News Articles

News Archives

Upcoming Events

SCAA 2012 Annual Conference
February 8-10, 2012, Myrtle Beach, SC
AARA will exhibit at the SCAA Annual Conference which is a three day conference including networking, exhibits and education for airport manager, commissioners, consultants, fbo managers and aviation enthusiasts.

RAA Cat Modeling Conference 2012
February 14-16 2012 / Orlando, Florida
ARA is a proud sponsor of the 2012 Reinsurance Association of America (RAA) Cat Modeling Conference focusing on The New Risk. Cat Models – The New Risk addresses the challenge of balancing the need for stable risk assessment tools versus the need for continued model improvement as better scientific, building performance, and historical loss data becomes available. ARA staff members will participate in the Cat Model comparison session as well as provide presentations on a variety of scientific and engineering components of our U.S. hurricane catastrophe model - HurLoss™.

ATC and SEI: Advances in Engineering Conference
October 24-26 2012 / Miami, Florida
ARA's IntraRisk Division is proud to participate in the ATC/SEI sponsored Hurricane Engineering Conference. Peter Vickery, PhD, P.E. and Frank Lavelle, PhD, P.E. along with other staff members will present recent advances in hurricane hazard modeling.

Additionally, Jeff Sciaudone, P.E. will present his research on the evolution and current state of the mandated insurance discount program in Florida, its basis in wind engineering, and its implementation via wind mitigation inspections. Below is an abstract of his presentation.

Lessons learned from building performance in Hurricane Andrew led to immediate improvements in the South Florida Building Code in 1994 and the eventual creation and adoption of the statewide Florida Building Code (FBC) in 2002. Alongside these building code improvements, numerous public and private programs to encourage wind resistant construction were also created. Concurrent with the adoption of the FBC, Florida Statute 627.0629 required all property insurers in Florida to recognize the wind resistive benefits of the FBC in their residential rate filings by February 2003. In effect, this statute requires insurers to provide discounts for homes that are built in accordance with the FBC, as well as to homes that were built prior to the FBC, but included similar wind-resistive features. The creation and implementation of this insurance incentive program has faced many challenges including; determination of the appropriate discounts by feature or combination of features, inspection protocols for documenting wind resistive features, dealing with intentional and unintentional errors introduced in the inspection process, and ensuring the actuarial soundness of the program.