Risk Management Solutions (RMS), a provider of products and services for the management of natural hazard risk, announced the acquisition of HailCalc Europe, the first fully probabilistic hail loss simulation software for Europe. The model was built by a team of atmospheric scientists in conjunction with Swiss Re and has been actively used to assess hail risk in Europe since 2004.

"RMS is excited to offer the HailCalc Europe technology to a wide range of industry users through its extensive global support network," says J?rg M?ller, vice president of RMS Zurich. "There is an increasing demand for hail modeling in Europe, and together with recent and upcoming releases of new flood and earthquake models, RMS clients will be able to model key drivers of loss across most of continental Europe."

During summer months in continental Europe, damaging hail produced by severe thunderstorms is a significant regional hazard causing heavy, though localized, damage that often is underestimated. Insurers are widely exposed to hail losses because typically cover is included within windstorm policies and most fully comprehensive motor policies across Europe. The 1984 Munich hailstorm generated more than $973 million of insured losses in today's values of which more than 50 percent was attributed to auto damage.