(Image credit: Günther Schneider.)
Catastrophe modeling firm AIR Worldwide (Boston) has announced that it will make its Catastrophe Exposure Data Exchange (CEDE) database schema available as an open standard in order to facilitate accurate, efficient and transparent data exchange throughout the insurance value chain, allowing companies to make better risk management decisions. AIR Worldwide is a subsidiary of Verisk (Jersey City, N.J.).
Sean Ringsted, Chief Risk Officer, Chubb.
“We applaud AIR’s decision to make CEDE an open standard and for their support of efforts to encourage open and transparent data standards in the insurance industry,” comments Sean Ringsted, chief risk officer, Chubb (Zurich). “Efficiency is critical in a competitive marketplace, and an open standard reduces friction, facilitates the transfer of data with our trading partners and encourages the use of analytics for all parties involved; ultimately improving service to our customers.”
“RenaissanceRe has been a strong supporter of increasing access to exposure data to build a more risk-resilient world,” comments Ian Branagan, EVP, group chief risk officer, RenaissanceRe (Hamilton, Bermuda). “We recognize AIR’s commitment to open data standards over the past three decades and we welcome this further evolution in their ongoing efforts to make data transfer as seamless as possible. As the digital needs of the market evolve, there is a recognition across the industry that data standards benefit everyone and open source approaches such as AIR’s help facilitate richer business interactions.”
Ian Branagan, EVP, Group Chief Risk Officer, RenaissanceRe.
In its announcement of its decision to make CEDE an open standard, AIR notes that it has long been a proponent of open standards and in 1993 developed UNICEDE, a globally accepted industry data format to standardize insurance data exchange. CEDE is the open database standard developed by AIR to facilitate accurate and transparent data exchange and to encourage model development. AIR’s open data license is based on Apache 2.0, a free software license recognized worldwide that promotes efficiency and interoperability. The open standards license allows AIR clients and partners to use the CEDE format as an internal repository which allows for better collaboration and innovation. Additionally, AIR actively supports the Open Exposure Data Format (OED) by freely providing its CEDE format as the database structure for models running on Oasis LMF, an open-source nonprofit loss modeling framework.
More Easily Transfer Exposure Data
“AIR’s exposure data schema is part of a broader industry call for open and transparent data formats, and we are proud to be a part of the solution by offering an open data standard,” comments Bill Churney, president of AIR Worldwide. “Having an open data standard will allow the industry to adopt this common data format and more easily transfer exposure data across the insurance value chain.”
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