Tracking and preventing losses in homes, businesses.

Formed in 1971 as the National committee on Property Insurance and based in Boston, the Institute Business and Home Safety took its current name in 1997. The institute is now in Tampa, Fla., where its head-quarters was built to resemble the shape of a hurricane, complete with an eye in the middle. It also serves as a hurricane shelter for employees.

Harvey Ryland, who came to IBHS in 1996 after serving as deputy director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said the institute's primary purposes are to improve the bottom line of members and to build and maintain a positive public image for the insurance industry. Ryland is the institute's president and chief executive officer. The institute works to reduce the consequences of windstorms, earthquakes, wildland fires, hailstorms, tornadoes and water damage. Water damage accounts for about one-third of industry claims, Ryland said.

Direct help to members is in the form of information insurers can use to conduct actuarial studies, make underwriting and claims decisions, and take loss-control actions. "Where we really shine is by helping reduce the outgo, frequency and severity of claims and claims-processing expenses," said Ryland. Examples include data about hail risk by county for each state; the insurance consequences of local building codes; and state-specific information on mold regulations or licensing requirements for adjusters. The institute maintains a loss database on catastrophes (losses of at least $25 million), and it is building one that covers day-to-day losses. When it is finished, that database will be made available on member companies' desktop computers.

In a project with Underwriters Laboratories, the institute developed hail-resistant roofing materials. Project tests involved dropping steel balls onto roofs and shooting frozen ice balls at them from a gun to determine which materials better withstand the impact of hailstones. Ryland said if only 5,000 homes equipped with such roofs in a given area don't sustain damage in the next hailstorm, insurers would save $20 million in claims less deductibles. Similarly, if 5,000 businesses with an average net income of $2,000 a week have business-recovery plans in place, and they reopen their doors just one week sooner as a result of having plans, insurers would save $10 million in business-interruption payments.

Some studies also illustrate the potential savings from the institute's programs. Ryland said a new hurricane code in Texas, which affects only new home and business construction, would result in a savings of $155 million through 2013 and $277 million through 2023. Another study showed that if buildings in south Florida were retrofitted for hurricane resistance, and new buildings were built to withstand such storms, more than $10 billion in damage could be prevented from a hurricane the strength of 1992's Andrew, Ryland said. Yet another study examined benefit of protection along the coast of North Carolina from windborne debris. "Part of our effort was to show local officials the advantages of disaster-resistant construction," Ryland said.

The institute also employs land-use planning as a mitigation tool. Twenty-four states now require local governments to prepare comprehensive disaster plans, and nine states require that localities address natural hazards as part of those plans. In a study to be released this year, professor Raymond Burby, director of city and regional planning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, calculated that if those plans had been in effect in all states that experienced losses from 1994 to 2000, insured losses could have been reduced by about $230 million. Ryland said the nation isn't nearly far enough along in creating disaster-resistant communities by getting natural hazards to be considered in land-use planning, and that the institute is working to promote adoption of such measures.

Through public outreach on television and in newspapers, particularly ahead of storms, the institute urges residents in Florida and other hurricane-prone states to retrofit their buildings to make them more resistant to damage. Ryland said, however, the institute doesn't know bow many people have adopted the recommended techniques. The most simple procedure is to buy a glue gun from a home-remodeling store and "glue down your roof," he said. Also important is to protect doors and windows, because a strong wind that comes into a building can blow oft" a roof, he added.