Global insurance and reinsurance broker Willis Towers Watson (WTW) has announced the addition of a new COVID-19 feature within its Global Peril Diagnostic modelling tool, designed to track pandemic cases against P&C clients’ global assets.
The new, real-time, risk and analytics feature provides risk managers with up-to-date information on confirmed COVID-19 cases around the world, alongside clients’ property total insured values by location.
Integrated into the re/insurance broker’s Global Peril Diagnostic modelling tool, which evaluates clients’ property portfolios and assesses their exposure to catastrophic risk, the new COVID-19 feature enables the development of the pandemic to be easily tracked and set against global property assets.
WTW explains that the data used for the new feature cover China, the U.S., Canada, and Australia at province/state levels and the rest of the world at country level, represented by geographical central point or capital.
Ben Fidlow, Global Head of Core Analytics, Corporate Risk and Broking, WTW, commented: “The economic impact of COVID-19 will clearly be significant, and organisations are under pressure to quickly identify and better understand their business interruption and workers compensation exposures triggered by this pandemic.
“Our new data- and analytics-driven feature will help clients through these efforts and enable them to enhance the practice of their proactive resiliency risk and business continuity decision making.”
The information and data within the COVID-19 feature of the modelling tool has been developed and maintained by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. Data sources include the World Health Organisation, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, and DXY.
WTW notes that the China data are automatically updated at least once per hour, while data from other countries are updated manually.
Vice Mossfield, Liability Practice Head, Risk & Analytics Asia, WTW, said: “Asia is at a more advanced phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. After months of managing the outbreak and impact of the coronavirus here, there are encouraging indications that some countries in the region are controlling the spread of the virus, whilst others are showing signs that they are commencing the recovery process.
“This presents an opportunity for organisations to track the receding virus in these geographies and commence planning for the resumption of business operations as soon as it is practical. The new COVID-19 feature in the tool will be beneficial in assisting our clients and facilitate this process.”
