Verisk Develops New Tool to Estimate Roof Age for Residential Properties
JERSEY CITY, N.J.—Verisk Insurance Solutions, a leading source of information about property/casualty insurance risk, announces Verisk’s Roof Age solution, which is designed to help U.S. residential property insurers more accurately determine the age of a roof. The new solution was built in conjunction with BuildFax, a leading provider of historical building permit data. Verisk Insurance Solutions is a Verisk Analytics (Nasdaq:VRSK) business.
“The next generation of insurance carriers demands timely and actionable property-level insights – especially when it comes to key risk factors like a structure’s roof,” said BuildFax Founder and CEO Holly Tachovsky. “Leveraging unique BuildFax and Verisk assets, we’ve created just such a solution.”
Validating roof age is difficult and expensive for the industry. Roof age estimates are often based on year of construction, an inspector’s visual estimate, or generally less accurate information provided by a homeowner. Accounting more accurately for roof age in coverage and premium determinations balances risk management decisions and fair pricing for policies with older and newer roofs.
“Repairing or replacing roofs is a significant claims expense for the property insurance industry,” explained Steve Lekas, senior vice president for Verisk Insurance Solutions. “Appropriately underwriting roofs is a challenge for insurers, particularly as it relates to obtaining quality data with which to segment risk. Verisk’s Roof Age allows insurers to gain more accurate insights into roof age, an important predictor of the likelihood and extent of future roof loss.”
Over the past five years, wind and hail perils have accounted for almost 40 percent of all losses, averaging approximately $15 billion annually–and growing each year, according to ISO’s Actuarial Service. As a roof ages, it loses its strength, increasing the frequency and severity of losses over time.
The foundation of Verisk’s Roof Age solution is the BuildFax roof permit database covering more than 10 million homes in the United States. Verisk’s team of data scientists adds layers of diverse and unique data assets to estimate the roof age if permit data for the property is not available. The model provides an estimated address-level roof age and a confidence score.
About BuildFax – BuildFax is the creator of the first automated source for national, historical building permit data. BuildFax provides this intelligence through unrivaled property-level details on relevant property events, such as major remodels, additions, and new roofs. The BuildFax database of permits continues to grow, currently covering more than 8,000 U.S. cities, counties, and townships, 90-plus million residential and commercial properties, and includes over 10 billion data points on those properties. For more information, visit http://www.buildfax.com.
