ISO is working with Toronto based MSA Research to bring Property Claim Services (PCS) to Canada that enables primary insurance companies, reinsurers, brokers, and others to receive data about Canadian catastrophes, including man-made and extreme weather events.

ISO claims that the catastrophe data will assist insurers in setting accurate reserves, improve benchmarking, enhance data quality for modeling purposes, promote reinsurance transactional efficiencies, and fine-tune catastrophe response plans.

According to ISO, the PCS-Canada service enables insurance companies to benchmark their claims against industry averages and assist in ensuring adequate purchase of reinsurance coverage.

In addition, the PCS-Canada service will also allow the Canadian insurance/reinsurance industry to present a standard approach for collecting and disseminating catastrophe loss data for analysis and increase availability of alternative reinsurance products, such as catastrophe bonds and other insurance-linked capital market instruments.

Gary Kerney, assistant vice president of ISO’s PCS unit, said: “Insurers need reliable catastrophe information to make underwriting and reinsurance decisions. Since the Canadian property/casualty insurance industry lacked a single, comprehensive catastrophe claims service, many insurers have relied on their own or incomplete industry catastrophe loss data as the basis for their underwriting, loss reserving, and reinsurance decisions.”

Don Forgeron, president and CEO of Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC), said: “This new information will be critical in assisting the industry to identify public policy recommendations for government as we call for more investment in adaptive measures to reduce the growing vulnerabilities related to extreme weather events.”