Geographic information for the management of flood risk insurance

This paper describes a research project aimed at introducing geographic information in the management of flood insurance policies through GIS technologies. The main scope is the development of a toolbox to take geographic information into account in the calculation of flood insurance premiums. Several factors influence real estate flood vulnerability: building’s exposure depends on territorial aspects, like the presence of flood areas, the elevation profile, the position of the building compared to hazard zones, but it is also determined by the construction characteristics of the building itself. In a pilot project workflows were set up to manage the whole underwriting process, following a rational methodology and taking into account all variables influencing building flood vulnerability. The developed tools are all based on free and open source software, server-side as a WebGIS tool and API and clientside as an Android application. Through a more accurate evaluation of the risk, the insurer is allowed to better manage its risk exposure and this way guarantee solvency in the case of a flood event and on the other hand be more competitive on the market.