Webinar Overview: GeoInsurance Ireland 2021 – Part 2
- December 17, 2021
ADDRESSLINK: A NEW SINGLE-SOURCE PROPERTY DATA API FOR THE ISLAND OF IRELAND
KEY TAKE-AWAYS:
- As its heart AddressLink is:
- A property-level database
- Aggregated from multiple sources
- Delivered and curated in the cloud
- Quality. Accuracy. Simplicity. AddressLink – delivering data resilience in a changing world.
- Test the data – schedule time with the team to establish what benefits AddressLink can start to deliver today.
Foundational Data for Evolutionary Times
In launching a new product it’s often key to impart upon the audience the rationale behind its creation. Nobody could do that better than Feargal O’Neill, CEO of Gamma Location Intelligence.
In simple terms, AddressLink is:
- A property-level database,
- Aggregated from multiple data sources – an in collaboration with data partners,
- Delivered and curated in the cloud.
Slide Image 1: AddressLink – The basics
Simple to say. But as anyone involved in data can testify, never as simple as it first seems to achieve.
Essentially AddressLink is an enormous data repository combining observed, recorded, modelled, and/or estimated datapoints at an individual property level using commercial and open datasets from various sources – delivered via API’s, sector specific solutions and dashboards – aligned to the needs of the end client.
And breathe.
It’s an ambitious project.
One that will see a phased rollout – initially covering the unified island of Ireland, followed by the introduction of UK data during 2022, and the delivery of the most comprehensive and extensive source of data for the combined geography of the UK and Ireland by 2023.
But as this data lives, breathes and evolves, so will AddressLink.
But why is it (AddressLink) needed…?
In many respects, it has been a long time coming.
However, markets have needed to evolve; technology, licensing and pricing have needed to be more accessible; and the ability of organisations – like Gamma – to apply their skills and capabilities in making it all consumable for your average business have all needed to align.
Oh, and then there is the fundamental need for businesses to have a driving requirement to utilise such sources to make better-informed decisions.
Whilst some of that is still in “catch-up” mode, Gamma is seeing 4 primary drivers in the market:
- Climate change adaptation – the ability to identify risk and adapt to risks associated with that change
- Climate change mitigation – the retrofit of inefficient properties to enable greater energy efficiency which will benefit the drive to net-zero
- Data growth and management – regardless of climate change, this driver alone is a dire need for many businesses
- All island approach and requirements – a cross-border solution enabling unified approaches
Slide Image 2: Why AddressLink is Needed
So why Gamma as your potential solution provider…?
Our experience – locally and globally – is second to none:
- 30-years (and more) of managing and collecting spatial data – in Ireland specifically and more generally across the globe
- Pioneers in address matching
- Leaders in cloud-based solutions to assess property level risk (and opportunity)
- Long standing experience of partnering with key data providers in the UK and Ireland to deliver intuitive solutions aligned to business needs and objectives
This stuff can be discombobulating even for the most accomplished data practitioners.
Gamma can be your guide.
Your antidote to a data headache…!
And what have the challenges been…?
Well, anyone familiar with any data-oriented project will not be surprised to learn that the challenges have been more significant than perhaps first imagined.
Even given our experience.
And that in many ways is why we feel we can offer a viable solution to organisations to avoid (in the main) the challenges that collating and curating such vast amounts of data presents.
So, the challenges we have faced, overcome – but will continue to manage on the behalf of ourselves and our customers are:
- Data quality – along with the variety of sources comes a range of qualities. As a business we are continuously assessing, reporting, and optimising data for onward use – ensuring it is fit for purpose.
- Good models – establishing these to estimate for any gaps in data that exist to ensure as far as possible that coverage is complete. These evolve as data improves.
- Making it compliant – a central tenet is the need for compliance – this is a mainstay within our business and an area that we are at pains to ensure we pass on to our clients. In hand with compliance, is the need for the data to be ethical – as an approach this places Gamma at the heart of what clients do and how they can ethically and compliantly utilise data to make informed decisions.
- Proper metadata – informing on the provenance, quality, and usage terms of the data – imparting our knowledge and experience on our clients, ensuring their confidence in using the data via APIs (or whatever mechanism that wish to consume the data by).
- Making it simple – from end-to-end we understand and empathise that “data wrangling” is far from simple and can be hugely overwhelming for many organisations where this activity is far from their core business capability. With skilled personnel in short supply, we offer a reassurance that data -oriented challenges don’t come to paralyse the day-to-day business operation.
Slide Image 3: The challenges
What is our final goal…?
Our real vision goes well beyond the local.
In years to come we envisage that AddressLink will become:
- A global data repository at property level
- Curated, graded, and cleaned data
- A single, simple process for handling pricing, administration, and privacy compliance
- To contribute to climate change adaptation and mitigation measures
Every journey starts with a single step.
With AddressLink we intend to take you forwards in leaps and bounds.
Slide Image 4: The final goal
Practicalities & Uses
The remainder of the session was dedicated to how businesses – especially those in financial and asset management organisations – can leverage AddressLink to make better informed decisions and attain greater confidence in the quality of data that those decisions are being made upon.
Richard Cantwell, principal consultant at Gamma LI, walked through the main components and data domains of the AddressLink solution.
A strapline for AddressLink could be “reassuringly validated” – our desire is to ensure that those who use the data are fully versed in what the data is telling them – which can be the biggest challenge for an organisation to overcome.
So, some facts and a figure that gives a view on what AddressLink is today:
- 3.38 billion data points
- Cleaned, verified, managed, hosted, and updated – for and on behalf of clients
- Metadata at the cell, row, column, table, and dataset level
- Confidence checks and cross validation
- GDPR compliance
- Mix of observed and modelled attributes
- Wide variety of sources – open, commercial and internally-produced.
Models are blended and mixed where appropriate to fill the gaps in observed/recorded data points. From rules-based through to deep learning methods are implemented to drive the best solution for the end user.
Slide Image 5: Data, completeness and being imperfectly perfect
Extensive testing to ensure that the confidence level at the data point level is a good as possible. And these will evolve.
In line with these methods, we utilise significant data management tools and techniques to ensure that this heavy lifting is minimised for our clients and enables us to evolve the AddressLink solution as more and more data comes online.
Slide Image 6: Building solid foundations – the overwhelming nature of data management
A key element of the management process is the validation of data. Our current rule-base stands at over 3,000 data checks per dataset – all of which is driving towards how fit for purpose the data is.
This is viewed historically, for consistency, for use in metadata and for ramping up on-site verification. A lot to contend with before you even start to use the data in anger.
So, what types of data are we collating…?
The broad domains of the data are established around 6 principles themes:
- Basic information
- The building as a structure
- Events at the building
- Insurable risks and hazards
- Proximity and position
- Occupancy and usage
Slide image 7: AddressLink domains – depth, breadth, and detail
**PLEASE NOTE – Detail of the AddressLink product can be viewed via the webinar recording.**
**Alternatively, please connect with a Gamma representative to gain insight on the data**
AddressLink. Reassuringly validated. Underpinned by standards.
Data connectivity is a brutal reality for all data providers.
If you aren’t aligned to the data standards that businesses are reliant upon then you are going nowhere fast.
As such, a key foundational element to the AddressLink solution and its ability to deliver on a unified island or Ireland perspective has been the incorporation of key attributes from OSI, OSNI and Eircode.
Representatives from each of these organisations provided their own view of the world and how they are becoming more open and more digital in their offerings.
Further insight from OSI, Eircode and OSNI can be seen in the webinar replay. As well as on their respective websites.
@ 2021 Gamma.ie by Jason Day
About Gamma
Gamma is a Location Intelligence (LI) solutions provider that integrates software, data and services to help our clients reduce risk through location intelligence. Established in Dublin, Ireland in 1993, and with offices in Manchester, UK and Bilbao Spain, the company has expanded to become a global provider of cloud-native location intelligent systems and services. Gamma’s Perilfinder™ risk mapping platform provides property underwriters with access to trusted property-level risk data easily, quickly and accurately.