Member Article

Environmental consultancy appoints managing director for new risk division

A leading UK environmental consultancy has appointed a new director to head up a new division.

Phillip Martin is taking charge as managing director of GeoSmart Risk, which is a division of Shrewsbury-based GeoSmart Information that will focus on high-quality flood data and analytics for the insurance and finance markets.

GeoSmart Information, which was established in 2013, is a UK leader in producing proprietary flood data. The consultancy has a strong technical base and a successful flood and environmental reports business that is used by commercial enterprises and in millions of domestic conveyances.

In November it launched FloodSmart Analytics, a product that enables insurers, risk managers and mortgage lenders to accurately assess flood risk at even single building level. It provides high-definition analysis for flood depths, probabilities and the costs of flooding from river, coastal, surface water and groundwater sources, including climate change impacts.

Phillip has been appointed to grow this part of the business. An experienced chartered accountant, he has more than 30 years’ experience in the insurance and finance industries with senior positions in global organisations including Marsh & McLennan, Goldman Sachs and Enstar.

“When I met the team at GeoSmart Information I was immediately impressed by its technical data,” he said.

“It was clear to me that its understanding of the complex peril that flood risk brings is second to none and it was obvious that this capability should be brought to the insurance and finance industries to help solve the problems of who should bear the increasing risk of climate change.

“In the UK, flood is a growing menace and when we secure long-term finance on a property but transfer the risk to insurers in annual insurance contracts, it is vital that each party has a clear understanding of risk to make these relationships work.

“FloodSmart Analytics was created for the insurance and finance sectors and I’m proud to be heading up the risk division of GeoSmart Information. We’ve seen the devastating effects of storms and flooding over the last few weeks alone. These are creating tangible problems for property owners and mean lenders and insurance companies are having to tackle increasingly complex issues.”

Welcoming Philip to the business, Paul Ellis, managing director of GeoSmart Information, said: “Phillip’s finance and insurance credentials are first class and will help us to focus our flood risk product on the organisations that will benefit from using it.”

GeoSmart’s data is already relied on by multiple sectors, from millions of home-owners to corporate entities and public sector operators, and the data have supported research by the Climate Change Committee (CCC), the UK’s independent adviser on tackling climate change.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Charlotte Smith .