The Origins of Sciemus

Sciemus began specialising in the design of models for analysing complex risk in 2002 when the company was established by former investment banker, André Finn and ex RAF Officer, Neil Fleming. 

The pair met while researching for doctorates at Oxford University where their work on knowledge led strategies started them thinking about how modelling techniques could be used to improve risk assessment for insurance underwriting. André and Neil realised that these models would be sought after by specialist insurance industries, such as those providing cover for space missions and power stations. André and Neil approached defence technology experts, QinetiQ, with a proposal to utilise their existing defence data for commercial benefit. 

"QinetiQ had been designing technology for the Ministry of Defence for over 40 years and had been involved with many high profile space missions", explains Neil "without QineitQ's history and huge amount of data, our original risk assessment models would of been completely unviable". 

"Although the science behind our risk models is highly complex" adds André "the idea behind the business was much simpler; we had the idea but knew we needed QinetiQ's support to make it work."

QinetiQ realised the commercial potential involved and agreed a £650,000 deal to produce Sciemus' first model, SpaceRAT, designed to analyse the risks associated with spacecraft collision and breakdown. Now SpaceRAT is used to insure over 130 satellites in orbit.

Since then Sciemus and QinetiQ have developed models for the property, power, and renewable energy industries and more developments are in the pipeline. 

Changing the Face of Risk Analysis

The developments in technology made available by Sciemus have allowed risk to be made quantifiable in areas where it was previously almost impossible to calculate. Before Sciemus' models, underwriting for industries with complex risk had been based predominantly on small amounts of historical, often defunct data and a disproportionate amount of guess work. 

The Future

With similar models to Space, Power and Property already in development for 2011, the future is looking bright for Sciemus. André comments "The situation in financial services means that demand for this sort of detailed modelling can only increase and is already becoming an industry standard as it satisfies regulator requirements for more scientific risk assessment".