CRESTA updates industry zoning standard

CRESTA has updated all 4,901 low-resolution and 242,172 high-resolution CRESTA zones for the 137 countries it covers, following consultation with the industry.

CRESTA zones, which are managed by PERILS, are a global geographical zoning standard, used for the exchange of insurance data zones.

CRESTA defines low-resolution zones, which generally follow administrative boundaries such as provinces, counties or merged postal code areas, and high-resolution zones which generally follow full postal code areas, for each country.

Typically, low-resolution zones are used as the industry standard for cumulative risk analyses and reporting, while high-resolution zones are used for risk modelling and scenario analyses.

The CRESTA standard is used for data transfer by re/insurers, regulators, intermediaries, modellers, insurance-linked securities investors and academia.

“It is the goal of CRESTA to support the insurance industry to facilitate data-handling, comply with data privacy laws and to generally increase the efficiency of risk transfer,” said Eduard Held, head of products at PERILS.

The CRESTA 2019 release covers the same zones as the last update in 2013, but reflects changes to administrative units worldwide. The changes were made following 12 months of discussions with industry practitioners, said Held.

The update introduces previously unavailable low-resolution zones for Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Zones have been updated in every country where the postcode scheme has been amended.

CRESTA, which was set up by the industry in 1977, has also launched a new website featuring a new web application that includes map visualisation and querying tools, providing a lookup function that assigns location coordinates to corresponding low- and high-resolution CRESTA zones.

Zoning lists and mapping tables spanning different CRESTA releases and low- and high-resolution zones can be downloaded from the website as Excel spreadsheets.

Through the recently established CRESTA Advisory Board, which includes representatives from AIR, Aon, CoreLogic, Guy Carpenter, Impact Forecasting, Munich Re, Oasis, PERILS, Swiss Re and Willis Re, CRESTA will continue its engagement with the industry to further develop and enhance the CRESTA standard.

“CRESTA will continue to enhance the value of the standard for the benefit of the entire market,” Held concluded.