3D animation for building insurance risk analysis

The use of sophisticated software animation techniques to provide images of how proposed developments will look are now established practice. Walk-throughs enable viewers to see everything from detailed internal layouts through to how landscaping will blend a new development into an existing environment.

Similar techniques can now be applied to the insurance of construction risks. This can be useful for example when insuring a complex development or engineering projects where construction activity is sequenced over a long period of time and, as a result, the level of risk, actual or perceived, can vary significantly from one stage to the next.

The use of animation to bring to life the actual sequencing of events, the positioning of key engineering elements such as tower cranes, and the storage proposals for valuable or flammable components results in a better process of evaluation of risk analysis and pricing.

And the use of such techniques is just as valid for property owners, where animation can be used to show exactly who occupies which space, what is stored there, what the sums insured for each area are, and so on.

A walk-through or aerial display can be generated so that underwriters can virtually “see” what they are being asked to insure even though it may be physically located on the other side of the world.

Just as the cost of assembling a development proposal increasingly includes the cost of producing a 3D model, so will the cost of insurance animation increasingly become part of the cost of obtaining best value from the insurance market.

Watch some examples of animations.

[edit] Find out more

[edit] Related articles on Designing Buildings Wiki

• Architectural photography.
• Building Information Modelling.
• Computer Aided Design.
• Contractors' all-risk insurance.
• Directors and officers insurance.
• Professional indemnity insurance.
• Professional Indemnity Insurance clause in conditions of engagement.
• Residual value insurance.

[edit] External references

• NB This article is made available with the kind permission of 3 Dimensional Insurance Limited and Post Magazine.