With the VdS competence field of risk management, an experienced partner is at the side of the insurer's own risk consultants. This makes it possible to absorb peak and special burdens without having to make time-consuming new appointments. Thanks to our many years of experience in fire protection support for industrial clients and the solution of fire protection problems, we can complement and enrich the know-how of the insurance engineers.

Our engineers have the experience to conduct a professional dialogue with both the experts in the property insurance line and the policyholders

• with the insurer's technical underwriters and risk engineers to integrate the necessary risk information into the underwriting process,
• with the policyholder to actively initiate loss prevention measures.

Furthermore, our close interlocking with the work of the GDV (German Insurance Association) committees enables us to recognise loss trends at an early stage and to make optimum use of them for our customers.

For industrial and large commercial insurers, the VdS engineers specialised in loss prevention carry out risk assessments. The risk information and assessments obtained on site are processed for underwriting (rating, evaluation of acceptance criteria, support in determining deductibles and maximum liabilities, EML and PML studies). We can also provide the loss prevention service often required by policyholders.

We typically use existing risk report templates and the insurance companies' assessment tools to provide underwriters with the working documentation they are already familiar with. On request, we can also produce VdS-own and individual assessments.

For major insurers' customers requiring intensive advice, who often have special requirements in terms of risk engineering services, we can of course also introduce or implement an account engineering programme on a national and international level. In doing so, certain central security needs of the policyholder can be combined with the insurance engineering services.

Further consulting services, also on the prevention of natural hazards (earthquakes, floods, heavy rainfall) as well as on the environmental hazards of contaminated fire-fighting water, can be integrated.

Our desk reports primarily support the initiation process of the management of industrial or large commercial risks in order to separate the "wheat from the chaff". Desk reports have been used for years by well-known industrial insurers as a systematic assessment tool. We analyse and evaluate the technical risk information (usually survey documents from sales partners and previous insurers) in a report that is comprehensible to our clients. In addition to our loss experience, we also have access to the latest geographic information systems (GIS) in order to make statements on the specific natural hazard situation of the risk.

If insufficient information is available on the risk, the Desk-Report identifies those focal points that require further detailed investigation on site. Our Desk-Reports can also be used for the demanding investment business, as we clearly list all the necessary risk information for our clients, which is needed for the assessment and which may need to be supplied subsequently.

For us, underwriting means knowing risk. For this reason, we attach great importance to the quality of our underwriting work.

We are able to analyse critical risk sectors in the underwritten portfolio of the insurer on the basis of the available technical risk information and present it as a sector risk profile. In doing so, we examine loss conspicuous risk classes (statistical accounts) in an F/FBU portfolio. As a result, we provide a current technical risk profile with the frequency and major loss scenarios known to us, from which measures for the future underwriting policy can be derived.

Based on this, of course, a so-called "insurer's own industry risk profile" can also be created and regularly maintained. This is a document that deals with all processes and developments in an industry. It graphically depicts the known existing processes and clearly assigns to them all special risks and loss possibilities. The necessary protective measures are shown and can be assigned acceptance criteria or protection values.