Verisk Attains National Milestone: Records 7.5 Million Fire Hydrants

January 13, 2015 / 3 min read

JERSEY CITY, N.J., January 14, 2015 — Verisk Insurance Solutions – Commercial Property announced today that its fire hydrant database has reached a milestone of 7.5 million hydrants. The database identifies precise locations of every fire hydrant and other static water supply source in thousands of communities around the nation. Verisk Insurance Solutions – Commercial Property is a Verisk Analytics (Nasdaq:VRSK) business.

Annual insured property losses due to fire exceed $23 billion* in the United States, and the availability of an operational fire hydrant is essential to reducing loss severity. Verisk maintains the only database of fire hydrants in the country, with precise geo-location and operational information.

The hydrant data is integral to Verisk’s industry-standard Public Protection Classification (PPCTM) program and its LOCATION® PPC GIS-based offering that combines Verisk’s classifications, hydrants, and other static sources of water; the geographic boundary lines for local fire districts; and related fire suppression information. Verisk licenses its PPC information to insurers that, combined, write more than 90 percent of the property insurance in the United States.

“We’re proud of our accomplishments in developing highly predictive data and analytics for property insurers,” stated Robert Andrews, vice president of Community Hazard Mitigation and Field Operations. “Insurers know lesser efforts simply are not good enough to meet their needs.”

Verisk’s staff of more than 150 community field engineers maintains information about public fire protection and builds digital maps of the exact positions of fire stations, sources of water, and fire protection area boundaries.

PPC classifies every community by assigning a grading from 1 through 10, with 1 being the best. Regarding hydrants, the grading takes into account water pressure, consistency of water flow, and impact on the hydrant during times of high water demand in other parts of the system, such as a system’s ability to handle two fires simultaneously.

The number of hydrants reflects both new installations and those previously unreported or recently evaluated by field inspection as of January 1. Verisk does not model the probable locations of hydrants; it collects the actual data from local sources and performs site evaluations.

Verisk also maintains detailed information on more than 52,000 fire stations, each of which Verisk has field-inspected and evaluated for its ability to mitigate structure fires in its respective community. Verisk identifies which fire stations serve every residential and commercial address in the nation.

“Verisk performs PPC evaluations for the property insurance industry, and we consider the process and outcome of the PPC evaluation as a proprietary work product,” Andrews explained. “Communities entrust sensitive information concerning their fire suppression capabilities to Verisk, and we take our responsibility seriously. As a result, Verisk does not provide community-specific data in a public forum.”

Additional information about Verisk Community Hazard Mitigation can be found at www.isomitigation.com.

*10-year average adjusted for inflation

About Verisk Insurance Solutions – Commercial Property
A Verisk Analytics (Nasdaq:VRSK) business, Verisk Insurance Solutions – Commercial Property is a leading provider of risk assessment services, comprehensive data, and decision analytics that help leaders in property/casualty insurance, commercial real estate, and community hazard mitigation define, measure, and manage risk and maximize competitive advantage. Drawing upon vast experience in data management, predictive modeling, and risk assessment solutions, Verisk Insurance Solutions includes the industry-leading brands of ISO, AIR Worldwide, and Xactware. In the United States and around the world, Verisk Analytics helps customers protect people, property, and financial assets. For more information, visit www.verisk.com/cp.

Contact:

Giuseppe Barone/Colleen Finley
MWW Group (for Verisk Commercial Property)
201-507-9500
gbarone@mww.com
cfinley@mww.com