Exact numbers for the devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey won’t be in for quite some time, but the storm surge damage estimates are nothing short of extraordinary. Melissa’s partner, HazardHub, the only third-generation provider of property-level hazard risk databases spanning the most dangerous perils in the continental United States, released a shocking calculation before the 2017 storm ever reached Texas.

HazardHub predicted that risk from the storm, depending on the hurricane’s Category ranking, could be double that of its competitor’s predictions. HazardHub warned that 367,000 homes could be affected if Harvey became a Category 4, and that $77 billion of property was at risk. A report from the balance, after Hurricane Harvey hit, stated that total repairs will cost $180 billion and that 203,000 homes were damaged, thus far. Competitive estimates only indicated $30 billion in property damage and between $48 and $75 billion in total losses.

Although estimates for the number of homes at risk were higher than actuality, HazardHub aired on the side of caution and in the spirit of being best prepared for storm surge risk – as the company believes that everyone who owns a home or business should know the risk around their property and prepare as best they can.

Bob Frady, CEO of HazardHub, described it best, “For too many years, people have been caught by surprise by storm surges that caused massive damage to homes and businesses. We want to help eliminate that surprise by providing cutting-edge tools that help to estimate risk from – and allow people to prepare more fully for – storm surge.

HazardHub converts very large, very complicated data sets of long-run hazard event data into risk grades for natural disasters such as flood, wildfire, lightning, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and more, for every home in the contiguous U.S. You can check an address or latitude/longitude point, one at a time or in batch, to get detailed hazard reports on an entire mailing list, customer file, area or region.

Use HazardHub To:

• See detailed reports of natural hazard risks in any area
• Reach out to potential customers who could use targeted
• insurance services
• Pinpoint exact hazards at the address level for granular risk assessment
• Give the most personalized insurance quotes by knowing which services your customers need
• Determine which customers can best use services for mitigation, new roofs or storm preparedness

Comprehensive, accurate risk data analysis of home and business natural hazard risks help people better prepare for natural disasters, understand what services they need or don’t need, and enables individuals to make better real-world decisions.

HazardHub Web Service at www.melissa.com.