Updated CRESTA Maps for the Insurance Industry

The CRESTA organisation (Catastrophe Risk Evaluation and Standardizing Target Accumulations) is involved with the management of natural hazard risk coverage from an insurance point of view. The goal is to record such natural occurrences as flooding, earthquakes and storms in a standardised manner to permit prognoses to be derived from them.

GfK MACON is the official supplier of the CRESTA maps. Based on the digital maps produced by GfK MACON, the CRESTA maps were prepared for the first time in 2002, subdivided into zones and subzones. The latest update reflecting the 2005 status is now available. The map package comprises the 13,222 zones and 455 subzones of all countries in the world.

CRESTA is currently under the patronage of the Münchner Rück reinsurance company. A uniform system to control the damage caused by natural hazards all over the world is required in order to calculate possible occurrences, their intensity, their geographic limits and the likelihood of their occurrence on the basis of natural hazard models.

In the CRESTA maps, country-specific zones are determined for the uniform and detailed recording of natural hazards. These are regarded as widely accepted standards in the international insurance industry.

The maps from GfK MACON are available for ESRI and MapInfo products, as well as the marketing and sales software RegioGraph and DISTRICT.