Interesting list from Randmark40

An address might not always be specified, but risk is always limited to a specific address, a country, a region, or a planet. Neil Armstrong’s domestic policy would not have covered loss of personal effects during his walkabout on the moon! Addresses form an important foundation of insurance. Much is dependent thereon whether it is a risk item, an insured event, or the rating factor of a premium.

In South Africa, a postal code is a four-digit number that assists the Post Office with the automated sorting of mail. Each code is linked to a post office, a postal agency, a postal depot or a mail collection point.

In SA, there are more than 58 000 place names, 10 000 postal codes, and an approximate 16 000 place names have postal codes ascribed to them. Moreover, place names change : "Pietersburg" has become "Polokwane", "Messina" became "Musina", "Ellisras" became ""Lephalale". Certain place names have bilingual spelling, for instance: “Die Wilgers” is often referred to as “The Willows”. "Cookhouse" is also known as "Kookhuis". In addition, the same code can be used for multiple place names, and the same place name can have multiple codes associated with it! One must remember that the postal code list subtly changes from time to time - apart from "growing" ever-so-slightly every month - as postal codes were not intended as absolute spatial references.

Allthough a postal code links a placename, sorting centre and province to one another, the provincial demarcation does not correspond with actual boundaries, but postal hub zones. It is not always clear what the "town name" linked to the code constitute, as one finds "Johannesburg" or"Pretoria" on thousands records, however, neither of them being a town.

In addition to the above, the public often do not know what the relevant postal code of an address is. We may mistake our postbox code as our area code, or might assume that we live in Hyde Park whereas we actually live in (next-door) Dunkeld West. Garbage in, garbage out...

However - and despite the above - postal codes are used as a spatial references that are usefull, widely used and quite effective. Even CRESTA (Catastrophe Risk Evaluating and Standardizing Target Accumulations) ZONE codes that describe natural-disaster risk areas, are assigned to postal code demarcation.




What have we done?

A very useful dataset is contained in the South African Magisterial District demarcation, as it forms the basis of:


a) general census data,


b) crime statistics,

c) petrol price zoning.

These districts constitute stable data points, and a wealth of data is available for comparative purposes.





We have tackled the existing list/s head-on, and compiled our own list of place names, with:

a) place name duplications removed i.r.o. Eng / Afr spelling,

b) alternative (old) place names kept intact (for searchability),

c) new place names and/or spelling format included ,

d) new postal codes updated,

e) CRESTA zone codes (primary & secondary) incorporated,

f) CRESTA codes aligned with post - 1994 provinciual demarcations,

g) Post Office hub zones included,

h) postal codes having been resolved to magisterial districts,

i) the Post Office's list's 'town name' references reconstituted as 'area name', having improved on it,

j) referencing " known as" references to placenames (in process).

It simply means that when you select an address, our Ks4 system populates a substantial number of additional fields associated with your selection, which becomes available for report purposes. Potentially you could track claims loss ratio's per magisterial district, and interpolate such data with census statistics ; as an underwriting tool the list is an absolute breath of fresh air! In due course it might become the foundation of all insurance reports. It's - quite probably - simply as "good as it gets".

We believe the RM40 postal code dataset to be the most cost effective spatial dataset tool available, today. It is incorporated into our Ks4 insurance data platform, but is also available as a standalone, software-as-a-service arrangement, whereby the list is made available, and updated (quarterly).

More: http://www.randmark40.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=29&Itemid=50