BALTIMORE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) was presented the 2016 Innovation Torchbearer Award today at the Insurance Marketing & Communications Association’s (IMCA) 2016 Annual Conference in Baltimore.
IMCA’s annual Innovation Torchbearer Award, one of the most prestigious awards in the insurance industry, recognizes individuals or organizations that have demonstrated innovative ideas or initiatives impacting the insurance industry.
“IMCA selected the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety for this prestigious honor as a result of its impactful scientific research to identify and promote the most effective ways to strengthen homes, businesses and communities against natural disasters and other causes of loss,” said Mark Friedlander, IMCA board chair and head of corporate communications at The Main Street America Group.
Friedlander added, “By putting building materials, construction and installation practices to the test, and identifying and effectively communicating answers to complex questions, IBHS effectively demonstrates how building safety research leads to real-world solutions, helping insurers and their policyholders mitigate against losses.”
Among IBHS’s many impactful achievements:
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Operates a state-of-the-art, world-class research center in Chester
County, S.C. At the research center, which opened in 2010, IBHS:
- Conducts laboratory testing on one- and two-story residential and commercial buildings in conditions that mimic Mother Nature’s extreme weather events including hailstorms, windstorms, wind-driven rain, wildfires and fires.
- Gathers data to provide the building community with information to make structures safer, stronger and more durable.
- Provides the scientific community with a facility where they can generate scientific findings that led to real-world solutions and applications
- Executes field testing in U.S. Tornado Alley states each spring.
- Focuses on capturing public and media attention during post-disaster timeframes.
- Packages its data, guidance and compelling videos and photographs into timely, relevant and actionable information and messages.
Other nominees for the 2016 IMCA Innovation Torchbearer Award were Allstate Business Insurance, John Hancock Insurance and The Co-operators.
Nominees were judged by a panel of IMCA board members and scored within three key areas of evaluation:
- Overall impact of innovation on a national or international level.
- Impact of innovation on respective insurance industry segment.
- Degree of innovation deployed in executed creative strategy.
Past winners of the annual IMCA Innovation Torchbearer Award, initiated in 2012, include:
- 2012: USAA
- 2013: Esurance, An Allstate Company
- 2014: Swiss Re
- 2015: Insurance Information Institute (III)
About IBHS
The Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS), based in Tampa, Fla., is an independent, nonprofit, scientific research and communications organization supported solely by property insurers and reinsurers. IBHS conducts objective, scientific research to identify and promote the most effective ways to strengthen homes, businesses and communities against natural disasters and other causes of loss.
About the Insurance Marketing & Communications Association (IMCA)
IMCA (www.imcanet.com) is the oldest insurance marketing association in North America with roots tracing back to 1921. Membership includes leading international and domestic multi-line insurance companies and brokerage firms, regional and specialty companies, general agencies, and prominent industry suppliers. The organization represents over 120 companies, including the top five North American property/casualty writers. Members include senior level management and professional staff working in the areas of corporate communications, advertising, public relations, marketing communications, marketing and sales promotion, marketing research and technology.
