ISO Introduces New Homeowners By-Peril Rating Manual for Better Precision in Pricing Homeowners Risks

JERSEY CITY, N.J., May 7, 2013 - ISO announced that it has begun filing a new by-peril rating manual supplement for rating homeowners risks. The new supplement provides the benefit of by-peril analysis for certain homeowners policy forms. ISO's new alternative by-peril rating manual rules will allow insurers to evaluate the perils that pose the greatest risk for each insured in their book of business. ISO is a member of the Verisk Insurance Solutions group at Verisk Analytics (Nasdaq:VRSK).

The homeowners policy provides coverage for many different perils, but rating for the policy has traditionally considered the perils using all perils combined. Using by-peril rating, separate rates are developed for each peril, allowing insurers to analyze the portion of the total combined loss cost attributable to each peril and to look at the effects of perils individually. With by-peril rating, ISO provides participating insurers with base loss costs, rating factors, and additional rating information for up to nine individual perils.  

"Our new homeowners by-peril rating manual supplement provides our insurer customers with an additional tool to refine the pricing for their homeowners book of business," said Kevin B. Thompson, president, ISO Insurance Programs and Analytic Services. "The results of our by-peril analysis will be useful to insurers as they evaluate the effects of each peril on their homeowners risks to price those risks more accurately."

Information used in this new manual is derived from ISO Risk Analyzer^® Homeowners, a predictive model that develops expected losses at a highly refined level. While the homeowners by-peril rating manual supplement provides rating information at the ISO territory level, ISO Risk Analyzer Homeowners provides even greater refinement by providing rating information at the USPS ZIP code and even census block group level.

"By-peril ratemaking in homeowners insurance provides significant improvement in rating accuracy," said David Cummings, senior vice president, Personal Lines and Analytics at ISO. "With increased quality and quantity of data, we are capable of investigating the causes of loss and rate the exposure more accurately."

ISO will be filing the homeowners by-peril rating manual supplement throughout 2013 as an enhancement to the homeowners rating information available to ISO participating insurers.

About ISO
Since 1971, ISO has been a leading source of information about property/casualty insurance risk. For a broad spectrum of commercial and personal lines of insurance, the company provides statistical, actuarial, underwriting, and claims information; policy language; information about specific locations; fraud identification tools; and technical services. ISO serves insurers, reinsurers, agents and brokers, insurance regulators, risk managers, and other participants in the property/casualty insurance marketplace. ISO is a member of the Verisk Insurance Solutions group at Verisk Analytics (Nasdaq:VRSK). For more information, visit www.iso.com and www.verisk.com.

Contact:

Erica Helton/Giuseppe Barone        
MWW Group (for ISO)
(201) 507-9500                            
ehelton@mww.com
gbarone@mww.com