Newsletter, April 2012

November 2012

MAPFRE LICENSES RISK EXPLORER™ AND OTHER URS PRODUCTS

MAPFRE S.A., Spain’s largest insurer, has licensed Risk Explorer™, and a suite of other products from Ultimate Risk Solutions, David O’Gorman, URS Managing Director-Spain/Portugal/Latin America, announced.

“We’re pleased that after a rigorous testing and evaluation process, MAPFRE selected Risk Explorer™ and other URS products,” said Alex Bushel, CEO of URS. The MAPFRE license is multi-year and includes UltiFit™, statistical distribution and curve-fitting software, and Predictable Dynamics, generator of global macroeconomic scenarios, among others.

Luigi Lubelli, Deputy General Manager-Finance, MAPFRE S.A., said, ”What impressed us the most about Risk Explorer™ was its ease of use, which allows average users to become productive in a relatively short time span.”

In addition to the Spanish market, MAPFRE is the leader in the Latin American Non-Life insurance sector as well as the second largest global company of the region. MAPFRE is also active in the United States and Turkey, among the 46 countries where the Group provides insurance, reinsurance and other services.

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TAIPING RE SELECTS URS SOFTWARE

Taiping Reinsurance Company, Ltd. (Taiping Re), a leading reinsurer in Asia, has licensed a package of financial risk software products from Ultimate Risk Solutions, David Piesse, URS Managing Director-Asia, announced.

The package includes Risk Explorer™, the dynamic financial analysis software used by many of the prominent insurers, reinsurers, brokers and insurance regulators in different parts of the world as a risk modeling and strategic decision making tool; Res-Solver™, stochastic loss reserving software; and Predictable Dynamics, a global economic scenario generator that simulates the behavior of macro economic indicators in various economies.

“We’re especially pleased that after careful study and comparative analysis,Taiping Re determined that URS products best meet their modeling needs,” said Alex Bushel, CEO of URS. “We are strongly committed to the Asian region and will provide continuing active support together with our business partner, Talent & Pro, Ltd. to Taiping Re from our respective Hong Kong offices,” Piesse stated. Patrick Ho, Managing Director of Talent & Pro, said, “We are delighted to be the project manager, as well as fulfilling an analytical support role for Taiping Re over the coming three years.”

Taiping Re is a subsidiary of China Taiping Group and is the largest professional reinsurance company incorporated in Hong Kong where it has operated for 31 years. It is also a major provider of reinsurance in China from its office in Beijing, and throughout Southeast Asia from its office in Labuan, Malaysia. Taiping Re is rated A Excellent by A.M. Best; A Strong by Standard & Poor’s; and A Strong by Fitch.

Talent & Pro Hong Kong, Ltd. Is an insurance consultancy and insourcing company with roots in the Netherlands and offices in the UK, Shanghai and Hong Kong.

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ULTIMATE RISK SOLUTIONS EXTENDS GLOBAL REACH

By Alex Bushel Founder & CEO Ultimate Risk Solutions, LLC

In the last couple of years, insurers and reinsurers worldwide have recognized their need for more sophisticated analytical tools to help make decisions with full knowledge of all the risks they face. To meet this need at Ultimate Risk Solutions, we are building a global network to serve clients.

The URS team is readily available. All you have to do is visit asp.ultirisk.com, then click on World Wide Locations and you’ll be directed to the office that serves your area. Our business development directors are working with companies throughout their regions and actively participating in conferences to explain URS products and services.

They are backed up by technical directors who consult with clients and prospects to design the specific combination of analytical tools best suited to each company’s book of business. We recently expanded the URS network to the Asian markets where the demand for Dynamic Financial Analysis and related analytical tools is growing at a rapid pace.

As we extend our reach, URS is gaining market share. Major companies in Europe, Latin America, Asia and the United States have licensed Risk Explorer™ in the last two years. We were especially pleased to welcome two great companies – MAPFRE and TaiPing Re – recently to our distinguished client list.

Our global economic model, Predictable Dynamics, is drawing interest from multi-national companies subject to economic variables in the various regions where they do business. The model helps planners prepare for the future by allowing them to test strategic alternatives under many possible future economic scenarios.

Clients prefer Risk Explorer™, our widely used Dynamic Financial Analysis model, because it is the most powerful, flexible user-friendly DFA software on the market.

Many companies also turn to URS because we are the only Company devoted exclusively to research, development and production of financial risk modeling software. We’re not trying to sell you other products or services such as consulting or brokerage. URS is an independent, innovative Company that’s focused on only one thing – providing the best software solutions for our clients.

For more information, please visit our website, asp.ultirisk.com, or send an email to info@ultirisk.com. One of our senior people will get right back to you.

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KUTSINA HEADS U.S. RE ANALYTICS – TEL AVIV WORKSHOP SCHEDULED

Anya Kutsina, URS Executive Director-Global Business Development, has joined with Vlad Umylenko, former head of Enterprise Risk Management at Standard & Poor’s, to head up U.S. RE Analytics, consultants in financial risk management. Kutsina will continue in her business development role at URS. U.S. RE Analytics and URS will jointly conduct a workshop in Tel Aviv June 6 organized by Professor Assaf Zeevi of Columbia University and the Israeli Association of Actuaries. Kutsina, Uhmylenko, URS Executive Director John Spencer, and Patrick Grealy, Managing Director-Technical, will be on the panel.

Kutsina and Uhmylenko, formed U.S. RE Analytics recently as a subsidiary of U.S. RE Companies, Inc., the international financial services and reinsurance brokerage firm. They are Principals and Managing Directors of U.S. RE. Analytics, which provides consulting services in enterprise risk management, economic capital analysis, regulatory compliance, Solvency II and dynamic financial analysis.The firm currently is engaged in consulting assignments for international, national and regional insurance and reinsurance clients.

An expert in financial risk analysis, Kutsina joined URS in 2002 soon after it opened for business and has played a major role in building it into one of the top providers of financial risk software worldwide. Kutsina began her insurance career as an actuary at Guy Carpenter & Company and has held actuarial posts at Aon Re and Swiss Re in New York. In addition to risk modeling and analysis, she is an expert in reinsurance pricing.

She holds a Master’s Degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from Kiev Pedagogical University in Ukraine and an M.B.A. in Actuarial Science and Finance from the College of Insurance at St. John’s University in New York. She completed post-graduate work in statistics at Columbia University.

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NICOLINI TAKES SENIOR ADVISOR POST AT URS

Riccardo Nicolini, a long-time senior executive of Assicurazioni Generali, one of Italy’s largest insurance companies, has been appointed Senior Advisor to Ultimate Risk Solutions. “We’re especially pleased to have Riccardo on the URS team,” said Alex Bushel, Founder and CEO of URS. “His knowledge of European markets will be of great assistance as we further develop business in Italy, France, Germany and Austria,” Bushel added.

Nicolini served for 39 years with The Generali, rising from an entry level position in accounting and administration to President of Generali USA, a post he held from 1984 to 2000. He later headed global reinsurance in the Company’s Trieste headquarters.

After retiring from The Generali, Nicolini served four years at Arch Re as General Manager of the European Representative Office in Trieste. Subsequently, he joined U.S. RE Corporation where he was Senior Vice President-International for four years. Nicolini will represent URS as a marketing advisor in connection with the Company’s growth strategy in Europe. He will maintain an office in Trieste. (rnicolini@ultirisk.com).

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PREDICTABLE DYNAMICS HELPS MULTI-NATIONALS MAKE INFORMED DECISIONS

Predictable Dynamics, the global economic model from URS, is being recognized increasingly in the world of international business as a key tool to help planners prepare for the future by allowing them to test strategic alternatives under many possible economic scenarios in different economies.

“Achieving success in today’s volatile economic environment takes knowledge and foresight especially when doing business in multiple economies. Predictable Dynamics enables corporate decision makers to evaluate the risks involved in changing conditions that include supply and demand shocks and economic variables in the various regions where they operate,” said Alex Bushel, CEO of URS.

Initially, the model was used by insurers and reinsurers, but it is also an exceptional tool for evaluating policy options in many different settings including government agencies and ministries, regulatory bodies, financial institutions and multi-national corporations.

“Predictable Dynamics is a simple yet powerful, dynamical systems-type model of macroeconomic evolution… Predictable Dynamics is easy to interpret and explain, with few moving parts, and its parsimonious structure supports robust parameter inference and straightforward calibration to observe macro variables… especially noteworthy is its ability to capture the joint behavior across several economies and as such, it is well positioned to guide dynamic financial analysis that accounts for global cross-market dependencies.” – Assaf Zeevi, Vice Dean-Research / Professor Columbia University Graduate School of Business.

Predictable Dynamics simulates economic scenarios for important economic variables in different regions including GDP growth, inflation, unemployment, wage growth, investment as a percent of GDP, interest rate yield curve, stock market indexes and forward exchange rates between currencies. For more information or to arrange a demonstration, contact info@ultirisk.com.

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URS CLIENT WINS AWARD BASED ON USE OF RISK EXPLORER™

JLT Reinsurance Brokers, Ltd. (JLT Re) recently won a Model Insurer Award for integrating Risk Explorer™ into the analytical services it provides to clients.

The award was given by Celent, a global research and consulting firm focused on the application of information technology in the financial services industry. JLT was one of 17 winners and the only one in its category out of 200 submissions.

David Piesse, URS Managing Director-Asia and Chris Venvell, URS Business Development Director-Asia Pacific worked with JLT in preparing the submission. According to the award submission,“The JLT Re team decided to use Risk Explorer™ because it provides a user-friendly yet flexible platform to meet their needs.”

Bottom-line benefits to the Company from using Risk Explorer™, as cited by JLT Re, include increased revenue or market share, higher productivity/lower staff expenses, better decisions/more accurate pricing/reduced losses, and improved broker/customer satisfaction.

The model has become integrated into the core services offered clients by JLT Re’s Business Research Unit, which provides analytical, actuarial, modeling and research support to clients.

Recognition of JLT Re in connection with its use of Risk Explorer™ puts the firm in good company. Past winners include Allstate Financial, Chubb, Nationwide, Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire and Allianz Life.

According to Celent,“…model insurer research is designed to try to answer an apparently simple question: ‘What would it look like for an insurer to do everything right with today’s technology?’”

“The terms ‘everything’ and ‘right’ will mean very different things to different insurance companies depending on their size, the complexity of their operations and product sets and their technological starting points. The approach that Celent has taken is to offer at a high level some key best practices in the use of technology across the product and policyholder life cycle and in information technology infrastructure and management that an insurer would use.”

The Case Study on Page 4 shows exactly why JLT Re was selected for this prestigious award by integrating Risk Explorer™ into the Company’s client services.

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WHAT THEY’RE SAYING ABOUT RISK EXPLORER™

“By using this valuable tool, the INS wishes to achieve the goal of administrative management with a decision-making process, carried out using industry best practice with a solid actuarial base. This will allow us to maximize our potential as well as making rational use of our capital.”

José Angel Villalobos General Manager & Chief Actuary Instituto Nacional de Seguros (INS)

INS is the largest insurance company in Central America.

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CASE STUDY – EFFECTIVELY IMPLEMENTING A DYNAMIC FINANCIAL ANALYSIS SOLUTION TO ENABLE SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS EXPANSION

CLIENT

JLT Reinsurance Brokers, Ltd Part of the JLT Group

BACKGROUND

A specialist reinsurance broking and consulting company established in 2006 to provide insurance and reinsurance companies including Lloyd’s Syndicates with risk analysis services and reinsurance solutions. JLT’s Business Research Unit was created to provide analytical, actuarial, modeling and research support to the Company’s brokers and external clients.

REQUIREMENTS

As the Company grew, so did demand for risk analysis services. Given limited internal resources to build models, JLT Re sought a tool that would provide the capabilities needed at a price they could afford.

ANSWER

After diligent review of financial risk analysis products in the marketplace, JLT Re selected Risk Explorer because it provides a user friendly, yet very flexible platform to cover a broad range of requirements including:

  • Full range of loss modeling from single line to complete Dynamic Financial Analysis (DFA)
  • Pricing exercises
  • Structuring insurance/reinsurance programs
  • Capital allocations
  • Stress testing either extreme loss scenarios or changes in business planning

RESULTS

It was decided that almost every team member should be exposed to Risk Explorer™ and regular users would include both catastrophe modelers and actuaries. Cat modelers used the output from catastrophe models via a simple interface to input directly into Risk Explorer™ in order to apply reinsurance structures because Risk Explorer™ and the actuaries in the team were able to easily build DFA models to any level of complexity.

  • All modelers in the team can speak the same language.The various teams of experts actually work together and even supplement each other. Workflows are streamlined. Outputs and presentations are in the same format. Terminologies used are consistent throughout the teams.
  • Optimal use of time during the life of a project; reduction of project times up to 50 percent, especially for complex structures where without Risk Explorer™ the team would have to write its own code and only parts of which could possibly be reused. The flexibility and user friendliness of Risk Explorer™ helps save time and money.
  • Client’s confidence has increased as they understand the outputs from Risk Explorer™ and can better interpret the results without having to rely entirely on their service provider.This has led to an increase of repeat assignments by 30 percent.
  • Using Risk Explorer™ adds continuity and credibility to JLT Re reports, which has resulted in more client engagements for the team. Feedback indicates that by using Risk Explorer™ the JLT Re team wins 10 percent more tenders.
  • Brokers from JLT Re report that they are often invited to make proposals due to the Company’s modeling capabilities.

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MOORE NAMED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS EXEC

Mechlin Moore, a consultant to URS for the last four years, has been named Marketing Communications Executive. His responsibilities include advertising, public and media relations, promotion and external communications. Moore oversees the URS website, edits the URS newsletter and coordinates marketing communications.

Moore also heads his own marketing consulting firm, MDM Communications. He was President of the Insurance Information Institute for 12 years. Earlier, he was Senior Vice President-Public Affairs at United Airlines. Moore began his career as a reporter on The Washington Post.

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PRODUCT LINE-UP

Risk Explorer™

A Dynamic Financial Analysis (DFA) software solution featuring powerful analytics, high-performance simulation technology, a flexible and extensible model structure along with seamless integration with your company’s IT infrastructure.

Risk Explorer Express

A DFA software solution for regional and smaller companies that contains most of the features of Risk Explorer™ but without the need for capacity to handle the massive volumes of data required by larger companies.

Predictable Dynamics

A global economic model that helps planners prepare for the future by allowing them to test strategic alternatives under many possible future economic scenarios.

Res-Solver™

Loss reserve estimation and modeling framework using state-of-the-art deterministic and stochastic reserving software.

Translator++™

Advanced software to create custom models using calculations contained in Excel spreadsheets.

UltiFit™

Sophisticated, statistical distribution software to calibrate Risk Explorer™ parameters.

We’ll be pleased to demonstrate any of our products and discuss how they can meet your financial risk software needs. Send an email to info@ultirisk.com and we’ll contact you promptly.

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