About us

eCityRisk is a trusted provider of Geospatial Data Services and Products to the insurance and financial services industries.

Providing the true picture - eCityRisk is a trusted global provider of geospatial data services to the insurance and financial services industries, specialising in rapid and reliable information to guide critical business decisions before, during and after disasters. The company draws on a decade of research and development by parent company ImageCat.

eCityRisk is a leading authority in visual business intelligence, defined as real-world building damage and exposure characteristics obtained using aerial photos, satellite imagery, data mining and advanced geospatial field survey techniques.

Our main business areas are:

• Disaster response and reconnaissance services
• Data and imagery library
• Exposure cleansing and enhancement
• Web-GIS and modeling

eCityRisk’s goal is to help our clients overcome the most pressing challenges in today’s competitive re/insurance market, through achieving best practice in disaster response and loss estimation, exposure management, and portfolio data quality control.

Examples of how our observational data has helped customers include:

Response data increases accuracy of initial loss estimates and helps avoid donwgrades: Following recent events, re/insurers have found that probabilistic loss estimates were extremely inaccurate, with upwards revisions needed of 20-120%. In some cases, the need to change up initial losses has lead to share price freefall and downgrading. Distributed through Guy Carpenter’s i-aXs Real Cat system, eCityRisk’s real-world damage observations are providing re/insurers with an independent check on model and claims-based estimates for US and European flood and surge.

Reconnaissance data gives competitive advantage to hedge funds: After Ike, a major US financial services company (not named due to confidentiality restrictions) assessed likely BI effects for petroleum process facilities using damage shown by eCityRisk observation oriented imagery captured within 24 hours of landfall. This time-critical intelligence was used by hedge fund managers to make investment decisions based on the impact of the hurricane.

Imagery library helps settle claims disputes: For recent hurricanes where damage was caused by a mix of perils, observational intelligence about the source and severity of damage is being used to challenge claims that damage was caused by wind rather than surge or flood. eCityRisk’s reconnaissance data accurately captures damage characteristics before tarping and clean-up begins, enabling the true insurance liability to be assessed.

Data library improves model performance: eCityRisk’s historic disaster datasets are being used by the cat modelling companies to ensure that their vulnerability functions and event sets are based on the most accurate data available. Our inventory data are currently being used to update Industry Exposure Databases.

Data quality control with advanced cleaning and enhancement: eCityRisk has been selected by Baseline to support its clients data cleansing and enhancement services during pre-launch industry tests of the BRP, and after this new online player in the cat model market goes live in summer 2009.

Web-GIS transforms exposure management: eCityRisk’s exposure management tools have been developed in consultation with underwriters, with their specific business requirements and easy-of-use by non-GIS experts in mind. We specialise in developing custom-fit web-based tools that integrate into existing analytical environments.

If you would like a copy of our company brochure, please visit the: eCityRisk brochure page.