AIR Touchstone platform welcomes third party vendors
AIR Worldwide’s Touchstone software platform has welcomed a host of third party modelling firms to provide property catastrophe data to the open source system.
Ambiental, ERN, EuroTempest, IHS Inc., KatRisk, Met Office, PERILS, and SSBN will all be adding their data and models to Touchstone, enabling users to assess and manage risk for perils including flood, terrorism, earthquake and tropical cyclone.
Commenting on the development, Ming Lee CEO of Air Worldwide says:“Touchstone was designed to be an open platform, allowing clients to import third-party hazard layers or run multiple alternative models on a single platform for a more complete view of risk.”
“Because we have not adopted a ‘usage fee’ or ‘pay-per-click’ pricing model for Touchstone, availability of third-party models and hazard layers will encourage our clients to run more analyses, not fewer, to explore and compare alternative views and truly own their risk. Having those models and hazard layers available from within a single platform will also significantly improve workflow and productivity.”
“We are very pleased that AIR is enabling integration of our many flood hazard maps through its Touchstone platform,” says Guy Morrow, cofounder of KatRisk. “This will help deliver new sources of data to a much broader audience, which is particularly important for a complex peril such as flood. We hope that companies using our data through Touchstone will be able to achieve a much broader view of risk.”
In addition to continuing discussions with other third-party data and model providers, AIR is also cementing links and enabling closer integration with other major industry organizations, such as the Global Earthquake Model (GEM) and PERILS.
AIR was a founding member and key contributor to GEM, which is developing an open-source platform for sharing data, models, and knowledge about seismic risk assessment. Additionally, PERILS and AIR already allow their mutual clients to seamlessly integrate the PERILS Industry Exposure Database (IED) and event sets generated using this IED.
“We look forward to collaborating with other data and model providers as we continue to offer the most complete exposure and catastrophe management solution via Touchstone,” says Dr. Milan Simic, senior vice president and managing director of international operations at AIR Worldwide.
“Our approach — to empower companies to make decisions based on their free choice and specific needs, whether they are scientific, technical, actuarial or technology-based — is being met with enthusiasm by our clients.”
