BuildFax, the national database of building permit activity and creator of the BuildFax Remodeling Index, has joined forces with Equifax, one of the nation’s largest credit monitoring firms. The new partnership will give property and casualty insurance carriers immediate access to property history information, improving the accuracy of their underwriting to develop better pricing strategies and reduce the potential for fraud.  

Insurance carriers can incorporate building permit data into their business decisions and more accurately identify over-valuations, under-valuations and everything in-between, thus accurately pricing home insurance for both new business opportunities and renewals, according to the announcement.  

"We focus on documenting and updating a structure’s 'life story' by collecting and providing detailed information for all U.S. residential and commercial property related decisions," said Holly Tachovsky, president of BuildFax. "We're very pleased to be joining forces with a recognized industry leader like Equifax, as this relationship will allow us to quickly introduce our unique dataset to the insurance industry. Equifax is known for bringing powerful intelligence to this vertical, and we are confident that our offering will strengthen its service and provide a level of transparency to building permit data not yet seen in the industry."

Based in Austin, Texas, and Asheville, N.C., BuildFax has created a proprietary property intelligence engine that contains building and permitting information from 4,000-plus cities and counties across the United States.