ACE and Willis Re Analytics has launched the ACE Cat Web platform to help companies evaluate their own catastrophe exposures, as well as those of their suppliers and customers.

Following the worst ever year for global catastrophe losses in 2011, which highlighted the vulnerability of many companies’ operations to supply chain interruption, the web-based platform is designed to help businesses understand better their catastrophe risk profile and accumulations in different locations.

Using information on earthquake, storm and flood risk made from risk modelling agency RMS along with information provided by the client, the ACE Cat Web Platform provides a unique online visualisation of the relative exposures that the client faces worldwide using a colour-coded global mapping feature. Satellite imagery can then be used to provide more detailed risk assessments of local risk by ACE’s engineering specialists. The platform can also be used to view past and current global natural hazard activity, including earthquake, storm and flood events, using data from the US Geological Survey (USGS).

ACE also plans to make the platform available to its risk engineers advising existing and potential new customers.

Commenting on the launch, Derek Talbott, executive vice-president of ACE International said: “2011 provided a wake-up call for many companies. Last year a number of disasters, from the Japanese earthquake and tsunami to the Thai floods, underlined the importance for every business of understanding the risk exposures they face from increasingly global and ever more complex production and supply chains.”

“The ACE Cat Web Platform allows us to help clients by identifying more precisely the natural catastrophe exposures they face as a result of doing business across multiple locations and working with suppliers and customers who may be exposed to the same risks. By pinpointing accumulation hot spots, companies can better assess the strengths and weaknesses of their supply chains and ACE can more easily work with them to develop the right programmes to manage the risks.”

Rowan Douglas, CEO, global analytics, Willis Group, added: “Willis is delighted to support ACE’s Cat Web Platform using our market-leading mapping and analysis technologies. Cat Web will provide rich insights for firms wanting greater control of their business continuity, underpinning ACE’s efforts to help clients manage their own catastrophe exposures and those generated by their supply chains.”

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