Florida Public Hurricane Loss Model (FPHLM): research experience in system integration

The Florida Public Hurricane Loss Model (FPHLM) developed in the State of Florida offers an open, public and effective tool for the government to regulate the insurance ratemaking process. It is also open to public scrutiny and provides an understandable baseline to check the windstorm insurance rate. Currently, the model has finished its development on probabilistic assessment of insured hurricane wind risk to residential properties and has successfully passed the audit of Florida Commission on Hurricane Loss Projection Methodology. As a multi-disciplinary large scale project, its system development and integration faced numerous challenges varying from technical factors to project management aspects. In addition, different from the general practice of software system development, FPHLM is essentially a research oriented project where the algorithms are constantly revised, validated and improved along with the research progress, which inevitably poses additional challenges upon the system development and integration cycle. With the help of systematic project management and advanced software development theories, techniques and tools, the FPHLM team overcame these challenges while maintaining delivery schedules, meeting budget constraints, and offering good software development practices. This paper addresses the challenges and experiences associated with the integration process of the FPHLM software system, which we believe will benefit the related digital-government applications.