Differentiating Risk

Automated Risk Analytics & Rating On-demand

FITS™Scores

InstantElevation™

InstantBFE™

InstantAoB™ (Above or Below)

Q-EC (Elevation Certificate)

PrecisionRate™

Automated Floodplain Mapping & Modeling

NFIP Standards

Multi-frequencies

Hydrology

Hydraulics

Nation-wide

Rapid

Inundation Mapping & Forecasting

Realtime

Forecasting

Above or Below at building

Historical events

Dam inundation

Emergency Management

Flood Visualization & Communication

PurpleWater™ on-demand

Photorealistic

Timely and actionable

Historical events reconstruction

True 3D flood water surface

Boost Risk Awareness

Instant Precision™

On-demand. Instant. Precise.

Stream Methods Inc is a professional engineering and technology company located in Herndon, Virginia, a suburb of Washington DC. We specializing in differentiating flood risk and promoting flood insurance through practical innovations. Our core capabilities include:

  • Flood Impacting Threshold Scores Modeling (FITS™)
  • Precise and Full Flood Risk Rating (PrecisionRating™)
  • Flood Analytics On-demand
  • Automated Floodplain Modeling & Mapping (NFIP standards)
  • Flood Inundation Modeling, Forecasting, & Mapping (PurpleWater™)
  • Flood Risk Visualization & Communication (PurpleWater™)

Our vision and contribution are crystallized in our practical invention, InstantPrecision™, a game-changing offering that produces and delivers critical risk analytics and ratings instantly, precisely, consistently, nation-wide, and on-demand.


Flood modeling and assessment is complex and costly. We designed InstantPrecision™ to free customers from dealing with those headaches and pains. InstantPrecision™ delivers on-demand all critical data points for risk rating including InstantElevation™, InstantBFE™, InstantBuildingFootprint™, InstantDetermination™, FITS™ Scores, FITS™ Frequency, FITS™ Elevation, and PrecisionRate™. Consuming these products can be as simple as a point-and-click. Analytics are also delivered and consumed by existing systems through standard machine-to-machine protocols. InstantPrecision™ allows customers to quickly enter desired market spaces without being hindered by high upfront investment and effort, focus on their core businesses without operating some massive internal productions, and generate ROI right away.


FITS™ Scores & Precision Rating™

Groundbreaking. Precise. Critical.


Differentiating flood risk precisely and consistently at the structure level is the mission of Stream Methods. In the company's search for answers to questions such as "what is the true and full risk of this building" and "why do I pay $20 more for insurance than my neighbor across the street," it has made several theoretical, mathematical, and practical breakthroughs.


In layman's language, Flood Impacting Threshold™ (FIT™) is an event when excessive water reaches a location on terrain or the foot of a building, but inundation or damage has not yet occurred. If the water rises a little bit more, inundation occurs and damage may follow. This threshold's existence is a physical property of a location or a manmade structure, independent of human judgement. It is also unique from location to location and building to building, assuming no two are exactly the same. FIT™ is a critical and driving factor for risk rating.


FIT™ events can be modeled and their characteristics determined. Some FIT™ characteristics are good candidates for a precise, simple, and meaningful "flood risk score" that is consistently and globally applicable. Stream Methods' FITS™ scores, for example, were launched in 2016 to provide on-demand data services of key FIT™ characteristics including FIT™ Frequency and FIT™ Elevation. A building at a FITS™ frequency of 1.3% is at higher risk than another of 1.2%. Similarly, a building with a 53-year FIT™ return period is at higher risk than one of 54-year. For risk communication purposes, FITS™ scores can be transformed in various ways, e.g. by applying a multiplier. If one house's FITS™ score is 102(1.02% x 10000) and the other house is 99 (0.99% x 10000,) one would expect the first house carrying a higher insurance premium. FITS™ scores are precisely modeled by a massive but consistent engineering workflow and can be directly utilized to generate other products such as premium ratings.


For various purposes, FITS™ scores can be further transformed into various formats including graphical. Launched in 2017, InstaScore™ was designed to be an easy-to-understand indicator of flood risk. InstaScores™ are transformed and grouped values of precise FITS™ scores fitting on an arbitrary scale of 5, 10, or others. They can be even further transformed and represented by a color scale such as green-yellow-orange-red, with green representing lower risk.


The concept of Flood Impacting Threshold™ lays the theoretical foundation for precisely differentiating risk. PrecisionRating™ calculates risk based on FIT™ , the "lower boundary" critical to rating risk precisely and fully. It calculates the full risk by counting the full range between this "lower bound" and a chosen "upper bound" event. The result is often significantly, even dramatically, different from rates calculated based on other rating methods because those systematically under- or over-rate full risk.


Flood Impacting Threshold™, FITS™ scores, InstaScore™, and PrecisionRating™ break out from the conventional paradigms such as the binary "in or out," "single frequency" (e.g. 100-year only,) or fixed-frequency (e.g. 50-100-200-500 years.) They precisely and consistently reflect the progressive nature of flood risk globally. Rather than describing a building is IN a 100-year floodplain with BFE 256 feet, for instance, now we say the building is AT / ON the line of 79-year FITS™ frequency with FITS™ elevation 254feet. The above mentioned concepts, products, and technologies are mature and available on massive scales. They are new and powerful tools for better accomplishing our mission: differentiate and communicate risk precisely, consistently, and at the building level.


(The above is to be presented at 2019 Annual Conference of Association of State Floodplain Managers.)

Enabling

New Opportunities


Lowered Barriers to Entry

Regional & National Scales

New & Expanded Markets

Competitive Advantage


Instant & Precise

High-confidence Pricing

No Unpleasant Surprises

Power of Being Early


No Upfront Investment

No Complexity in Modeling

Early Position in Market

30-word Spotlight

10

AUGUST

2022

InstantSEES™: Massively Enhanced

The following 3 workflows have been greatly enhanced: Fully automated virtual survey, better accuracy based on extra user inputs, and professional determination.

11

NOVEMBER

2021

PurpleWater™ Expanded

700 more sites are now covered. Flows are calibrated and 3D visualization becomes even more ... Purple

29

NOVEMBER

2019

Q-EC™: $AVE BIG. Stop Waiting!

A light Elevation Certificate for each house with critical information for insurance rating. Q-EC designed for expediting the insurance purchaing process and also bring big savings to homeowners, and ultimately help bring more buyers of flood insurance.

29

JULY

2019

InstantAoB™: Above or Below Water Surface?

On-demand prediction on the fundamental question of "Above or Below." At individual building level, based on both water surface elevation (e.g. BFE) and structure/floor elevation of the building. A fundamental question addressed by a fundamentally different approach!

11

MAY

2019

InstantSEES™ - A New Name

Name for our elevation on-demand service, previously VirtualSurvey™, ElevationMeasure™-P2H2E, and others. (We continue to use those habitually.)

30

AUGUST

2018

FITS™ Scores & PrecisionRating™

Launched for >2,000,000 buildings in Louisiana! Groundbreaking "Flood Impacting Threshold™." Including FIT-freqencies, FIT-elevations, FITS (score), InstaScore, and PrecisionRating for precise and full risk rating based on detailed information of a building.

16

MAY

2018

InstantPrecision™

New name officially adopted for the family of various on-demand products including: BFE, Elevation, Floor Elevation, FITS-scores, building footprint, Flood Determination, LOMA determination, NFIP Rating, AAL500 rating, and PrecisionRating.

16

OCTOBER

2017

Building Footprint On-demand

Coordinates of more than 200 million building footprints nation-wide based on Stream Methods' outstanding footprint extraction algorithms. Used for detailed flood risk analysis. Easy integration with existing systems. This simply the best!

24

AUGUST

2017

InstantBFE™ & InstantElevation™

On-demand UX is here! Instant, Pricise, Nation-wide, building-centric, up-to-date. Eliminating daily headaches. Based on continous water surfaces and Hi-Res elevation. Also launched are In/Out, FIT analytics, MT-1 Determination, and others.

14

DECEMBER

2016

FIT™ & M3F™ Report On-demand

Officially launched! FIT analytics and an Integrated flood risk report based on multi-freuquencies, Multi-maps, Multi-models. Determination of First Impacting threshold (later changed to "Flood Impacting Threshold™.")

13

AUGUST

2016

PurpleWater™ Forecast Launched

Timely Inundation forecasts. Hydrodynamic models then transformed to Photorealisitic 3D visualizations. PurpleWater also covers historic, (near-)realtime, and probabilistic flooding events, all are timely generated and easily understood.

22

AUGUST

2016

MACRO™ - A New Name

A new name for SMI's flood technology, reflecting top 5 benefits brought by this technology: Massive, Accurate, Cost-effective, Rapid, and On-demand. MACRO™ is behind everything SMI offers.

11

FEBRUARY

2016

VirtualSurvey™ Launched

Developed during Project Roanoke River and based on cutting-edge remote-sensing and CV technology, the service is for surveying any site virtually and achieving unmatched efficiency, scale, and speed.