Benzinga | May 18, 2021 09:08AM EDT

Verisk Reports Collaboration With National Fire Protection To Promote Importance Of Community Wildfire Risk Mitigation

More than 4.5 million U.S. properties are at a high-to-extreme risk of wildfire, with more than 2 million of those in California alone, according to estimates from Verisk, (NASDAQ:VRSK), a leading global data analytics provider. To help promote the importance of building resilient communities to property insurers and their customers, the National Fire Protection Association is providing Verisk with robust data on communities engaging in wildfire mitigation efforts.

Verisk will leverage the data from the NFPA Firewise USA(r) recognition program to develop property-level analytics insurers can use to refine their underwriting. This collaboration will help NFPA by promoting the value of community-wide wildfire risk reduction activities to a broader public.

"The record-breaking wildfire seasons in recent years has underscored the devastation these catastrophes can cause. Communities can take steps to protect properties and the surrounding neighborhood, including educating property owners and encouraging them to take wildfire risk reduction steps," said Jim Pauley, president and CEO of the NFPA. "By sharing the data on these efforts with Verisk, we'll be able to further promote the need for community and individual action to reduce risk."

"Our collaboration with the NFPA will not only enable insurers to assess wildfire risk mitigation efforts but will also help communities recognize the growing importance of resilience," said Doug Caccese, president of ISO Personal Lines at Verisk. "We'll be able to strengthen efforts to protect people and property from the dangers of wildfire and be a leading provider of mitigation data to the insurance industry."

The national Firewise USA recognition program is administered by NFPA and is co-sponsored by the USDA Forest Service and the National Association of State Foresters. It provides a voluntary, collaborative framework to help neighbors in a geographic area get organized, find direction, and take action to increase the ignition resistance of their homes and community to reduce wildfire risks at the local level.

Public education about wildfire safety is also one part of Outthink Wildfire(tm), an NFPA policy initiative, which calls on all levels of government to make significant policy changes to create safer homes and businesses through home upgrades and risk reduction, sound building and land use standards, and increased resources for managing wildland fuels.

Verisk has developed a full suite of solutions that can help insurers and communities assess wildfire risk. The suite includes the property-level risk scoring tool FireLine(r) and solutions that provide evaluations of local fire protection capabilities, insights on building code enforcement, assessments of defensible space, and post-event aerial imagery. Verisk also offers probabilistic wildfire modeling for portfolio management and risk financing strategies and assistance with claim management.