Catastrophe data company Perils has launched a real-time hailstorm loss forecasting tool for Australia, and says it’s the first time the capability has been available to the insurance industry.

Known as “Hail-Jeannie Australia”, it provides information on hail size and industry losses for severe hailstorms, and is updated every six hours, allowing for continuous coverage of hail activity across the country.

Head of Asia-Pacific Darryl Pidcock said the tool provides a new hailstorm risk perspective as the region moves into the upcoming storm season.

“It offers multiple benefits to users such as enhancing the ability to understand the potential impact of a hailstorm immediately after an event and helping insurers prepare the necessary resources to respond quickly and effectively to assist those affected by a major event,’ Mr Pidcock said.

Hail-Jeannie converts weather radar data from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology into best-estimates of hailstone sizes to model the industry loss for the past six hours, effectively providing a real-time loss estimate every six hours all year. These hail loss footprints can be downloaded by postcode.

Perils has also updated its Wind-Jeannie platforms for Australia and Europe to include state-of-the-art animations of approaching windstorms seven days into the future, with detailed interactive maps to evaluate industry loss forecasts. It is also developing a Wind-Jeannie platform for Florida hurricanes.

Wind-Jeannie provides industry loss forecasts for windstorm events 72 hours ahead. Loss forecasts are continuously updated every 12 hours and each industry loss forecast is broken down into detailed footprints of the forecasted wind gusts and the resulting losses.

Users can set up email alerts for wind and hail events exceeding a defined loss level to remain up to date.