INFORMED RISK-SELECTION DECISIONS IN SECONDS FROM MSB
June 13, 2007
LOS ANGELES - June 13, 2007 Today MSB, an MDA company and the leading worldwide provider of essential building cost and risk-specific data to the property and casualty industry, announces the expansion of its online hazard identification service to include brush and forest fire data for four more western states, Alaska, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, bringing the number of available states to twelve. Because MSB's address-specific hazard identification service is integrated within its Web-hosted home valuation system, users get reliable risk-assessment data within seconds at the underwriters' fingertips and at the agents' point of sale.
"Underwriters and agents must make risk-selection decisions in seconds for locations that are hundreds of miles away from their offices," says Peter M. Wells, President of MSB. "MSB's brush and forest fire data is produced and delivered at a constant 30-meter accuracy level, giving users the ability to select risks with pinpoint accuracy without having to slow down the underwriting process to review maps, make subjective interpretations, or introduce the possibility of misinterpretation and human error." According to Wells, in the past 18 months MSB's clients have requested this hazard data for a significant number of homes through the brush fire system, proving the value of integrating objective, validated hazard data into the company's industry-leading valuation technology.
Brush and forest fire data is available in the twelve states of Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. Unlike other brushfire hazard identification methods that report on locations within 100 or even 1,000 meters, MSB's data is produced and delivered at a constant 30-meter accuracy level. This enables a more granular brush and forest fire hazard rating assignment in six different levels of hazard: Low, Low-Urban, Low-Agriculture, Moderate, High, and Very High. In addition, MSB offers the only brush and forest fire hazard identification system that identifies the distance to nearest area of worse fire hazard. This unique feature is based on research of the 2003 California wildfires, where MSB observed that nearly 80% of the 2003 California wildfire losses were in sectors ranked as Low or Moderate hazard potential. The homes in those zones were ignited by fire brands blown in hundreds of feet from the edge of Very High or High rank cells, or by house-to-house fire spread.
MSB's suite of hazard services also includes wind pool zones, distance to coast or bodies of water, earthquake fault lines, sink holes, premium tax zones, distance to fire station, and NFIP flood zones. All data, with the exception of the flood zones, is integrated with MSB's Residential Component Technology® (RCT) home valuation tool hosted on MSB ExpressTM, a secure Web platform. Flood zone data will be fully integrated in RCT by the fourth quarter of 2007. MSB's hazard data is also deliverable via batch files, direct system-to-system XML-based connection, or via systems installed at a client's site.
MSB's geo-spatial underwriting data and services were developed in cooperation with Proxix Solutions, Inc., a provider of location intelligence databases, software and solutions.
About Proxix Solutions
Proxix Solutions develops location intelligence products and enterprise solutions to provide businesses actionable information for decision support to make smarter decisions, understand and mitigate risks, cultivate profitable customer relationships and increase market penetration. Proxix Solutions, a privately held company, was founded in 2003. Proxix's management team was responsible for developing many geospatial industry firsts, including the first national address geocoder. Proxix is headquartered in Palm Harbor, FL with offices in Boulder, CO and Madison, WI. For more information visit www.proxix.com.
About MSB
Marshall & Swift / Boeckh (MSB), an MDA company, is the leading supplier of local building cost information, residential and commercial property valuation technology and services for the property and casualty insurance sector in the United States and Canada. MSB has five offices throughout the U.S. and Canada. For information, please contact Marsha Berenson, Media Coordinator, at 800-285-1288, Ext. 2828, e-mail Marsha.Berenson@msbinfo.com, or visit MSB's Web site at www.msbinfo.com.
About MDA
MDA provides advanced information solutions that capture and process vast amounts of data, produce essential information, and improve the decision making and operational performance of business and government organizations worldwide.
Focused on markets and customers with strong repeat business potential, MDA delivers a broad spectrum of earth and space based information solutions, ranging from complex operational systems, to tailored information services, to electronic information products.
MDA employs more than 3,000 people in locations across the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. The Company's common shares trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol TSX:MDA.
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