Russell News

Russell Group announces the launch of ALPS Enterprise at Monte Carlo Rendezvous, its new solution for the integrated risk management of specialty line

2011-09-11T08:05:00.000-07:00

Monte Carlo 10 September 2011: Russell Group, the leading risk management software provider to the specialty (re)insurance market, today announces the launch of its new solution for enterprise wide multi-class risk management. The solution comes in response to a growing market demand for group wide solvency analysis and marks a change in the company’s approach from providing line of business specific software to providing enterprise level solutions.

“ALPS Enterprise is the culmination of the knowledge, experience, and existing product range that Russell has built up over the past 15 years of working with the specialty market” commented Suki Basi, Managing Director at Russell. “The product builds upon the strengths of the ALPS existing line of business solutions in aerospace, marine, energy, and non-marine and extends into cross-class aggregation analysis and enterprise wide portfolio modeling.”

Russell’s new multi-class framework provides a consistent level of functionality and analysis for direct, reinsurance, and retrocession underwriters across the various specialty classes with data management, aggregation control, inwards and outwards risk pricing, and portfolio modeling within a single installation. In addition to known classes there is also the ability for user’s to define their own classes using the underlying risk models and the generic logic within ALPS Enterprise.

ALPS also allows companies to take maximum advantage of third party data available in the various specialty lines. “Due to the fact we are not a proprietary data provider we are able to source the best third party data available in each of the lines of business and integrate this directly into our software” said Mr. Basi. “We think this provides maximum benefit to our clients and gives them a level of flexibility and transparency not available in other solutions”.

ALPS has been developed on a Microsoft platform and is an “open box” solution, giving users the ability to integrate the software within their company’s own IT architecture, and can be completely configured to represent the users view of the risks they are assuming. “We wanted to provide something that would meet the current and future needs of the (re)insurance underwriting and risk management community. Our software allows users to understand the risks they are underwriting, but is based on their view of risk not ours – something that we feel is very important” commented Mr. Basi.

“Overall we are confident that what we are providing to the market gives them the control structure and sophistication of analysis to meet internal and external risk management requirements imposed by shareholders, CEO’s, regulators, and rating agencies” concluded Mr. Basi.

The Architecture for Multi-Class Specialty Risk Management

2011-08-25T08:12:00.000-07:00

Continuing on in Russell’s theme of risk management for the specialty classes, Suki Basi describes the enabling architecture required to deliver a framework which meets the varied and complex needs of the specialty insurance and reinsurance markets.

Let’s begin by defining the key requirements for such a framework. The specialty classes vary in risk structure from one class to the next which means an integrated risk model, that can easily process insurance, reinsurance and retrocession placements, is essential and would be the first requirement for any framework. Given that data structure and volume vary considerably too, the next requirement calls for robust data capture and management. Once we have addressed data capture and risk structure for each class, the third requirement is for an internal engine to process events and scale to the needs of each class or multiple classes. Finally, any framework should be open to user interaction whether it is for user parameterisation of event sets or to integrate within existing processing streams.

Integrated risk model

The specialty classes are dominated by two main coverage types - physical damage and pure liability.

The physical damage specialty classes are easy to identify as there is an actual object around which the (re)insurance is placed, with various combinations of property damage, first party liability, and third party liability coverage. Examples include aviation, marine, cargo, energy, and specialty property – with the subject of each being the airline, vessel, shipment, rig, and building respectively. For each subject a number of risk characteristics can be captured, usually a combination of third party data and proprietary data, for either segmentation or reporting purposes or for use when creating event tables. For an enterprise solution the software does not need to know the nature of the subject, only that it exists and may have risk transfer agreements attached to the various parties that have an interest in it.

The pure liability classes are less easy to identify as there is an entity around which the (re)insurance is placed, with various types of legal liability that the entity may be responsible for. Examples include professional indemnity, crime, directors and officers, and general liability, all of which are, by market convention, often classified according to the entity they attach to, such as financial institutions, pharmaceuticals, and small and medium sized enterprises (SME). Although more difficult to define once the subjects have been established the (re)insurance relationships are generally easier to model as each entity has a 100% insurable interest in itself, unlike the physical damage classes where the situation is not always that simple.

Any risk model needs to support the similarities and differences encountered between these two main coverage types, and how each coverage type is applied in practice to a class of business. This suggests that the risk model must be rule-based so that appropriate logic can be applied to specific coverage type and class of business combinations. One further complication is that the risk model also needs to support method of placement that is risks which have been underwritten on a direct, reinsurance or retrocession basis. Finally, the risk model needs to support the differences in data content and relationships between classes. To ensure full support for the specialty classes the risk model must integrate the underlying complexity.

Robust data capture and management

At the heart of good risk management is good data quality, inevitably in the specialty classes, data quality will vary with the quality of data structure and volume in each class. Moreover, traditionally organisations have tended not to invest in electronic data validation, capture and management. In my view it essential to invest in tools which ensure robust data capture and management as this is the initial step to improved data quality and therefore good risk management. Such tools should be template driven, have rules to handle data quality and fuzzy matching capabilities to manage naming conventions. Having established that robust data capture is essential, what data needs to be captured? To answer this, I would like to introduce four categories of data - reference, market, underlying and portfolio data, the content of each will vary across the specialty classes. Reference data is all to do with coverage criteria, event definitions, geographic regions and analytical assumptions such as target loss ratio. Market data captures currencies, rates of exchange, losses, the definition of the risk being insured or monitored, also known as subjects and the companies which have a trading relationship with you. Underlying data is industry exposure data which is normally supplied by third parties and defines the risk within a class in its raw form, for example details of an aircraft, satellite, ship, oil rig or financial institution and the relationship of that risk to the policy placement. Portfolio data is defined as the collection of risks which have been underwritten over time regardless of whether they are insurance, reinsurance or retrocession placements and the reinsurance programmes purchased to protect the portfolio.

Internal and scaleable engine

To ensure consistent and timely analysis, it is essential that the framework has an internal engine which can consistently process events regardless of the size and complexity of a portfolio. By analysis, I mean a pre-defined algorithm which serves a user request according to a particular collection of mathematical processes, which can be deterministic or stochastic. Such an engine would see any analysis as a collection of events which need to be processed according to the pre-defined algorithm, and would need to be database-driven to differentiate event processing which can be done in computer memory from database processing which is done on computer disks.

A feature of the specialty classes is data volumes, which vary tremendously, requiring the framework’s engine to scale with the demand placed on it. This is achievable as long as the engine is multi-threaded, that is to say that it utilises as many CPUs that are available on the computer (scale-up) or as many computers (scale-out) as possible. Indeed, a multi-threaded engine would be ideally suited to the generation of a stochastic event set for deal and/or portfolio pricing, as processing occurs in parallel rather than sequentially. The net effect of this is that more complexity can be processed for a given time period than would be the case without, ensuring the time and therefore the cost of performing an analysis is optimised.

Open to User Interaction

Given the variety and complexity inherent within the specialty classes, an open architecture would be more beneficial for flexible analytics than a closed architecture. Users would have the flexibility of being able to construct their own event sets and use the framework to process such events, furthermore openness would promote more flexible pricing data, enable easy integration with existing application and processing streams, whilst also facilitating improved audit capabilities as the data can easily be accessed and interpreted.

In a competitive marketplace this approach guards commoditised pricing, as underwriter assumptions and corresponding event sets will differ.

Suki Basi is the managing director at Russell Group, a leading risk management software and service company that provides a truly integrated approach to aggregate management, pricing and portfolio modeling, by supporting insurance, reinsurance and retrocession needs across the specialty classes

QBE Re extends its commitment to ALPS

2011-08-12T04:24:00.000-07:00

NOTTINGHAM, 12th AUGUST 2011: Russell Group, the leading risk management software and service provider to the specialty (re)insurance market, today announces that QBE Re Europe have extended the use of ALPS within its Aerospace and General Casualty units.

Hannover Re renews ALPS for 6 years

2011-07-07T05:08:00.000-07:00

NOTTINGHAM, 7th JULY 2011: Russell Group, the leading risk management software and service provider to the specialty (re)insurance market, today announces that Hannover Re have extended the use of ALPS within its Aerospace, risk management and group protection units for a further 6 years.

Shining a light on internal models

2011-06-23T05:14:00.000-07:00

LONDON, 23rd JUNE 2011: Russell Group, the leading risk management software and service provider to the specialty (re)insurance market, sponsors a reactions round table entitled "Shining a light on internal models" in London, details of which are enclosed below

http://www.risklounge.com/admin/docs/Russell%20Roundtable.pdf

Munich Re extends its commitment to ALPS

2011-03-09T05:32:00.000-08:00

NOTTINGHAM, 9th MARCH 2011: Russell Group, the leading risk management software and service provider to the specialty (re)insurance market, today announces that Munich Re have extended the use of ALPS within its Aerospace, Financial Instiution and General Casualty units.

Russell Group launches ALPS - Direct Aviation

2011-02-10T07:05:00.000-08:00

LONDON 10 February 2011: RUSSELL Group has announced the launch of the latest solution from its Portfolio management suite, ALPS – Direct Aviation to a meeting of Aviation underwriters and brokers in London.

The event was hosted in the ACORD Conference Suite in the London Underwriting Centre. Russell Group Product Manager Matthew Maddocks outlined the new solution and how it delivers significant benefits for pricing direct airline risk.

Russell Group’s ALPS system already operates in the Aerospace and Financial Institutions market with clients such as Munich Re, Hannover Re, Talbot Validus, Cathedral, AON and Willis. Initiatives are also underway in the Casualty, Marine and Energy markets.

In his address Maddocks explained that the firm felt that a single integrated data set which incorporated airline fleets, traffic, route and loss data was necessary for consistent pricing.

He added: “ALPS Direct Aviation is an ‘open-box’ solution which has been specifically designed for airline insurance. We have developed a ground-up event set using existing data sources which when integrated into the ALPS software will enable consistent pricing decisions at the risk and portfolio level.”

Suki Basi, Managing Director at Russell added “What is clear in the market and will be more so in the future is the fact that from a regulatory and risk management perspective underwriters will increasingly be asked to substantiate their pricing decisions with solid data and to do so they will need robust systems on which they can demonstrate they have based those decisions.”

He added: “With ALPS, Russell Group has consistently delivered innovative products which allow underwriters to work with us to create the solutions; which meet their requirements.”

ALPS Aerospace – Aviation Direct Product Launch

2011-01-25T14:28:00.000-08:00

Russell Group have pleasure in inviting you to the product launch of ALPS Aerospace – Aviation Direct to be held on 10th February, 2011 from 1pm until 2pm (with lunch available from 12.45pm) at the Acord offices, London Underwriting Centre, Suite 1/3 Minster Court, Mincing Lane, London EC3R 7DD. If you would like to attend please reply by email accordingly, indicating whether you have any special dietary requirements and feel free to pass this invitation on to any of your colleagues who may also wish to attend.

ALPS is the market leading integrated portfolio management solution for complex (re)insurance risks. The product comprises modules covering aggregation, pricing, loss simulation and portfolio modelling. ALPS is at the forefront of software development to support specialty lines (re)insurers and has a significant number of major (re)insurance companies and Lloyd’s syndicates amongst its client base. A more detailed description of ALPS can be found on our website (www.russell.co.uk).

The agenda for the launch is

Welcome
Roger Hulett, Sales Manager, Russell Group

Introduction
Suki Basi, Managing Director, Russell Group

ALPS Demonstration
Matthew Maddocks, Product Manager, Russell Group
Rav Tank, Client Services Manager, Russell Group

Open Forum

If you are unable to attend the event but would like more information, please contact Roger Hulett either by email (rhulett@russell.co.uk) or telephone (07827 888590).

Russell achieves ISO9001:2008 accreditation

2010-12-23T15:10:00.000-08:00

Russell Group is pleased to announce that it has successfully met all obligations needed to achieve ISO9001:2008 accreditation following an audit by Lloyds Register.

Russell Group’s Suki Basi explained: “The specialty market underwrites complex business risk and requires service providers that offer due diligence and care within their business processes. The ISO9001 accreditation underlines our commitment to our business process, and demonstrates our continued investment in our core competencies."

The achievement comes in the same month that Russell also retained its Microsoft Gold Partner status and received excellence status from a Microsoft survey conducted against its client base.

Russell Group Score Highly in Microsoft Survey

2010-12-15T01:02:00.000-08:00

LONDON 16 December 2010: Underwriters and broker from the London and European insurance markets were canvassed in a Microsoft Client Survey for Russell Group resulting in one of the highest satisfaction scores amongst Microsoft partners.

The survey which assessed customer satisfaction, loyalty and overall performance resulted in an overall score of 94%, 15% above the Microsoft Partner average.

Russell Group is a leading risk management software and services company, whose clients which include ACE, Allianz, Aon, Cathedral Underwriting, Hannover Re, Liberty Syndicates, Munich Re, Paris Re, QBE, Sirius International, Talbot Validus Group and Willis.

Russell Group Managing Director Suki Basi explained the importance of such surveys, “We view client service as a key differentiation for the company, it is important to know what the client place thinks of our solution delivery and how we compare to other Microsoft partners. As a Gold certified partner our solutions are independently tested by Microsoft.”

Mr Basi added: “It is important to note in a changing business environment with Solvency II looming large that those clients working with suppliers with robust and integrated solutions are likely to benefit most.”

Risk Management 2.0

2010-11-18T00:54:00.000-08:00

Matthew Maddocks discusses one possible view regarding the future of risk management for specialty (re)insurers , and why not to follow the property catastrophe path

Specialty (re)insurers face a number of different challenges to property catastrophe (re)insurers. In terms of sophistication and analysis capability they are considered the poor relation, but they have an opportunity now to do things differently, to embrace modern working practices and technology and make risk management a competitive advantage rather than purely a reporting function.

Risk Management 101

The most basic definition of risk management, for a (re)insurance company, is the ability to know the financial impact on the company for a given loss event before it happens. With this information management decisions can be made to ensure that the company will continue trading if this loss event occurs. This is obviously one of the most fundamental and basic functions performed by a company but with the added bonus that, if done correctly, gives the ability to price the individual risks and portfolio being assumed.

For (re)insurers there are therefore 2 distinct requirements for a complete risk management process;

(1) the ability to model the types of loss events that are likely to occur in the future (including the expected frequency), and

(2) the ability to know the loss that a company will incur as a result of or event happening.

We’ll return to these functions below but it’s worth noting here that only (1) above is subjective and that in a perfect world almost no competitive advantage can be gained by performing (2) accurately.

The Past and (Sometimes) Present

For specialty (re)insurers, in the past, risk management would either have been based around overestimation of exposures with no PML (probable maximum loss) consideration, or around outdated client exposures stored and analysed in spreadsheets that gave “roughly” the correct answer. Very little effort was put into modeling losses (as in (1) above) with most taking a realistic disaster scenario approach and looking at only a handful of possible events, with no attempt to estimate the likely frequency of the event happening. This approach might have been conservative, but it is not particularly informative and would not help a company in efficiently utilising its capital base.

For (re)insurers, the traditional approach was as a result of; a lack of transparency in the insurer-reinsurer relationship, lack of standardised data formats, inefficient data transmission (i.e. email from insurer to broker, email from broker to reinsurer), and a lack of a software solution to store, process, and analyse the data. As we’ll see I think these impediments are slowing disappearing, and in the future will no longer prevent risk managers from doing their job as effectively as they otherwise could.

The Future - Risk Management 2.0

The future of risk management, I think, will be governed by two overarching principles: firstly market collaboration where collaboration makes sense; and secondly (re)insurers investing in their own competitive advantage.

Data
Increasingly, across all industries, data is becoming easier to access and cheaper to obtain. With advanced web technologies to facilitate crowd-sourced data, traditional notions of proprietary data are disappearing. If you’re not convinced ask the CEO at Encyclopedia Britannia how their business has been impacted by the rise of Wikipedia. In the future information barriers will be dramatically reduced, as ‘free-market’ data is created, something that risk managers should not only be aware of but should actively embrace.

In practice what does this mean? The best way is probably to give an example from one of the specialty classes, say satellite (re)insurance. If all insurers and reinsurers agreed to create a wiki-style database detailing satellite characteristics (make, model, launch details, etc) then the market would have an incredibly powerful and free resource. In addition to the cost savings that could be achieved, the great thing about crowd-sourced data/information is that it likely to be highly accurate due to market peer review. This common approach would also, by definition, create a data template for storing and transmitting satellite data, removing many of the issues surrounding mapping such as naming conventions and field formats.

The second point that needs to be raised is the data regarding insurers’ exposure: a vital element in reinsurer risk management. Many insurers are concerned with sharing their questionnaire (a table detailing the insurance policies their reinsurance programmes are protecting) but this again is something that I think will change. Insurers that are prepared to be more transparent with their information will undoubtedly succeed where others will fail. If I were a satellite insurer I would be happy for all genuine reinsurers in this class to see my exposures, confident that I would end up with a more efficient reinsurance programme without in any way jeopardising my competitive advantage.[2]

This “free market” approach to data is in stark contrast to that found in the property catastrophe market where closed data standards, incompatible formats, and “black-box” data and analysis are commonplace. None of these are particularly desirable from a (re)insurer point of view and only lead to increased cost, administrative problems, and business models that are based on an inefficient market - something that is ultimately unsustainable in the long-run.

Loss Modelling
Loss modeling (as in (1) above) is probably the single largest competitive advantage that a company can have over its competitors. Understanding which risks are more or less likely to have a loss, and the expected distribution of the severity of the loss, will ultimately mean your return on equity will be higher or lower than the next company. This is the area that risk managers should be investing in, an investment that will potentially see a higher rate of return than any other.

In the future as risk trading becomes more instantaneous there will be increasing opportunities for companies to benefit from understanding losses (and therefore risk) better than their competitors. Like most other financial markets, mechanisms will be developed for companies to trade on these different views on a daily basis, something that will see the better companies rise to the top of the market while removing those companies that do not know how to correctly price or manage risk.

Again this is not the approach that the property catastrophe market has taken. Most (re)insurance companies use vendor models to analyse market losses, with the software telling them the relative frequency of losses, the risks that will impacted, and the severity of the loss. Although some parameterisation is possible the models fundamentally provide the market with a standardised approach. I think the future of specialty risk management will be one where companies demand technology solutions that allow them to fully model their view of the world, with those that invest in this approach gaining a real competitive advantage over their peers.

Solvency II
Solvency II should impact both the data and loss modeling issues discussed above. The new regime should encourage a greater transparency between insurers and reinsurers, and should also focus risk managers attention on loss modeling at a line of business level and aggregating them at the company level. The 101 definition of risk management above (which admittedly is only concerned with underwriting risk) would be at the heart of any enterprise-wide capital model. Unless this basic definition is satisfied any additional complexity in the model would be relatively useless.

Risk Management Clouds

The final thing for discussion is the future of technology in the risk management sector. Cloud, or hosted, solutions will undoubtedly become more commonplace as third party companies provide secure and extremely powerful processing technology, at a much more competitive price than could be achieved internally. This, combined with tight legal agreements should mean that concerns regarding confidentiality are a thing of the past. In addition to base storage and processing, these risk management clouds could also seamlessly integrate with crowd-sourced data and insurer questionnaire repositories, the result being an incredibly automated and efficient risk management process.

Conclusion

The future of risk management should be clear. Practitioners should embrace collaborative ways of workings, while at the same time focusing internally on that which will add true value to their company and enable them to outperform their competitors. The bar will undoubtedly be raised for the entire industry and some companies will be able to “free-ride” on these developments, but ultimately a free-rider will never threaten those companies that are true market leaders.

Matthew Maddocks is Product Manager for Russell Group

Exposure management: Forewarned is forearmed

2010-10-14T08:10:00.000-07:00

Suki Basi argues that further market transparency is necessary in order to deliver improved exposure management.

While gaining increasing importance in the current and future regulatory regime, exposure management can be stripped of a lot of its complexity whatever the specialist lines of business underwritten. In its simplest form, exposure management is an understanding of the relationship between market losses and portfolio losses prior to any event occurring.

It might look simple on paper but, without accurate and effective exposure management, a reinsurer cannot effectively price the risks it is underwriting, evaluate any outwards reinsurance requirements nor understand the level of capital required to support the business. Given the drive towards great understanding of the requirements demanded by the Solvency II regime, good exposure management will be at the heart of the successful underwriting organisation of the future.

Integration
The future ideal of The Russell Group is one in which all parties work together as a community, giving practitioners as-close-to perfect information as is possible at the point of decision making. This then allows them to focus on creating value for their companies by understanding and managing the risk better rather than wasting time just trying to establish what the risk is. We foresee a new age of exposure management in which knowledge or information is no longer enough, a future in which sophisticated use and interpretation of knowledge is key.

How to deliver such a future is the question that continues to fuel debate across the industry.

For a reinsurance company, good exposure management has a number of basic requirements: data and a framework within which to model possible market losses; a transparent relationship with its clients; and robust software to process the analysis. To a certain extent, all of these requirements are influenced by factors outside the reinsurer's control.

Most companies do not produce proprietary data and, to achieve any valid level of transparency, a degree of market collaboration is necessary. The future aim has to be to enable complete exposure management by addressing all these issues and providing an integrated approach to insurance and reinsurance companies operating in the specialty lines segment.

To allow for increased market transparency, Russell believes the market needs to embrace currently available technologies that enable peer-to-peer communication, as well as forums to shape the future market. Currently, most catastrophe modelling software companies base their business around protected formats and information that can be utilised with only their software. We believe the answer can be found only by working with the entire market to develop standards and best practice, with the results being used by client and non-client alike.

Assumption error
It might sound simplistic but reinsurers should no longer accept a treaty for which they have no mechanism to quantify the extent to which the assumed exposures accumulate within their existing portfolios. Reinsurers would not accept this in property catastrophe lines and, with risk management at the heart of the new regulatory regime, they should not and will not continue to do so in specialty lines. Furthermore, it is unlikely that regulators will accept "it's always been done that way" or "the client or broker doesn't want to provide us with the information" as excuses for absent risk management control.

Suki Basi is a director at Russell Group

Read more:http://www.postonline.co.uk/reinsurance/analysis/1800422/exposure-management-forewarned-forearmed

Understanding the risks

2010-08-23T01:07:00.000-07:00

Matthew Maddocks discusses the importance of exposure management in specialty lines reinsurance

Exposure management in its simplest form is an understanding of the relationship between market losses (the total insured loss across all companies) and portfolio losses (the insured or reinsured loss to a single company), prior to an event occurring. Without exposure management, a reinsurer cannot effectively price the risks it is underwriting, evaluate any outwards reinsurance requirements, or understand the level of capital required to support the business. In short, good exposure management is at the heart of a successful reinsurance organisation.

For a reinsurance company, good exposure management has a number of basic requirements: data and a framework within which to model possible market losses; a transparent relationship with its clients; and robust software to process the analysis. To a certain extent, all of these requirements are influenced by factors outside the control of a reinsurer: most companies do not produce proprietary data for all classes; in practice to achieve transparency a degree of market collaboration is necessary; and very few companies have the resources to develop and maintain proprietary software solutions. At Russell our aim is to facilitate complete exposure management by addressing all these issues and providing an integrated approach to insurance and reinsurance companies operating in the specialty lines segment (including aviation, space, marine, energy, casualty and engineering).

Market loss modelling
Although we endeavour to create a line-of-business generic architecture, each class requires a unique approach to predictive loss modelling. We aim to provide our clients with a completely flexible framework to stochastically generate market level losses, which then feed seamlessly into our portfolio modelling applications. We do not impose restrictions on the uses to which the software can be put and allow clients to parameterise the model as they see fit. This allows them to focus on areas where they can create value for their company without being constrained by any view we may have regarding the frequency, severity, or allocation of events.

On the data side we look to build strategic partnerships with data providers in each of the different classes of business. This allows us to provide a superior service to our clients as we are able to validate, manipulate, and integrate the data into our software much more efficiently than if they were to try to obtain data themselves.

Data transparency
To facilitate increased market transparency, Russell is fully embracing Web 2.0 technologies in ways that we believe will ultimately benefit the entire market. We have developed wiki-style forums where market practitioners come together to agree the data formats and standards that are used to transfer risk information from insurer to reinsurer, from reinsurer to retrocessionaire, or from any party to capital providers or other stakeholders. Hopefully these communities will grow over time to become a resource for all practitioners in the specialty arena including underwriters, brokers, risk managers, and other service providers.

This free market approach taken by Russell is in contrast to that taken by most catastrophe modelling software companies who base their business around protected formats and information that can only be utilised in their software. We work with the entire market to develop standards and best practice, with the results being used by clients and non-client alike. Of course it opens up the possibility of other software providers basing their products around these developments, but at Russell we are proud to compete on the basis of the products and services we provide to the market, with the confidence not to have to rely on an information monopoly.

Solvency II should also provide momentum to increase the amount and frequency of data passed between insurers and reinsurers. Reinsurers should no longer accept a treaty where they have no mechanism to quantify the extent to which the assumed exposures accumulate within its existing portfolio. Reinsurers would not accept this in property catastrophe lines, and Russell is of the opinion that, with risk management at the heart of the new regulatory regime, should not and will not continue to do so in the specialty lines. Going forward, it is unlikely that regulators will accept “it’s always been done that way” or “the client/broker doesn’t want to provide us with the information”, as an excuse for a lack of risk management control. Insurers may have very good reasons for not wanting to provide the data, but this should be met with a swift ‘non-renew’ from underwriters.

Software solution
On the software side we aim to provide a first-class product in terms of functionality, usability, processing power, support and service. In line with the company ethos of openness, our clients have access behind-the-scenes to perform their own analysis or to integrate, with or without our assistance, our products within their companies overall IT application infrastructure. We like to work collaboratively to develop solutions, focusing all the time on delivering what the client wants, when the client wants it.

The future
Our view of the future is clear: it is one where all parties work together as a community giving practitioners as close to perfect information as is possible at the point of decision making. This then allows them to focus on creating value for their company by understanding and managing the risk better, rather than wasting time just trying to establish what the risk is. Going forward we foresee a new age of exposure management where mere knowledge or information is no longer enough but where it is the sophisticated use and interpretation of that knowledge that is key.

Russell Group launches Risk Lounge

2010-02-15T04:11:00.000-08:00

Russell Group Limited is delighted to announce the launch of a new market intelligence service which aims to provide news, analysis and thought leadership in equal measure.

Risk Lounge is a new site operated by Russell Group that is designed to provide a range of services to the specialty industry.

Users of the site will be able to access:

The latest news on specialty insurance and reinsurance sectors which all too often fall outside of the coverage in the mainstream trade press.

Risk Lounge TV where some of the leading figures in the market will give their views on the industry and its trends.

Exclusive analysis of how market developments are affecting the specialty sector

Thought leadership through debate on issues directly affecting the specialty market.

All the latest news and initiatives from the Russell Group.

Russell Group’s Suki Basi explained: “The specialty market underwrites complex business risk and is in constant need for information and data in areas not covered particularly well by the mainstream trade media. Risk Lounge is positioned as an on-line community service where the specialty market can discuss specific topics and provide thought leadership on issues which directly affect them. We are excited about the potential of the site, as it will be truly interactive and valuable tool for the specialty market.”

www.RiskLounge.co.uk

Russell moves to new offices in Nottingham

2010-01-08T03:51:00.000-08:00

Russell Group Limited has today moved to newly re-furbished offices in the historic Lace Market quarter of Nottingham.

Our new address is

2a Commerce Square
The Lace Market
Nottingham
NG1 1HS

Russell becomes Microsoft Gold Partner

2009-11-16T03:28:00.000-08:00

Partner Id 2330254

Nottingham based Russell Group Limited, is today pleased to announce that it has met all the requirements to become a Microsoft Gold Partner.

Gold Partner status will give Russell first hand access to all the latest Microsoft technology, training and support.

Russell Managing Director, Suki Basi said "acheiving gold partner status is an honour and reward for the investment in skill and technology we have made over recent years, and will continue to be one of our core competencies."

ALPS Release 64 In Production

2009-10-02T09:29:00.000-07:00

ALPS Release 64 is now available for shipping. All modifications are listed in the attached release note.

http://www.risklounge.com/admin/docs/016077e8-17f4-4e92-b948-2779493988ba-64%20ReadMe.txt

Ascend data for 2009 is available for download

2009-09-25T12:37:00.000-07:00

Russell is pleased to announce that its SKILIFT repository has been updated to include the 2009 Ascend airline financials, fleets and latest market losses. Clients who licence the ALPS pricing analytics can now securely download this Ascend data using Microsoft data transformation services.

Munich Re licences ALPS Simulation Analysis

2009-09-21T12:48:00.000-07:00

The Aerospace unit of Munich Re licences ALPS Simulation Analysis for treaty reinsurance pricing.

Russell attends its first Monte Carlo Rendezvous

2009-09-10T13:36:00.000-07:00

Russell’s first visit to the Monte Carlo rendezvous was a resounding success and has lead to much market interest.

Russell’s managing director Suki Basi had this to say about rendezvous 2009, “Monte Carlo is the meeting place for insurance and reinsurance professionals, and provided an outstanding opportunity for Russell to network and showcase its potential. We shall certainly be here next year.”

Hannover Re licences ALPS Simulation Analysis

2009-07-20T12:49:00.000-07:00

The Aerospace unit of Hannover Re licences ALPS Simulation Analysis for treaty reinsurance pricing.

Matthew Maddocks joins Russell Group

2009-07-10T05:52:00.000-07:00

Russell Group is today pleased to announce the appointment of Matthew Maddocks on a short-term consultancy basis. Matthew joins Russell from Ace Tempest Re where he was reinsurance underwriter on the aerospace account, and will help Russell with product and market development.

Munich Re Implements FI Exposure Management Solution

2009-06-29T05:48:00.000-07:00

Munich Re one of the world’s leading insurance groups have sought to manage their financial institutions aggregate exposures by implementing ALPS from Russell Group. Munich Re previously entered into a three-year licence agreement to use ALPS in their Aerospace unit in 2008, where it is used to support aviation aggregate management and scenario modeling.

Alexander Stampf, Head of Financial Institutions at Munich Re said of the decision to deploy ALPS, "We were very impressed by both the ALPS solution and Russell Group’s service offering. ALPS has proven to be a flexible and robust tool for aggregate exposure management. It has clear data capture facilities and offers comprehensive modeling for exposure aggregation and what if scenarios. As a supplier Russell enjoys an excellent reputation amongst its clients for both delivery and ongoing support.”

Suki Basi, Managing Director at Russell Group said of Munich Re’s acquisition of ALPS, "We have had an excellent start to 2009 with Munich Re extending their use of ALPS to their financial institutions portfolio and, Paris Re and Allianz acquiring ALPS for their energy and aviation business units respectively. These decisions highlight the flexibility of ALPS to cater for different lines of business and fully endorses the investment and commitment we have made in the solution. We have enjoyed working with both units at Munich Re and look forward to a long and enduring relationship with the company.”

Sirius International Signs For 5 years

2009-06-08T12:59:00.000-07:00

The branch of Sirius International in Zurich licences ALPS for a further 5 year, whilst increasing its commitment to Russell by moving to the ALPS hosted solution, and also licensing the ALPS Simulation analysis.

4th Russell Conference was a great success

2009-03-17T09:33:00.000-07:00

For the second year running, the Russell Conference took place at the La Cala resort near Malaga, Spain. The event which took place between the 24th and 27th February was well attended and provided an excellent opportunity for delegates to obtain updates on Russell developments.

ALPS Release 63 in Production

2009-02-12T09:25:00.000-08:00

ALPS Release 63 is now available for shipping. All modifications are listed in the attached release note.

http://www.risklounge.com/admin/docs/1b9bf7b3-ce33-4248-9294-47d5e19f6847-63%20ReadMe.txt

Russell Market Plans for 2009+

2009-01-16T09:09:00.000-08:00

Russell’s market and development plans for 2009 and 2010 have been outlined in the attached briefing note, and update to this will be circulated in January 2010.

http://www.risklounge.com/admin/docs/8535e935-91bc-48df-998d-b4951e3b6d2e-RussellUpdate.pdf

Russell Becomes Microsoft Certified Partner

2008-12-20T09:07:00.000-08:00

Russell is pleased to announce that its ALPS product has successfully passed verification testing and as a result the company has been awarded the status of Microsoft certified partner.