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Tag: CoreLogic

  • CoreLogic expands location-based intelligence with building footprints

    CoreLogic has expanded its location-based intelligence data with the addition of structure footprint information to its other parcel and property characteristics data offerings.

    CoreLogic is a global property information, analytics and data-enabled services provider. The company made the announcement at the 2016 Esri User Conference, being held in San Diego, California, June 27-July 1.

    CoreLogic Structure Footprint enables accurate roof-top geocoding and identifies the location and outline of relevant structures on a parcel, including all known sub-addresses, to provide a more granular and precise property description.

    Street, parcel and structure geocoding appear on a single map. (IMAGE: CoreLogic)
    Street, parcel and structure geocoding appear on a single map. (IMAGE: CoreLogic)

    CoreLogic residential and commercial structure footprint data covers more than 35 million rural and urban parcels throughout the U.S, including two-thirds of the largest 50 metro areas. When combined with other CoreLogic proprietary property data, including business financial health, natural hazard risks, occupancy information and building characteristics, the added structure footprint data provides a more complete picture of a property than was previously available.

    Accurate location data is a critically important factor for planning and operations in oil and gas, insurance, geo-commerce and other industries that need to understand what type of structures and building characteristics are associated with property addresses.

    The addition of structure footprint data complements the existing CoreLogic property characteristic data, which details attributes in 150 distinct categories that provide location intelligence on everything from zoning and land use to details about roof type and number of bedrooms.

    “The addition of this property data layer, which identifies individual structures within a single parcel, can improve efficiencies and risk segmentation for everything from geo-commerce to insurance,” said Steve Brewer, senior vice president of Insurance and Spatial Solutions at CoreLogic. “It’s exciting to see this level of granularity added to location intelligence that was previously not available — granularity that can be used in a variety of decision-making situations including natural hazard risk assessment, marketing, asset management and claims processing.

  • CoreLogic Expands Natural Catastrophe Risk Management Solution

    CoreLogic, a residential property information, analytics and data-enabled services provider, today released an expanded version of its natural catastrophe risk management solution, which features a new comprehensive probabilistic flood model that analyzes the potential damage and financial impact at the property-level from flood events in the continental United States.

    This probabilistic flood model is unique to the industry because its riverine and flash flood risk components provide better risk estimation for areas outside the 100-year flood zones–areas responsible for 20 percent of historic flood losses but which represent only 1 percent of the flood insurance policies in force.

    Measuring both severity and frequency of flood events, the probabilistic flood model loss calculations offer property, contents and business interruption analysis. The model also incorporates historical flood event footprints from the last 50 years and the accompanying property damage.

    Additionally, the model incorporates detailed user-provided building information to derive vulnerability assessments driven by both water depth and water velocity. These building characteristics include construction type, occupancy, floor elevation, basements and elevated building configurations. The new CoreLogic flood model provides insurers with an unprecedented tool to more accurately underwrite the risk associated with this complex peril, especially the proprietary flash flood component.

    With granular 10-meter elevation data, the catastrophe risk management solution incorporates the Digital Flood Insurance Rate Maps (DFIRMs) provided by the Federal Emergency Management Association (FEMA). It uses more than 80 different occupancy classes covering topography, land-use, stream coverage and inundation. In order to more accurately measure a property’s flood risk, more than 50 data layers ranging from elevation, hydrologic and catchment information are included, as well as data for over 6 million miles of streams and 20,000 stream flow gauges.

    “The release of the U.S. Inland Flood Model means insurers can now use this advanced probabilistic tool to help them determine a property’s potential for flood damage,” said Tom Larsen, CoreLogic product architect. “The model’s unique ability to provide granularity down to the property level will offer insurers a complete view of flood risk, including contents and business interruption, for all types of properties.”

    The catastrophe risk management solution contains parcel-level geocoding through PxPoint from CoreLogic, which can convert physical addresses or locations into precise geographic coordinates for over 142 million parcel boundaries. A new visualization feature identifies details in the data as well as exceptions via easy-to-use charts and graphics. Other new components include updates to three risk assessment models including Italy Earthquake, the North Atlantic Hurricane Risk and U.S. Offshore Energy.

    Highlights include:

    • The Italy Earthquake Model now incorporates an updated seismic source model based on the Seismic Hazard Harmonization in Europe (SHARE) to provide a current and more accurate view of seismic hazard in Italy. Increased maximum magnitudes, an updated magnitude-frequency distribution and a new ground motion model are part of the enhancements.
    • The North Atlantic Hurricane Risk Model update includes a high-resolution storm surge model and enhanced hazard risk assessment to more accurately capture the damage from storm surge as the surge attenuates inland (outside of the high velocity zones). It uses storm intensities from historical events based on the Atlantic hurricane reanalysis project by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Additionally, the North Atlantic Hurricane Risk Model includes a full set of default secondary structural modifiers by vintage and location for all hurricane states, which are based on the International Building Code as well as state-specific building codes to provide refined results. RQE 16 also includes a model version which was certified by the Florida Commission Hurricane for Loss Projection Methodology in June 2015.
    • The U.S. Offshore Energy Model features a distinctive wave model component and unique financial model which produces an improved estimate of potential damage to physical assets in U.S. territorial waters within the Gulf of Mexico. A network analysis is also built into the model to produce a better estimate of the lost production from oil wells.

    “All of these enhancements will help insurers understand hazard risk in a more granular and comprehensive way, and this precision in risk modeling will help the industry overall fine-tune its underwriting, claims and reinsurance efforts,” Larsen said.

  • Foreclosure Inventory Falls 29 Percent in June 2015

    Corelogic-doreclosures-Fig3

    CoreLogic reports that the national foreclosure inventory fell 28.9 percent year over year in June 2015 to approximately 472,000 homes, or 1.2 percent of all homes with a mortgage. This marks 44 consecutive months of year-over-year declines (see Figure 1).

    Also in June 2015, the 12-month sum of completed foreclosures decreased 17.9 percent, to 526,000, since June 2014. The seriously delinquent inventory fell to 1.3 million loans, a 23.3 percent year-over-year decline.

    There were 48 states that posted year-over-year declines in the foreclosure inventory, and 32 of those states had decreases of more than 20 percent. The five states with the largest year-over-year drop in the foreclosure inventory were Florida (-47.7 percent), Connecticut (-36.9 percent), Michigan (-36.5 percent), Idaho (-35.4 percent) and Maryland (-34.4 percent). Only the District of Columbia (+18.1 percent), Massachusetts (+17.8 percent) and Wyoming (+4.1 percent) experienced year-over-year increases in the foreclosure inventory.

    Figure 2 shows that judicial foreclosure states1 continued to have higher foreclosure rates in June 2015 than non-judicial states, averaging 2.1 percent and 0.6 percent, respectively. The foreclosure rate for judicial states peaked in February 2012 at 5.4 percent, while non-judicial states peaked at 2.5 percent in January 2011. As of June 2015, 42 percent of outstanding mortgages were in judicial states, but 71 percent of total loans in foreclosure were in those states.

    Corelogic-foreclosures-Fig2

  • CoreLogic Introduces Proprietary Wind Verification Technology

    CoreLogic has introduced wind verification technology that will improve the accuracy and timing of insurance claims related to severe wind damage. The new technology combines proprietary three-dimensional storm models, storm-tracking models and artificial intelligence models with radar data, on-the-ground observations and actual damage reports to analyze wind conditions.

    The scientific and observation-based Wind Speed Maps and Wind Verification Reports from CoreLogic provide updated wind activity analysis at the property level every hour, drawing from data going back as early as 2006. CoreLogic Wind Speed Maps and Wind Verification Reports provide granular wind speed magnitudes that allow insurance professionals to verify if and when severe winds were detected at or near a specific location in order to make more precise damage assessments and, in some cases, avoid an on-site inspection.

    Previously, insurers relied on airport-based and private weather observation station measurements, which can lead to significant ambiguity, as these observations represent a single stationary location and are not representative of activity at the property level. Instant report delivery, as well as custom workflow integration, enhances the ability of insurers to reduce time for claims decisions and processing, CoreLogic said.

    To help adjusters verify what the loss was during a particular policy period and corroborate policyholders’ claims, the Wind Verification Reports provide data on every severe windstorm event dating back to January 2006, including hurricanes, thunderstorms, straight-line winds, Chinooks, Santa Ana winds, coastal lows and “derechos,” which are widespread, long-lived straight-line wind storms. The reports include estimated maximum wind speed magnitudes within one, three and ten miles of a location enabling accurate assessment of when and where severe winds likely impacted properties.

    More timely and accurate wind data, together with the new technology, will help mitigate against fraudulent claims which have traditionally been prevalent with wind-related storms given the broad geographic assessments of wind activity that were previously relied upon.

    “Insurance carriers and adjusters are responsible for making difficult decisions, and it helps to have an objective source to guide the decision-making process, whether it’s for evaluating entire books of business or processing individual wind-related claims,” said Lindene Patton, global head of hazard product development for CoreLogic. “This unique technology provides an element of quality assurance that simply hasn’t been available to the industry before now. Wind verification through scientific observation is going to mean more efficient and effective claims, which will reduce time, mitigate fraud and improve bottom-line results for claims adjusters.”

    Wind and hail claims are one of the largest categories of property damage expenses each year. In fact, $30 out of every $100 collected for a homeowner’s insurance premium goes toward wind and hail claim payments, with the majority of claims involving roof damage. From 2007 to 2011, the average claim was $7,177, according to the Insurance Information Institute.

    “Wind is one of nature’s most difficult hazards to measure, and for the past century, the industry has depended on unreliable sources,” Patton said. “Wind speeds and direction reported from an airport weather vane can be 20-100 miles away from where a specific wind event occurred and do not represent actual conditions and storm impact at the property level. Wind speeds can vary dramatically over very short distances because of variance in topography and land use, so it’s important to evaluative activity at the granular level.”

  • CoreLogic Natural Hazard Risk Summary Covers 2014 Disasters

    CoreLogic, a global property information, analytics and data-enabled services provider, has released its annual Natural Hazard Risk Summary and Analysis detailing the most significant natural disasters of 2014 and providing projections for 2015. The report provides a look at the year’s hurricanes, floods, hailstorms, tornados, wildfires, sinkholes, earthquakes, tropical cyclones and typhoon events in the U.S. as well as an international snapshot of the hazard events that imposed significant damage across the globe.

    Among key findings in the U.S., the CoreLogic 2014 Natural Hazard Risk Summary and Analysis notes:

    • Just as 2013 experienced a decline in the damage caused by major hazards in the U.S. when compared with 2012, this year experienced a continuation of similarly low overall damage totals. Not since 2012 when Superstorm Sandy devastated parts of the northeast coast has the U.S. experienced a single natural hazard event that has totaled in the tens of billions of dollars in damage.
    • The 2014 hurricane season marked the second consecutive year of low tropical storm and hurricane activity in the Atlantic Ocean. With only eight named North Atlantic storms, six formed into hurricanes and just two of the six developed into a major hurricane (defined as developing into a Category 3 or larger).
    • Reasons for the below-normal hurricane impact in 2013 and 2014 can be attributed to the continuing high levels of wind shear in the Atlantic that impede the development of tropical cyclones, along with more stable atmospheric conditions in the Atlantic which subdue the formation of clouds and thunderstorms necessary for the development of tropical cyclones.
    • The amount of flood-related losses that occurred in the first half of the year was dominated by flash flood events that caused a disproportionally large share of property loss in the flood category. Flash flooding was not limited to one region of the U.S, and many happened in large metropolitan areas such as Detroit, Long Island, N.Y., and Phoenix.
    • The amount of damage attributed to flooding in 2014 is approximately $4.2 billion in losses for the year, which is below the long-term historical average of $5.3 billion annually.
    • It is possible that the U.S. may still have two to three years of near-average flood-related damage before the next catastrophic loss occurs, based on projections from historic data. Analysis indicates that 2015 flood losses could total between $5-6 billion, with flash flooding events continuing to account for a large percentage of overall annual damage.
    • This year is on track to have the fewest number of tornadoes recorded in the past decade with just 720 tornados verified through August and an additional 128 storm reports filed through November.
    • Overall hail fall across the U.S. this year covered the greatest geographical area of any year since at least 2006. According to CoreLogic hail verification technology, 934,948 square miles, or 18.6 percent of the continental United States, were impacted by hail of 0.75 inches or greater
    • Looking ahead to 2015, if the number or geographical extent of storms producing larger, damaging hail returns to near or above recent norms, we will likely see a more severe hail season in 2015 and possibly higher insurance claims volume in comparison to 2013 and 2014.
    • This year has had the lowest amount of acreage lost to wildfire in the past 10 years. The number of fires in 2014 is slightly above the 2013 year-to-date total, but the amount of acreage lost to wildfire this year is only 85 percent of last year’s total.
    • Early drought forecasts for 2015 indicate the likelihood of a continuation of drought conditions in the west. The accumulation of higher levels of dry fuel mean that the elevated risk for wildfires seen over the past few years will continue.
    • Across the globe, the year 2014 is trending towards becoming the warmest year on record, with temperatures through the first 10 months of 2014 recorded as the warmest yet.

    For a copy of the 2014 CoreLogic Natural Hazard Risk Summary and Analysis, which includes maps, charts and images, visit this link.

     

  • CoreLogic Identifies U.S. States at Risk of Property Loss from Natural Hazards

    Corelogic-hazard-9-9-2014

    CoreLogic, a global property information, analytics and data-enabled services provider, has released an analysis ranking Florida as the U.S. state with the highest level of comprehensive risk exposure to multiple natural hazards, with Michigan identified as the state with the lowest risk.

    The analysis was derived from the new CoreLogic Hazard Risk Score (HRS), an analytics tool launched today that gathers data on multiple natural hazard risks and combines them into a single easy-to-use score ranging from 0 to 100. The overall score indicates risk exposure at the individual property and location level.

    For every geocoded location across the U.S, the CoreLogic HRS is compiled using data representing nine natural hazards: flood, wildfire, tornado, storm surge, earthquake, straight-line wind, hurricane wind, hail and sinkhole. Locations with higher risk levels are exposed to multiple hazard risks and will, therefore, receive higher scores when the risk analysis is aggregated. Subsequently, locations with minimal risk levels have lower exposure and receive lower scores. Geocoded locations are generated at the property-address level using latitude and longitude coordinates and include both residential and commercial properties.

    “Florida’s high level of risk is driven by the potential for hurricane winds and storm surge damage along its extensive Atlantic and Gulf coastline, as well as the added potential for sinkholes, flooding and wildfires. Michigan alternatively ranks low for most natural hazard risks, other than flooding,” said Dr. Howard Botts, vice president and chief scientist for CoreLogic Spatial Solutions.

    The proprietary CoreLogic HRS is able to calculate risk based on a 10 x 10 meter grid, the lowest level of granularity available for the underlying hazard data. In calculating the overall score, both the probability of an event and the frequency of past events are significant contributing factors used to determine risk levels associated with individual hazards, as well as each distinct hazard’s risk contribution to total loss. The data is combined into an aggregated, consistent and normalized value that allows statistically valid combinations to be derived.

    “In the past, natural hazards have been difficult to compare and combine in a meaningful way,” said Dr. Botts. “Hazard Risk Score is a single solution that measures risk concentration consistently and pinpoints the riskiest places in the U.S. with timely and granular accuracy. This insight is critical in conducting comparative risk management nationwide and fully understanding exposure to potential natural hazard damage.”

    Insurers, risk managers and mortgage servicers can use CoreLogic Hazard Risk Score to improve decision-making and enhance a variety of business operations, including:

    • Business continuity and disaster recovery planning
    • Analyzing risk associated with a residential property or portfolios of properties
    • Measuring mitigation savings vs. total hazard potential damage
    • Evaluating and determining natural hazard risk levels of distribution and supplier networks
    • Recognizing which underinsured or uninsured properties may become at risk of default
    • Adverse selection avoidance and identification of “good risk” properties

    U.S. Natural Hazard Risk by State* (Ranked by CoreLogic Hazard Risk Score)

    Rank State HRS

    1FL94.51

    2RI79.67

    3LA79.23

    4CA75.56

    5MA72.12

    6KS69.51

    7CT69.04

    8OK66.82

    9SC66.38

    10DE65.38

    11OR64.89

    12NJ61.54

    13IA61.02

    14TX60.89

    15NC59.72

    16MO57.81

    17DC57.33

    18MS57.05

    19AR56.7

    20NH55.3

    21ID52.75

    22MD52.28

    23CO51.88

    24NE51.86

    25IL51.8

    26IN50.74

    27GA50.58

    28NV50.12

    29AL49.42

    30KY47.34

    31TN46.48

    32UT45.22

    33NM43.76

    34AZ42.81

    35VA42.35

    36WA42.3

    37WI38.52

    38SD38.24

    39MT37.91

    40MN36.42

    41OH34.61

    42ME31.64

    43WY30.24

    44PA28.79

    45VT28.31

    46ND27.5

    47NY24.97

    48WV20.67

    49MI20.22

    Source: CoreLogic 2014.

    * AK and HI were excluded in the ranking due to limited natural hazard risk data.

  • CoreLogic Releases Natural Catastrophe Platform and Risk Models

    corelogic-australia-earthquake
    Historical earthquakes across Australia.

    CoreLogic, a  global property information, analytics and data-enabled services provider, has released a new version of its EQECAT natural catastrophe modeling platform, which contains three new proprietary risk models that quantify and analyze the potential financial impact of catastrophic natural hazards in peak exposure regions across the globe. The expansion of natural catastrophe risk analysis includes modeling for earthquake and tsunami events in Japan and earthquake events in Singapore, as well as for European windstorms, including a North European offshore wind farm risk model.

    EQECAT, which was acquired by CoreLogic in December 2013, first introduced its natural catastrophe risk modeling platform RQE (Risk Quantification & Engineering) in January 2013 that includes more than 180 natural hazard models for 96 countries and territories spanning six continents. Loss calculations simulate 300,000 years of losses to provide comprehensive and highly credible estimates of risk exposure to earthquakes, tropical cyclones and windstorms, severe convective storms, brushfires, winter storms and flooding.

    “This release of the RQE v15.0 platform not only advances the innovative and industry-leading science that is the hallmark of EQECAT risk models, but also demonstrates the commitment CoreLogic has to delivering timely enhancements and new platform features to our clients,” said Paul Little, head of EQECAT.

    The additional catastrophe risk modeling delivered through the new RQE v15.0 platform includes:

    • The European Windstorm Model, which introduces the ability to analyze offshore wind farm turbines that are rapidly expanding in Europe as a result of major investments in alternative energy. The “Eurowind” model extends over the North Sea, Irish Sea, Baltic Sea and Atlantic Ocean, and gives insight into loss caused by wind storms. In addition, the windstorm model includes two views of frequencies — the empirical model based on the historical record from 1960 to present, and the analytic model with a continuous 1200-year simulation of an Earth System Model (ESM) driven by climatic background conditions to characterize the frequency and severity of European windstorms. The European Windstorm Model also now incorporates Spain and Portugal, extending the existing coverage to 24 countries and provides analysis of extratropical cyclone risk. Expanded capabilities also include access to Global Climate Model research used to help determine the frequency and scale of European windstorms.
    • The Japan Earthquake Model, which provides the most current view of earthquake risk across the country based on December 2013 research released by the Japanese government and national research organizations. This model accounts for previously un-modeled very large magnitude events with updated seismic source zones and increased maximum magnitudes. New damage and loss data from the 2011 Great East Japan (Tōhoku-oki) earthquake prompted a complete review and update to model vulnerability functions, including major changes to performance -based effects of deep building foundations and base isolation. For the first time, CoreLogic introduces tsunami as a sub-peril, offering both a fully probabilistic and a scenario-based tsunami risk model, using 30-meter digital elevation maps for more granular and precise risk evaluations for a complete view of earthquake and tsunami risk across Japan.
    • The Singapore Earthquake Model, which accounts for the increased probability of a near-term large-magnitude earthquake on the Sunda (Java) megathrust fault. This fault zone is one of the most active on Earth and largely influences earthquake risk in Singapore. This new model accounts for seismic risk factors specific to Singapore, such as soft soils that amplify intermediate-period ground motions from distant large earthquakes and the existence of reinforced concrete high-rise buildings.

    “Combining more than 30 years of collected data from CoreLogic with EQECAT natural catastrophe models allows us to deliver a more comprehensive, highly credible analysis of key drivers of hazard risk at various levels of exposure around the globe, from across regional borders to individual site levels,” said Mahmoud Khater, chief science officer for catastrophe modeling.

    The updated EQECAT RQE v15.0 platform also offers significant enhancements to user interface, reporting options and workflow management tools. Enhancements include a more comprehensive view of exposure data with expanded filter options, event-specific hazard intensity reports for individual locations, and analysis of annual exceedance probability refined by region and sub-peril to show drivers of portfolio losses, among other capabilities.

  • CoreLogic Expands Insurance Offerings with Hail, Wind and Lightning Weather Forensics

    CoreLogic, a global property information, analytics and data-enabled services provider, has expanded its natural-hazard risk-management capabilities through the addition of Weather Fusion hail, wind and lightning weather forensics to provide near real-time property-specific weather event verification.

    The combination of proprietary CoreLogic data and analytics with Weather Fusion weather peril verification will enable the insurance and other industries to more reliably identify loss shortly after a weather event occurs through single-source access to multiple weather data sets and solutions.

    CoreLogic offers more than 30 weather peril verification and natural hazard risk reports nationwide, helping risk managers across all industries proactively manage risk and loss associated with extreme weather, natural hazard and catastrophe events. According to the Insurance Information Institute, insured losses due to hail and thunderstorms alone totaled $25 billion in 2011 and $14 billion in 2012. The new CoreLogic hail, wind and lightning reports will enable insurers, underwriters, property managers and owners to confidently verify the cause and date of damage and losses near real time, saving critical time and money. A product performance assessment completed by the top five Insurance Carrier’s Claims Department concluded that the Weather Fusion hail algorithm is four times more effective at identifying address-level hail fall than current hail detection algorithm-based hail data.

    CoreLogic analysis indicates that hail and wind claims are among the most significant categories of property damage expense. Insurance Information Institute data shows from 2007 to 2011, the average claim totaled $7,177, with $30 out of every $100 collected in a homeowner’s insurance premium typically going toward wind and hail claim payments. Credibly verifying damages caused by wind, hail and lightning at the property level has traditionally been a challenge for insurers. The addition of Weather Fusion science and weather forensic reports helps CoreLogic solve this challenge by delivering:

    • Historical address-level weather event insight for underwriter examination that ultimately results in smarter, more informed policy decisions.
    • The ability to accurately distinguish what areas were actually impacted and what size hail fell during a weather event.
    • Hail reports shortly after a severe weather event occurs, with maps updated as frequently as every hour.
    • Timely notifications of hail activity for custom addresses, as well as the previous day’s hail activity.
    • The ability to reduce fraudulent claims attributed to severe weather and accelerate the claims verification process by provisioning information directly after a weather event.
    • A Hail Risk Score, which compares address-specific historical hail events against historical claim experience for all relevant hail locations in the U.S., refreshed daily.
    • Digital plots of hail paths for impacted geographic areas and color-coded by quarter-inch increments illustrating hail from three-quarters of an inch to four inches in diameter.
    • Historical hailstorm data at a custom address-specific location, including hail claim verification with the dates and sizes of hail for each hailstorm, within one, three and ten miles of the address.
    • Address-specific lightning strike analysis, along with date and time (to the nearest millisecond), including count of individual lightning strokes, custom maps, latitude/longitude, polarity (negative or positive) and amplitude of a stroke.
    • Wind Risk Scores, designed to verify maximum wind gust and direction at an individual address level.

    “Traditionally, wind event verification has been considered an unsolvable problem and was based on public safety algorithms or relied on hand-drawn maps and single-point data observations collected from the nearest airport locations,” said Jay Kingsley, senior vice president for CoreLogic Insurance and Spatial Solutions. “Now, the unique weather science and data techniques behind our wind, hail and lightning solutions will provide insurance carriers with a more scientific approach to understanding individual property damage from storms,” continued Kingsley.  “Though billions of dollars are paid out every year for exterior damage to homes, up until now there has been no real way to credibly verify these losses. CoreLogic now provides a more powerful, data-driven approach to this problem through weather peril verification reports.”

  • CoreLogic Expands Insurance Offerings with Hail, Wind and Lightning Weather Forensics

    CoreLogic, a global property information, analytics and data-enabled services provider, has expanded its natural-hazard risk-management capabilities through the addition of Weather Fusion hail, wind and lightning weather forensics to provide near real-time property-specific weather event verification.

    The combination of proprietary CoreLogic data and analytics with Weather Fusion weather peril verification will enable the insurance and other industries to more reliably identify loss shortly after a weather event occurs through single-source access to multiple weather data sets and solutions.

    CoreLogic offers more than 30 weather peril verification and natural hazard risk reports nationwide, helping risk managers across all industries proactively manage risk and loss associated with extreme weather, natural hazard and catastrophe events. According to the Insurance Information Institute, insured losses due to hail and thunderstorms alone totaled $25 billion in 2011 and $14 billion in 2012. The new CoreLogic hail, wind and lightning reports will enable insurers, underwriters, property managers and owners to confidently verify the cause and date of damage and losses near real time, saving critical time and money. A product performance assessment completed by the top five Insurance Carrier’s Claims Department concluded that the Weather Fusion hail algorithm is four times more effective at identifying address-level hail fall than current hail detection algorithm-based hail data.

    CoreLogic analysis indicates that hail and wind claims are among the most significant categories of property damage expense. Insurance Information Institute data shows from 2007 to 2011, the average claim totaled $7,177, with $30 out of every $100 collected in a homeowner’s insurance premium typically going toward wind and hail claim payments. Credibly verifying damages caused by wind, hail and lightning at the property level has traditionally been a challenge for insurers. The addition of Weather Fusion science and weather forensic reports helps CoreLogic solve this challenge by delivering:

    • Historical address-level weather event insight for underwriter examination that ultimately results in smarter, more informed policy decisions.
    • The ability to accurately distinguish what areas were actually impacted and what size hail fell during a weather event.
    • Hail reports shortly after a severe weather event occurs, with maps updated as frequently as every hour.
    • Timely notifications of hail activity for custom addresses, as well as the previous day’s hail activity.
    • The ability to reduce fraudulent claims attributed to severe weather and accelerate the claims verification process by provisioning information directly after a weather event.
    • A Hail Risk Score, which compares address-specific historical hail events against historical claim experience for all relevant hail locations in the U.S., refreshed daily.
    • Digital plots of hail paths for impacted geographic areas and color-coded by quarter-inch increments illustrating hail from three-quarters of an inch to four inches in diameter.
    • Historical hailstorm data at a custom address-specific location, including hail claim verification with the dates and sizes of hail for each hailstorm, within one, three and ten miles of the address.
    • Address-specific lightning strike analysis, along with date and time (to the nearest millisecond), including count of individual lightning strokes, custom maps, latitude/longitude, polarity (negative or positive) and amplitude of a stroke.
    • Wind Risk Scores, designed to verify maximum wind gust and direction at an individual address level.

    “Traditionally, wind event verification has been considered an unsolvable problem and was based on public safety algorithms or relied on hand-drawn maps and single-point data observations collected from the nearest airport locations,” said Jay Kingsley, senior vice president for CoreLogic Insurance and Spatial Solutions. “Now, the unique weather science and data techniques behind our wind, hail and lightning solutions will provide insurance carriers with a more scientific approach to understanding individual property damage from storms,” continued Kingsley.  “Though billions of dollars are paid out every year for exterior damage to homes, up until now there has been no real way to credibly verify these losses. CoreLogic now provides a more powerful, data-driven approach to this problem through weather peril verification reports.”

  • CoreLogic Expands Insurance Offerings with Hail, Wind and Lightning Weather Forensics

    CoreLogic, a global property information, analytics and data-enabled services provider, has expanded its natural-hazard risk-management capabilities through the addition of Weather Fusion hail, wind and lightning weather forensics to provide near real-time property-specific weather event verification.

    The combination of proprietary CoreLogic data and analytics with Weather Fusion weather peril verification will enable the insurance and other industries to more reliably identify loss shortly after a weather event occurs through single-source access to multiple weather data sets and solutions.

    CoreLogic offers more than 30 weather peril verification and natural hazard risk reports nationwide, helping risk managers across all industries proactively manage risk and loss associated with extreme weather, natural hazard and catastrophe events. According to the Insurance Information Institute, insured losses due to hail and thunderstorms alone totaled $25 billion in 2011 and $14 billion in 2012. The new CoreLogic hail, wind and lightning reports will enable insurers, underwriters, property managers and owners to confidently verify the cause and date of damage and losses near real time, saving critical time and money. A product performance assessment completed by the top five Insurance Carrier’s Claims Department concluded that the Weather Fusion hail algorithm is four times more effective at identifying address-level hail fall than current hail detection algorithm-based hail data.

    CoreLogic analysis indicates that hail and wind claims are among the most significant categories of property damage expense. Insurance Information Institute data shows from 2007 to 2011, the average claim totaled $7,177, with $30 out of every $100 collected in a homeowner’s insurance premium typically going toward wind and hail claim payments. Credibly verifying damages caused by wind, hail and lightning at the property level has traditionally been a challenge for insurers. The addition of Weather Fusion science and weather forensic reports helps CoreLogic solve this challenge by delivering:

    • Historical address-level weather event insight for underwriter examination that ultimately results in smarter, more informed policy decisions.
    • The ability to accurately distinguish what areas were actually impacted and what size hail fell during a weather event.
    • Hail reports shortly after a severe weather event occurs, with maps updated as frequently as every hour.
    • Timely notifications of hail activity for custom addresses, as well as the previous day’s hail activity.
    • The ability to reduce fraudulent claims attributed to severe weather and accelerate the claims verification process by provisioning information directly after a weather event.
    • A Hail Risk Score, which compares address-specific historical hail events against historical claim experience for all relevant hail locations in the U.S., refreshed daily.
    • Digital plots of hail paths for impacted geographic areas and color-coded by quarter-inch increments illustrating hail from three-quarters of an inch to four inches in diameter.
    • Historical hailstorm data at a custom address-specific location, including hail claim verification with the dates and sizes of hail for each hailstorm, within one, three and ten miles of the address.
    • Address-specific lightning strike analysis, along with date and time (to the nearest millisecond), including count of individual lightning strokes, custom maps, latitude/longitude, polarity (negative or positive) and amplitude of a stroke.
    • Wind Risk Scores, designed to verify maximum wind gust and direction at an individual address level.

    “Traditionally, wind event verification has been considered an unsolvable problem and was based on public safety algorithms or relied on hand-drawn maps and single-point data observations collected from the nearest airport locations,” said Jay Kingsley, senior vice president for CoreLogic Insurance and Spatial Solutions. “Now, the unique weather science and data techniques behind our wind, hail and lightning solutions will provide insurance carriers with a more scientific approach to understanding individual property damage from storms,” continued Kingsley.  “Though billions of dollars are paid out every year for exterior damage to homes, up until now there has been no real way to credibly verify these losses. CoreLogic now provides a more powerful, data-driven approach to this problem through weather peril verification reports.”

  • CoreLogic Maps 63,000 Completed Foreclosures in May

    CoreLogic released its National Foreclosure Report for May, which provides monthly data on completed foreclosures and the overall foreclosure inventory. According to the report, there were 63,000 completed foreclosures in the U.S. in May 2012 compared to 77,000 in May 2011 and 62,000* in April 2012.

    According to the announcement, since the financial crisis began in September 2008, there have been approximately 3.6 million completed foreclosures across the country. Completed foreclosures are an indication of the total number of homes actually lost to foreclosure.

    Approximately 1.4 million homes, or 3.4 percent of all homes with a mortgage, were in the national foreclosure inventory as of May 2012 compared to 1.5 million, or 3.5 percent, in May 2011 and 1.4 million, or 3.4 percent, in April 2012. The foreclosure inventory is the share of all mortgaged homes in some stage of the foreclosure process.

    “There were more than 819,000 completed foreclosures over the past year, or an average of 2,440 completed foreclosures every day over the last 12 months,” said Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic. “Although the level of completed foreclosures remains high, it is down 27 percent from a peak of 1.1 million in all of 2010.”

    “Though the national foreclosure inventory levels remain steady, around 1.4 million homes, there have been dramatic shifts at the state level,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “Nevada, Arizona and Michigan, for example, each experienced at least a 20-percent decline in the foreclosure inventory from a year ago. While foreclosure inventories in most states are declining, the foreclosure inventory is still rising in many judicial states, such as Hawaii, New York and Connecticut.”

    Highlights as of May 2012

    The five states with the highest number of completed foreclosures for the 12 months ending in May 2012 were: California (133,000), Florida (92,000), Michigan (60,000), Texas (58,000) and Georgia (57,000). These five states account for 48.8 percent of all completed foreclosures nationally.

    The five states with the lowest number of completed foreclosures for the 12 months ending in May 2012 were: South Dakota (48), District of Columbia (74), North Dakota (547), West Virginia (620) and Hawaii (623).

    The five states with the highest foreclosure inventory as a percentage of all mortgaged homes were: Florida (11.9 percent), New Jersey (6.6 percent), Illinois (5.3 percent), New York (5.0 percent) and Nevada (4.9 percent).

    The five states with the lowest foreclosure inventory were: Wyoming (0.7 percent), Alaska (0.8 percent), North Dakota (0.8 percent), Nebraska (1.0 percent) and South Dakota (1.3 percent).

    *April data was revised. Revisions are standard, and to ensure accuracy CoreLogic incorporates newly released data to provide updated results.

    To download a copy of the National Foreclosure Report, please visit www.corelogic.com/ForeclosureReport-May2012.

    Methodology

    The data in this report represents foreclosure activity reported through May 2012.

    This report separates state data into judicial vs. non-judicial foreclosure state categories. In judicial foreclosure states, lenders must provide evidence to the courts of delinquency in order to move a borrower into foreclosure, while in non-judicial foreclosure states lenders can issue notices of default directly to the borrower without court intervention. This is an important distinction since judicial states as a rule have longer foreclosure timelines thus affecting foreclosure statistics.

    A completed foreclosure occurs when a property is auctioned and results in the purchase of the home at auction by either a third party, such as an investor, or by the lender.  If the home is purchased by the lender, it is moved into the lender’s Real Estate Owned (REO) inventory.  In “foreclosure by advertisement” states, a redemption period begins after the auction and runs for a statutory period, e.g., six months.  During that period the borrower may regain the foreclosed home by paying all amounts due as calculated under the statute.  For purposes of this Foreclosure Report, because so few homes are actually redeemed following an auction, it is assumed that the foreclosure process ends in “foreclosure by advertisement” states at the completion of the auction. 

    The foreclosure inventory represents the number and share of mortgaged homes that have been placed into the process of foreclosure by the mortgage servicer.  Mortgage servicers start the foreclosure process when the mortgage reaches a specific level of serious delinquency as dictated by the investor for the mortgage loan.  Serious delinquency is typically defined as 90, 120, or 150 days delinquent (sometimes more), in foreclosure or in REO. Once a foreclosure is “started,” and absent the borrower paying all amounts necessary to halt the foreclosure, the home remains in foreclosure until the completed foreclosure results in the sale to a third party at auction or the home enters the lender’s REO inventory. The data in this report accounts for only first liens against a property and does not include secondary liens. The foreclosure inventory is measured only against homes that have an outstanding mortgage. Homes with no mortgage liens can never be in foreclosure and are therefore excluded from the analysis. Approximately one-third of homes nationally are owned outright and do not have a mortgage. CoreLogic has approximately 85 percent coverage of U.S. foreclosure data.

    1The number of mortgages per completed foreclosure nationally is calculated by dividing the number of homes with a mortgage by the number of completed foreclosures in the month. By State and CBSA, it’s calculated by dividing the number of homes with a mortgage in each area by the sum of completed foreclosures for the prior 12 months. The slight difference in the calculation between national and state and CBSA helps to account for data volatility.

  • 2012 CoreLogic Storm Surge Report Reveals more than 4 Million U.S. Homes at Risk

    CoreLogic released its annual Storm Surge Report detailing exposure of single-family homes to storm-surge damage within several predefined geographic areas in the United States. The 2012 CoreLogic Storm Surge Report provides the first-ever property-level analysis of residential property risk along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts broken down by region and by individual state, in addition to a snapshot of risk within previously reported major metro areas.

    According to the announcement, this year’s report indicates that just over four million homes in the U.S. along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts are at risk of hurricane-driven storm-surge damage, with more than $700 billion in total property exposure. In the Atlantic Coast region alone, there are approximately 2.2 million homes at risk, valued at more than $500 billion. Total exposure along the Gulf Coast is nearly $200 billion, with just under 1.8 million homes at risk for potential storm-surge damage.

    “Though more frequently impacted states like Florida, Texas and Louisiana get the most attention when it comes to hurricane vulnerability and destruction, Hurricane Irene made it very clear last summer that hurricane risk is not confined to the southern parts of the country,” said Dr. Howard Botts, vice president and director of database development for CoreLogic Spatial Solutions. “That’s why we felt it was important this year to highlight storm-surge risk in a brand new way to establish a better understanding of exposure throughout the states that are most at risk of a direct hurricane hit. As we got a glimpse of during Irene, our 2012 report shows even a Category 1 storm could cause property damage in the billions along the northeastern Atlantic Coast and force major metropolitan areas to shut down or evacuate.”

    CoreLogic reported they generated the Storm Surge Report using the company’s extensive database of parcels to identify the properties that fall within the perimeter of each category of the storm-surge inundation polygon. A parcel is the individual property associated with an address, and is the most granular way to analyze properties exposed to natural hazards. To determine residential exposure value, the proprietary CoreLogic storm-surge model was paired with the company’s industry-leading database of residential valuations for structures at the parcel level. CoreLogic identified every property contained within each category of the storm surge polygon and matched the structure valuation for each residence. Valuations for individual geographic areas were then totaled by hurricane category. The final results depict the value of the total residential properties as of April 2012 exposed to each potential storm surge event.

    A full list of all Core Based Statistical Areas (CBSAs) at risk for storm-surge damage, as well as the top ten zip code areas at risk associated with each CBSA, is available at http://www.corelogic.com/about-us/researchtrends/2012-storm-surge-cbsa-fact-tables.aspx. Maps detailing storm surge risk are also available for all CBSAs upon request.

    According to the announcement, CoreLogic developed the Storm Surge Report to enhance understanding of the additional risk that storm surge poses to homes located in areas prone to tropical storms.  Storm surge is triggered primarily by the high winds and low pressure associated with hurricanes, which cause water to amass inside a storm as it moves across the ocean before releasing as a powerful rush overland when the hurricane moves onshore.  In addition to the property damage and potential lives lost to flooding, the speed and force associated with storm-surge waves can significantly increase geographic and economic impact in hurricane disaster areas.

    “The data we compile is useful for insurance providers and financial services companies, to help them better understand potential exposure to damage for homes—particularly those that do not fall into designated FEMA Special Flood Hazard Areas,” said Botts.  “Homeowners who live outside of high risk flood zones are not required to carry flood insurance under the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), and may not be fully aware of the risk storm surge poses to their home or property.  When a storm strikes the coast, storm-surge flooding can inundate homes far inland and cause significant losses from powerful surge waters, damaging debris and standing water left behind.”

    According to the 2012 report, Florida tops the list of states with the highest total number of properties at risk of being impacted by the effects of storm-surge risk at approximately 1.4 million homes and with the highest total potential exposure to damage at more than $188 billion. Louisiana ranks second in total properties at risk with nearly 500,000, while New York is second in total value of coastal properties possibly exposed at $111 billion.  Differences in the rankings between the total number of properties and total property value at risk are due to varying levels of home values, trends in primary residence versus, vacation homes, and population density between the states throughout the Atlantic and Gulf regions.

    At the metro-level, cities examined in the analysis include New York, N.Y.; Virginia Beach, Va.; Miami, Fla.; New Orleans, La.; Tampa, Fla.; Boston, Mass.; Houston, Texas; Cape Coral, Fla.; Jacksonville, Fla.; Charleston, N.C.; Bradenton, Fla.; Philadelphia, Pa.; Mobile, Ala. and Corpus Christi, Texas. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, two of the top five and five of the top 20 most densely populated cities in the U.S. are located along either the Gulf or Atlantic Coast.  The report reveals that the 10 cities with the highest total potential exposure to storm-surge damage represent more than two million properties, with total property value at risk exceeding $420 billion.  The New York City metropolitan area, which encompasses northern New Jersey and Long Island as well, contains both the highest total number of properties as well as the highest financial exposure of properties at risk, with estimated values at more than $168 billion.

    “The summer of 2011 gave us some startling insight into the damage that even a weak storm can cause in the New York City metro area,” said Botts. “Hurricane Irene was downgraded to a tropical storm as it passed through New Jersey and New York City, but the impact of the storm was still estimated at as much as $6 billion.  Economic losses mounted swiftly as businesses shuttered, the New York City mass transit system came to a sudden halt and emergency response teams were called into action to prepare for the worst.”

    CoreLogic said it’s important to note is that the total properties and structural values included in the CoreLogic analysis are based on all homes that could potentially be damaged from hurricane-driven storm surge, and are not meant to infer that a single storm or storms in a specific hurricane season will result in these damage totals.

    This is the third annual CoreLogic Storm Surge Report. The report complements the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) flood zone information to provide a comprehensive picture of potential damage exposure at the property level, as many properties located outside designated flood zones are still at risk for storm-surge damage.

    To request storm surge data for a particular zip code, CBSA or county not detailed in the report, or for a complete copy of the 2012 CoreLogic Storm Surge Report, visit http://www.corelogic.com/about-us/researchtrends/2012-storm-surge-report.aspx.