German Insurance Association (GDV) awarded prize

11 August 2008, 1:52pm

ESRI awards prize to ZÜRS Geo (geozoning system for floods, backwater and torrential rain), the online platform for the assessment of natural haz-ards and georisks developed by con terra for the GDV.

Münster / San Diego, August 6, 2008. The German Insurance Association (GDV) has been presented with the Special Achievement in GIS Award 2008, International Insurance Category, by the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI). In so doing, the world market leader for GIS (geoinformation systems) has acknowledged the internationally unique concept of the GDV, represented by its ZÜRS Geo risk assessment plat-form.

The award was presented on August 6, 2008 during the ESRI International User Conference 2008 in San Diego by Jack Dangermond, president of ESRI Inc. to Thomas Vorholt, member of the board at VGH Insurance and president of the GDV property insurance committee.

"It is essential for the insurance industry to be able to conduct a detailed risk assessment relating to natural hazards and environmental damage. This requires the availability of high-quality, consistent geoinformation for all parts of a given area, together with the means of both displaying the data and subjecting it to special-purpose evaluations with the aid of GIS systems. The direct integration of geoanalyses in the existing business processes of the insurance companies is a fundamental factor of the sys-tem's success," says Bettina Falkenhagen, project manager of the GDV, asked to describe the motivation behind the development of the ZÜRS Geo project.

The ZÜRS Geo online platform has been in operation since the beginning of 2008, offering applications and services allowing the detailed assess-ment of all types of insurance risks, for use by the 170 members of the GDV who offer property and liability insurance. Moreover, ZÜRS Geo is employed intensively by the unterwriters in the companies, for conducting assessments of individual risks, performing cumulative analyses, and for calculating tariff ratings, as well as for damage management purposes.

ZÜRS Geo employs ArcGIS Server, thereby making consistent use of ESRI server technology for displaying, analysing and reporting activities relating to the various risks. The application's service-oriented conceptual design enables its direct integration in the insurance company's IT infra-structures.

Since 2001, ZÜRS Geo has gradually expanded into its present online platform thanks to the combined efforts of the ZÜRS Consortium, which comprises the companies ESRI Geoinformatik GmbH (head of the consortium), geomer GmbH (offline client) and con terra GmbH (online and server components), to instructions received from the GDV.

"Discussions are currently ongoing with the GDV regarding the implemen-tation of additional modules for ZÜRS Geo. Of particular interest are such aspects as climatological data, land use data, and other fields of data that permit better damage regulation," says Karl Wiesmann, project manager for ZÜRS Geo at con terra GmbH.

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