Public Safety Canada has reported that floods are the most costly natural disasters in Canada in terms of property damage. June marks the one year anniversary of Alberta's 2013 super flood. Environment Canada recorded that over 100,000 people were affected, and that commercial damages impacted over 4,000 businesses with over 3,000 buildings flooded. The Alberta flood was Canada's largest insured natural disaster totalling more than $1.74 billion in property damage. Three weeks later, Toronto experienced a record rainfall that triggered flash floods resulting in an estimated $850 million in property damage.
"Understanding the impact of natural disasters such as catastrophic flooding is a complex issue. Many of our customers are challenged with the delicate issue of identifying and mitigating their total risk and exposure within their existing portfolio," said Phil Kaszuba President, DMTI Spatial. "We recognized that the public flood and natural disaster data was insufficient to meet the needs of our customers and it prompted us to seek out a better solution for them. By integrating JBA's Risk Management's Flood Map of Canada into Location Hub, we were able to fill that void and provide a solution that enables the assessment of risk at the address level and facilitates real-time adjudication."
The combined JBA and DMTI offering, provides not only the insurance and financial services industries with detailed Canadian flood data to assist in determining the potential risk and exposure of floods to their portfolios, but is also beneficial to other industries such as retail and telecommunications. Using this information companies can facilitate:
Risk Mitigation:
-- Improve the real-time underwriting and rating of insurance applications
through more precise knowledge of the risk of the proximity of the
property to a flood zone.
-- Enhance real-time mortgage adjudication processes, speed time to
decision and reduce manual intervention with enhanced insight into the
precise location of the property as it relates to a flood zone.
Risk Analysis:
-- Validate capital adequacy requirements and better understand and reduce
exposure by being able to assess the total accumulated risk to a
portfolio as it relates to proximity within flood plains.
Site Planning:
-- Enhance infrastructure and site planning analysis by understanding the
potential risk of flood before deployment.
Emergency Preparedness:
-- Proactively build emergency preparedness plans to maintain business
continuity by understanding when key infrastructures could be impacted
by flooding.
"We have always championed collaborations and partnerships that are designed to give clients better access to our data," said Simon Waller, Managing Director of JBA Risk Management. "We are delighted that our Flood Map of Canada will be made available through DMTI's location economics platform. Through DMTI and their real time delivery software, insurers will find it simpler to manage their risks and assess their total or potential exposure to flood."
About DMTI Spatial Inc.
DMTI Spatial, a member of the Neopost group, is the Canadian market leader in location based information and data quality. For almost 20 years, DMTI Spatial has been providing industry leading location economics and Master Address Management (MAM) solutions to Global 2000 companies and government agencies. DMTI Spatial is the creator of market leading CanMap® mapping solutions, Location Hub® and maintains the gold standard for GIS location-based data in Canada. DMTI Spatial is headquartered in Markham, Ontario. Learn more at www.dmtispatial.com
About JBA Risk Management
JBA Risk Management specialises in hazard mapping and catastrophe modelling along with the interpretation and analysis of natural hazards. JBA's maps, models and data are designed for re/insurers to use in pricing, underwriting, exposure assistance and probabilistic analysis. By offering sophisticated and innovative analysis services, JBA gives clients the tools to understand their exposure to natural catastrophes and to make well-informed risk management decisions. For more information: www.jbarisk.com
Contacts: Nicole Young/Charlene D'Aoust MAVERICK for DMTI Spatial 416.640.5525 ext. 234/ext. 224 nicolec@wearemaverick.com charlened@wearemaverick.com Alison Ford JBA Risk Management +44 (0) 1756-799919 Alison.Ford@jbarisk.com
