. Our gizmos will be able to use that location information to query the Internet. Imagine being able to point your mobile phone at a building and ask “When was that built and who designed it?” Or point your mobile phone and ask “Show me a view of that building’s roof” and the phone is smart enough to find a nearby Webcam, then bring the image back to your phone’s screen. My friend Henry Minsky notes that this will be the death of privacy unless you’re at home inside your personal Faraday cage. But such is progress.