What are CRESTA Zones?

Accumulation zones for insurance & reinsurance

What are CRESTA Zones?

Accumulation zones for insurance & reinsurance

CRESTA Zones (Catastrophe Risk Evaluation and Standardising Target Accumulations) are part of an international geographic zoning system which helps brokers and reinsurers manage natural hazard risk. While peril-independent, CRESTA Zones are an established and uniform method to electronically transfer aggregated exposure data for accumulation, risk control and modelling among insurers and reinsurers.

What is a gazetteer?

Countries shown in red are covered by zones in the CRESTA standard

Who created the CRESTA zones standard?

The CRESTA standard was originally developed as a joint project between Swiss Reinsurance Company (Swiss Re), Gerling-Konzern Globale Reinsurance Company and Munich Reinsurance Company (Munich Re). Until recently, the secretariat roll alternated between Swiss Re and Munich Re. In 2018, the CRESTA Secretariat was assigned to the Swiss company, Perils AG.

How often are CRESTA zones updated?

The CRESTA standard is only updated every few years – most recently 2019. This can be problematic as many zones are defined by postal/zip codes. Postal authorities change post/zip codes all the time but the CRESTA standard is effectively frozen. The gap between the latest post/zip code data and the standard is widening daily and it is not safe to assume that a building with post/zip code 12345 will be in CRESTA zone XXX_12345.

Moving to digital CRESTA zones

Working in cooperation with MB International (Germany), we produce an independent implementation of the standard called Global CRESTA Plus. Europa Technologies was part of the team who brought the standard into the GIS mapping era and has maintained a CRESTA zone product longer than any other vendor. Using our experience as a supplier to Fortune Global 500 companies, including Google (Google Earth / Google Maps), Global CRESTA Plus is the only known product to implement the latest standard in the context of a well-maintained, up-to-date, political map.

Related products

Global CRESTA Plus

Global CRESTA Plus

Global CRESTA Plus helps brokers and reinsurers assess and present natural hazard risk, based on CRESTA zones, using the system established by the world’s leading reinsurers. It enables applications to quickly establish the CRESTA zone and then analyse/present aggregate risk across a portfolio. Global CRESTA Plus offers insurers an important basis for aggregated risk assessment, exposure management and reinsurance negotiation and reporting.