KCC Releases WindfieldBuilder Hurricane Track and Wind Spread Tool

Karen Clark & Company (KCC) has released WindfieldBuilder, which the catastrophe risk management consultancy and vendor called an advanced scientific tool for creating hurricane tracks and wind spreads that can be licensed within KCC's RiskInsight technology platform. WindfieldBuilder, which KCC says is already installed at top ten P&C insurers and reinsurers is designed to enable users to create realistic windfields for storms of their own creation as well as for actual storms in real time.

"WindfieldBuilder gives [users] the power to create realistic footprints for hurricanes both before and after landfall and to conduct detailed claims analyses using their own loss experience," comments Karen Clark, president and CEO, KCC. "Because the vulnerability curves in RiskInsight are already visible and customizable, our clients gain competitive advantage by tailoring damage functions to their unique books of business.”

[For more on RMS Debuts the RMS (one) Real-Time Exposure and Risk Management Environment.]

WindfieldBuilder provides two options, Build a Track and Import a Track, for creating hurricane windfields and estimating hurricane losses, according to a KCC statement. Build a Track lets users enter several important storm parameters, such as peak wind speeds and radius of maximum winds, and to build the storm track interactively. Users can select other storm features such as slow, medium, or fast filling—indicating the rate at which the hurricane winds dissipate over land.

Import a Track enables users to read in National Hurricane Center storm tracks and tracks they create, according to KCC. This provides maximum flexibility for varying storm parameters along the path. Once a track is imported into RiskInsight, losses can be estimated for individual policies as well as for portfolios of policies, the vendor claims. Wind footprints can also be superimposed on locations and TIVs to calculate exposure aggregations for different wind speed bands. The storm footprints created through WindfieldBuilder are fully visible to the user as a module within the RiskInsight open platform, KCC says. This transparency enhances the user experience and understanding of the physics of hurricanes, the vendor asserts. Users can see the impacts on the storm footprints of changing filling rates, peak wind speeds, and other sensitive variables such as radius of maximum winds.

Anthony O'Donnell has covered technology in the insurance industry since 2000, when he joined the editorial staff of Insurance & Technology. As an editor and reporter for I&T and the InformationWeek Financial Services of TechWeb he has written on all areas of information ... View Full Bio