AIR Worldwide Updates Terrorism Model for United States

Catastrophe risk modeling firm AIR Worldwide released an update to its terrorism model for the United States. The model, which is used by insurers and reinsurers to assess potential losses to property and workers’ compensation risks, reflects less-frequent and lower severity attacks, based on a reassessment of the threat by a team of terrorism experts.

The team considered recent studies published by the intelligence community, such as the 2010 study by the New York State Intelligence Center, which examined 32 terrorism plots (since 9/11) against the United States and compared the risk to various target types, says AIR.

According to AIR, the target/landmark database was updated with more than 1,000 locations, including 181 prominent new buildings, 161 new corporate headquarters, 109 additional federal buildings, 33 new sports venues, and 424 new major hotels. The database consists of more than 300,000 landmarks, 100 of which are considered “trophy targets.”

AIR says additional enhancements to Version 13.0 of the U.S. terrorism model include an updated assessment of the most vulnerable sectors; improved flexibility in handling terrorism exclusions and policy conditions; modeling of the impact of terrorist events caused by domestic and/or international groups; application of terrorism policy exclusions; ability to determine the potential impact on certain policies; and updated workers' compensation model.