AIR launches new terrorism model

As TRIA teeters on the brink of expiration at years end, AIR Worldwide Corporation has launched its updated U.S. terrorism model.The release of the new model incorporates the results of two years of research into the effects of a conventional bomb blast in complex urban environments, an AIR release says.Because urban density can have a significant impact on the effects of a bomb blast, AIR has enhanced its damage functions to account for the varying impact of bombs in relation to the density of properties in close proximity, to better reflect the local building environment for the various locations.The model enables insurers to perform a fully probabilistic loss analysis that considers the full range of likely attack locations and weapon type combinations, estimates the losses and assigns an estimated probability to each level of loss, Jack Seaquist, senior manager at AIR, said in a statement.The model also incorporates an enhanced industry property exposure database, the release adds. This updated database features more accurate building locations and building-specific characteristics for commercial properties. As catastrophe models become more sophisticated and detailed, the exposures used as input to the models need to be more accurate and at higher resolution, continued Seaquist.This is particularly true for the terrorism model, where the effects of an attack can be highly localized and street address information, including the physical attributes of properties has become almost essential.