Towers Watson Launches New Terrorism Risk Product

Towers Watson, the professional services company, has introduced new predictive modeling software, called Sunstone, designed to assess terrorism risk. The analytics product is designed to provide both insurers and non-insurers with a better understanding of their terrorism risk exposure.

“Our focus has been on creating a product that considers the broad scope of both known and emerging threats, and reflects the complex and changing nature of global terrorism for a wide range of clients,” said Chris Holt, crisis management consulting director, who led the model development team. “Our terrorism experts have considered the evolving nature of the threat and with the support of catastrophe modelers, have projected this into a range of attack and target types that might be anticipated in years to come.”

Sunstone is underpinned by analyses of events of all scales and types and the potential impacts generated on an organization’s employee well-being and financial health, according to Towers Watson. The consideration of comparatively small attacks, as well as macro events, should allow businesses to gain a more precise understanding of their short- and medium-term exposure volatility, as well as the potential for longer-term losses.

“The majority of terrorism risk products were conceived in response to 9/11,” said Paul Bassett, managing director of the Crisis Management group at Towers Watson. “Sunstone is the first major entry to the market in some time—it is a significant step forward.”

While insurers that underwrite terrorism cover are expected to be the prime users of such models, analyses could be applied equally to a range of exposures to meet the needs of the full range of businesses, according to Towers Watson, including property portfolios, risks to employees, workers compensation and treaty or facultative (re)insurance.

Sunstone is designed to enable the adjusting of threat-weighting inputs based on the sensitivity of specific types of attack, the geographic balance of a company’s operations and its broader risk appetite. Cost-severity factors can also be varied for analyses of life and workers compensation portfolios.

Users will be able to access the Sunstone product either as a consultancy service or by licensing the software.

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, click here.
Security risk Data security
MORE FROM DIGITAL INSURANCE