Verisk Health and Windsor Strategy Partners Launch Actuarial Advisor

January 1, 2011 / 3 min read

Sophisticated tool helps clients understand healthcare costs and utilization,
and allows underwriters and actuaries to better predict costs and utilization rates

WALTHAM, Mass., December 15, 2009 – Verisk Health Inc., a global leader in healthcare data analytics and risk assessment, announced today the launch of Actuarial Advisor, a sophisticated underwriting and risk assessment solution that helps predict the cost and utilization of healthcare. Actuarial Advisor was developed in a strategic alliance with Windsor Strategy Partners, LLC, an actuarial consulting firm that helps the healthcare industry evaluate and quantify risk.

“Quality healthcare demands a rock-solid foundation of data and information,” said Chris Kryder, M.D., chief executive officer of Verisk Health. “We have made it our business to understand risks and costs from all perspectives, and the Actuarial Advisor tool puts that power of understanding in the hands of actuaries and underwriters.”

Actuarial Advisor allows users to perform a wide range of activities to better understand and manage medical and financial risk. Those activities include pricing first-dollar and excess-loss healthcare coverage, evaluating healthcare plan designs and proposed premium changes, developing new health insurance products, facilitating simulation studies for risk analysis, and calibrating rating systems to different provider networks. Developed specifically for healthcare actuaries and underwriters, Actuarial Advisor is ideally suited for insurers and reinsurers, state insurance departments, brokers and consultants, third-party administrators, and managing general underwriters.

Actuarial Advisor uses a specially selected database of more than three million commercially insured lives — one of the most comprehensive longitudinal databases in the industry — and is updated annually to capture the most current healthcare trends. The size and richness of the database allows for claims distributions that reflect more than two dozen medical service categories, six pharmaceutical categories and nearly 200 medical claims ranges.

“Together, Verisk Health and Windsor Strategy Partners have created a powerful tool that fills a functional gap for actuaries and underwriters,” said David Wilson, senior partner and founder of Windsor Strategy Partners. “Actuarial Advisor will help them to easily and efficiently analyze and address an assortment of underwriting business issues.”

The Actuarial Advisor tool is available in two versions — Standard (available as a spreadsheet or ASP-based model) and Power-user (available only as a spreadsheet model), which is geared toward pricing actuaries. Both versions allow users to calculate projected costs for first dollar and excess loss healthcare coverage.

For more information or to request a demonstration, call 866-292-6971 or email info@veriskhealth.com.

About Verisk Health
Verisk Health, a subsidiary of Verisk Analytics, leverages healthcare data to help businesses and governments understand their medical and financial risk for the purpose of managing costs and clinical outcomes more effectively. Through the combination of leading predictive science, the finest evidence-based clinical engine, and superior technology, we have created the most extensive independent risk-assessment and decision-analytics platform in the healthcare industry. Our primary focus is to identify actionable strategies for managing healthcare costs and quality at both the individual and population levels. We consistently research, evaluate, and invest in our business to ensure that we remain leaders in our industry and the most efficient and effective solution for our clients. For more information, please visit www.veriskhealth.com.

About Windsor Strategy Partners

Windsor Strategy Partners is a specialized strategy and actuarial firm helping clients develop and implement strategic growth initiatives. The firm serves a wide range of health care and insurance industry participants including underwriting organizations and consultants, insurers and reinsurers, brokers, disease management companies, care management organizations, predictive modeling companies, government agencies, healthcare providers, and investors in healthcare management and insurance. For more information, please visit www.wspactuaries.com.

Release: Immediate

Contact:
Trish Tarantino (Verisk Health)
ttarantino@veriskhealth.com
781-693-3784