Skip to main content

Google - Geoeye Insurance Solution Set

    Google will now soon be entering the market of risk management and crisis event response. With the extent of satellite imagery and the extent of geospatial expertise available with Google, this was an obvious thing coming. People, especially from the insurance industry, have long being pondering on the fact, that why Google had not moved into the the Catastrophic Risk Management avenue before. But now, the wait is over and Google is soon stepping into the Risk management domain that may bring a stir in the market dominated by companies like RMS and AIR.

    Google is teaming with GeoEye to help insurance organizations across the globe, more effectively address risk management and crisis event response.  Google’s mapping solutions, combined with GeoEye’s Earth imagery and geospatial expertise, provide a platform for enabling strategic decision making, optimization of people and assets, and powerful location-based applications across the enterprise. Insurers know that having an accurate understanding of an asset’s location and associated risks (natural disaster potential, crime, lack of fire stations, high replacement costs, etc.) is critical to evaluating risk in the underwriting process.

    Having such kind of accurate location based understanding of the risks associated with the insured locations becomes all the more important in the aftermath of a crisis event when claims get filed. It helps to have an accurate view of the affected areas over time and geography.

    Google and GeoEye have developed the solution set to address these scenarios. Google had GeoEye, together hosted a webinar just recently, where Google’s Hillary Renderman and GeoEye’s Andre Kearns described several use cases, and were joined by Google’s Chris Sierra and GeoEye’s Alistair Miller, who gave a demo of the solution set.

    The slides of the presentation are as follows:



    Some of the key points from the webinar included:
  • About Google Enterprise that takes Google's most popular and innovative consumer web services and makes them ready for Businesses, Governments and Educational Institutions; aligning the way people work with the way they live.
  • Geographic information is mission critical - yet most of it remains silo ed or unused." Although more than 80% of organization data has a location dimension ... this information is rarely exploited."
  • Trends in Insurance:
    1. More efficient asset liability management models and analysis to help improve risk management
    2. Regulations on governance risk transparency and compliance
    3. Expected compliance on regulatory reporting
    4. Using Big Data to help estimate claims, credit, and market data
    5. Increase in ability to provide access by mobile and and voice for product and service delivery
    6. Analytics to help with customer insight and more efficient business processes.
  • Why Google Maps & Earth for Insurance:
    1. Better planning
    2. Optimise People, underwriting and Assets & Facilities claims
    3. Insight into policies
    4. Incident Management
    5. Regulatory Compliance better targeting for sales Disaster Deployment and marketing.
    Will this move from Google cause a stir in the issuance market? Will this change the face of the Risk Management Industry? Will catastrophic risk management and underwriting change for better? Would this solution set prove to be a threat to the risk management players in the industry? There are so many questions to answer, but will all of this lead to a better and a safer tomorrow?

Comments

Recommended for You

Where does Google get it's live traffic data from?

Referring to a post that I wrote earlier, Google’s - Live traffic Layer , ever wondered how Google collected this data? I was wondering the other day, how Google received live data to display it on their maps as a layer! I looked up the web and found something very interesting and am sharing the same with you all. As we all know, the traffic layer is available most accurately in several states in USA. Most major metro areas in the US have sensors embedded in their highways. These sensors track real time traffic data. Easy to miss at high speeds (hopefully anyway, traffic permitting), more commonly noticed may be the similar sensors that often exist at many busy intersections that help the traffic lights most efficiently let the most amount of people through. The information from these tracking sensors is reported back to the Department of Transportation (DOT). The DOT uses this data to update some of the digital signs that report traffic conditions in many metro areas. They als...

Google Map's Real-Time Traffic Layer...

    You can now check the traffic condition on the road before you leave for work, or a party or to your friend's place. Google's Traffic layer shows the traffic conditions in your area - LIVE!!! Live traffic data is available in major cities in the United States, France, Britain, Canada and Australia, with new cities and countries frequently added. The Google Maps API allows you to add real-time traffic information (where supported) to your maps using the TrafficLayer object. Traffic information is provided for the time at which the request is made. Consult this spreadsheet to determine traffic coverage support.     Let us now have a look at the Google Maps API - Trafiic Layer example. Copy the following code in a simple text file and save it as html. Click on this html file and it will open in your default browser. You will then see the traffic conditions in your area - LIVE...     The output of the above code looks as seen in the r...

Why this difference?

       Several of you must have observed this like I did, that the Google geocoder returns different results on the Google Maps website and Google Maps API v3 for the same address string. To understand why this difference exists, I dug deeper into the web and came up with the following.        The first and foremost place to look for an answer was the Google Maps API FAQ section. The FAQ section did not let me down of course! The FAQ section says: The API geocoder and Google Maps geocoder sometimes use different data sets (depending on the country). The API geocoder occasionally gets updated with new data, so you can expect to see results changing or improving over time.         What I concluded from the above is that, in a lot of cases Google licenses data from other companies like DigitalGlobe, Infoterra Ltd & Bluesky, GeoEye, Getmapping plc, Tele Atlas, etc. When negotiat...

Web based GIS for polling booths in West Bengal...

         The election commission of India will install web-based GIS in West Bengal's polling booths to help the State Chief Electoral Officer track them on their web site. The system will provide a map showing the exact spatial location of all 51919 polling booths and nearby landmarks, with their latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates. Boundaries of the parliamentary and assembly constituencies of the booths, along with all the administrative boundaries will also be provided in the GIS-based map.          The software will give a 360-degree view of the entire area falling within the 200-meter radius of each polling booth, including approach roads and nearby installations. It will show every detail of the polling station, such as the number of voters, number of polling and security personnel deployed, details about the current law and order situation and reports of past violence or disturbance in the are...

Reverse Geocoding

    The term geocoding generally refers to translating a human-readable address into a location on the map. The process of doing the converse, translating a location on the map into a human-readable address, is known as reverse geocoding. You can read more about geocoding here .     The Geocoder in Google Maps API v3, supports reverse geocoding directly. While geocoding, we supply a textual address and that gets mapped as a location on the map. However, in reverse geocoding, instead of supplying the textual address, we will supply a comma- separated latitude- longitude pair and get a textual address as the result. You can have a look at the geocoding example here , before proceeding to the reverse geocoding example.     The reverse geocoder often returns more than one result. Geocoding "addresses" are not just postal addresses, but any way to geographically name a location. For example, when geocoding a point in the city of Agra, India,...