Deep geographic data, extended global coverage and high performance geocoding enable Aon Benfield to assess risk more accurately and estimate losses for insurers

Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, UK - 12 November 2013 – Pitney Bowes today announced that the leading reinsurance intermediary and capital advisor, Aon Benfield, has extended its contract for Pitney Bowes’ Spectrum data management solution. With the extension, Aon Benfield will continue to use Pitney Bowes’ Enterprise Geocoding module for geocoding and reverse geocoding for an additional three years to better meet their customer’s needs.

Aon Benfield has chosen to continue its successful engagement with Pitney Bowes based on the Spectrum solution’s best in class geographic coverage, top of the line performance and extensive integration capabilities. The Enterprise Geocoding module translates common reference points, such as customer addresses, into latitude and longitude points that can be visualised on a map to provide up-to-date, accurate and consistent geocoding across international geographies.

“The Spectrum data management solution has seamlessly integrated with our systems, providing global coverage and enabling much better decision making and catastrophe management assessments,” said Douglas Olson, Managing Director of Product Development & Applied Research at Aon Benfield. “Pitney Bowes’ solution has become a key piece of our continued business plans and will only become more integral as location intelligence is more widely needed in the insurance industry. Location intelligence is key for us to assess risks and provide accurate guidance to our insurance provider customers.”

“We’re using the Spectrum software within ELEMENTS to help clients geocode their exposure. Accurate geocoding helps improve the accuracy of our catastrophe models and enables clients to better understand their risks” added Chris Ewing, Catastrophe Model Developer in Impact Forecasting at Aon Benfield.

Aon Benfield will continue its use of Pitney Bowes Spectrum as the geocoding engine behind three of its innovative, one-of-a-kind tools:

ImpactOnDemand - a versatile map-based platform providing visual and quantitative geographic analytics that provide insight into client’s exposures to historical, current and forecasted natural or man-made catastrophes and potential associated loss estimates.

ELEMENTS - a loss calculation software developed by Impact Forecasting, Aon Benfield’s catastrophe model development centre of excellence, the tool provides risk assessment and analyses of the financial implications of catastrophes such as earthquakes, hurricanes, windstorms and floods.

Desktop Geocoder - in-house desktop software that performs bulk geocoding to turn addresses into coordinates to show on a map, or to import into a model.

“Data management solutions like those that Aon Benfield has implemented are making it possible to better understand the risk associated with natural catastrophes,” said Kieran Kilmartin, Vice President, International Marketing, Pitney Bowes Software. “Location intelligence is central to Aon Benfield successfully assessing risk based on that location’s historical information and we are thrilled they have chosen to extend their partnership with us for three more years.”

For more information on the full range of Pitney Bowes’ line of location intelligence and GIS software solutions, including the Spectrum Enterprise Geocoding Module and MapInfo Pro, visit http://pitneybowes.co.uk/software/location-intelligence/index.shtml.