At the ICAR Forum held on 15 October, 2012, EUROPA Re's Head of Business Development, Riccardo CICCOZZI, announced that by the end of 2013, Europa Reinsurance Facility Ltd., a Swiss based catastrophe and weather risk insurance services provider and reinsurance company in the process of formation, intends to offer a state of the art Web-Based Production Platform (with its synchronized supporting applications) to direct insurers in Romania. This innovative package of insurance market services aims to provide advanced risk management and technology driven solutions to Romanian insurance companies writing catastrophe and weather risk insurance products.

Aside from enabling insurance companies to reduce their policy processing costs, EUROPA Re's Web-Based Production Platform will stabilize catastrophe insurance pricing in the market and standardize catastrophe insurance products sold by direct insurers. It will as well set minimum quality standards for claims paying capacity - thereby raising consumers' confidence in local insurance companies' business practices. Moreover, the aforementioned value added services will assist insurance companies in building efficient risk portfolios of facultative policies through varied risk-pricing and event limits. In this regard, Europa Re's improved risk data, sound technical product pricing and minimum standards for claims paying capacity will also simplify the access to reinsurance coverage.

EUROPA Re's main objective is to provide direct local insurers with access to automated insurance production, claims settlement and catastrophe response technologies integrated through its Web-Based Production Platform to support sales of complex catastrophe and weather risk insurance products

Besides full automation of the production cycle, the services offered by EUROPA Re to participating insurers through its Web-Based Production Platform include risk model driven pricing, underwriting, sophisticated claims settlement, consumer web - based information portal, regulatory reporting and risk management. The company intends to offer to local insurers optional reinsurance coverage for all or part of the new business written through the platform. Direct insurers participating in EUROPA Re's reinsurance program will receive premium income and reinsurance commissions.

Risk-based solvency modeling is one of the core services offered by EUROPA Re to the regulatory bodies and insurance companies in the participating markets. The Risk Management Modules will be also integrated in EUROPA Re's Web-Based Production Platform allowing regulatory bodies and insurers to assess risk-based solvency capital requirements for catastrophe risks written by insurers and credit risk assumed through reinsurance. Direct insurers will be able to make accurate real time solvency capital and risk assessment calculations, determine reinsurance coverage needs and greatly reduce the costs of regulatory compliance - without jeopardizing the accuracy of modelled outputs. They will also receive custom-tailored expert technical support in overhauling their risk management operations and ensuring their compliance with the forthcoming risk-based supervision requirements for catastrophe risk exposure management.

In addition, EUROPA Re will offer access to innovative Remote Sensing Claims Management, a fully automated claims settlement service relying on state-of-the-art remote sensing technology and integrated into the platform (closely synchronized with the catastrophe risk models and the underwriting system). Based on high-resolution imagery captured through satellite, aerial and on-the-ground data sensors and platforms, before and after a catastrophe event, the Remote Sensing Claims Management is designed to provide easy workflow integration options (pre-event, event, post-event). Supplemented by visual on-the-ground reports from local experts, the system will also enable a quick and cost-effective approach to claims settlement.

"Europa Re's Web-Based Market Infrastructure Services will considerably reduce partner-insurers' production costs,  eliminate the technical complexity involved in issuing catastrophe and weather risk policies and significantly increase product sales - without having them assume additional catastrophe risks. Eventually, cost reduction is expected to result in lower insurance premium and better credit quality of catastrophe and weather risk insurance products for consumers - mainly households and SMEs."

According to Riccardo CICCOZZI, EUROPA Re's value added insurance market infrastructure is designed to address some of the persisting problems in the property catastrophe insurance market in Romania. He pointed out cut throat competition on price and inadequate reinsurance coverage, increasing risk exposures and declining premiums resulting in insufficient claims paying capacity relative to catastrophe risk retained in case of major event as some of the major issues in the Romanian catastrophe insurance market. Besides the lack of high resolution catastrophe risk models, insurance companies have difficulties in obtaining enough reinsurance coverage, lack sufficient catastrophe risk management practices, have undeveloped claims-settlement capabilities and suffer from a shortage of qualified staff. To address these inefficiencies, EUROPA Re plans to design customized catastrophe and weather risk insurance products supported by reliable technological solutions to quantify impacts of natural disasters on insurers' product portfolios by using country-specific high resolution catastrophe risk models.

EUROPA Re's Web-Based Production Platform will also enable direct insurers to build efficient catastrophe risk portfolios by suggesting optimal pricing terms for facultative policies sold and guaranteed compliance with local legislation.

Click here to download EUROPA Re's presentation at ICAR Forum 2012!