ISO Services

Decision-support information on communities, buildings, and people

Where can you go for information on millions of commercial buildings and businesses? How can you assess and manage risks from catastrophes, terrorist attacks, and natural and man-made hazards? Does a community have adequate fire protection? What is the municipal water system like? Do the buildings conform to code? Is the community actively involved in floodplain management? How can you screen applicants? What tools can you use to identify and prevent fraud? ISO has the answers.

ISO provides a variety of services of value to government agencies at all levels — federal, state, and local — to help identify and mitigate risk. Services include:

Community fire protection

ISO partners with municipal fire authorities, city managers, and other community officials to evaluate local fire-protection resources for more than 45,000 areas. We assess a community’s fire-suppression system, including communications, fire departments, and water supply. Communities rely on ISO’s information to plan for, budget, and justify improvements in fire protection and communications infrastructure.

Municipal infrastructure

ISO works with municipal building-code authorities to assess and enforce building codes through its Building Code Effectiveness Grading Schedule (BCEGS™) program. We also work closely with community officials, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and flood insurance participants to help satisfy National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) requirements. ISO administers the NFIP’s Community Rating System — a program that assesses a community’s ability to mitigate flood damage.

Municipal water infrastructure

ISO works with community water authorities and local government officials to assess a community’s water-supply infrastructure and collect water-supply data. ISO has extensive information on more than 30,000 areas served by community water systems. By maintaining and evaluating this data, ISO provides crucial information for understanding the entire landscape of risk for specific properties and communities.

Commercial building information

ISO collects and maintains on-site property information on millions of commercial buildings and businesses. We collect, verify, and report on a building’s physical location, construction, occupancy, hazards, private and public fire protection, sprinkler system, water supply, and replacement cost, and maintain photos for many properties.

Building inspection services

More than 600 highly trained ISO field representatives — strategically located and electronically connected — visit properties and local municipalities to gather and verify site-specific information on fire protection and physical features of buildings. ISO tools and software systems fully automate inspection operations and workflow management.

Catastrophe risk

AIR Worldwide Corporation, an ISO subsidiary, provides analytical tools, software, and sophisticated models to assess and manage risks associated with natural catastrophes and terrorism. AIR alert services provide real-time information on hurricanes, earthquakes, and severe weather — helping you improve operational planning and risk-management strategies.

Hazard assessment

ISO provides address-specific risk information for natural catastrophes, fire-protection resources, community water systems, municipal building codes, and flood zones.

Fraud prevention

ISO develops and manages claims databases and modeling tools of interest to law enforcement authorities and government to identify and prevent fraud. We use data-visualization technology to detect fraud, audit massive amounts of data, and identify criminal activities. ISO also provides automated fraud protection, compliance, application verification, property valuation, and decision-support tools for the mortgage industry.

Public-records data

ISO provides public- and criminal-records data and application screening services for fraud investigations, employment checks, and other investigative activities.

Data verification

ISO works with organizations involved in the affordable housing industry to collect, authenticate, and report accurate data. Users can manage compliance, certification, and verification.

Data analysis and predictive modeling

ISO is the largest statistical agent — collecting and aggregating data from insurance companies on behalf of state regulators. We maintain some of the largest private databases in the United States. We also provide predictive modeling services to help insurers, regulators and agencies, and other governmental organizations manage exposure to risk.

Consulting and research  

ISO provides consulting services in areas such as catastrophe management, field-based consulting, data management, and statistical and actuarial analysis.