Washington Surveying & Rating Bureau

What Washington Surveying & Rating Bureau does

Washington Surveying & Rating Bureau (WSRB) is an independent, not-for-profit rating bureau founded in 1911 and headquartered in Renton, Washington. It produces protection class (PC) evaluations, Building Code Effectiveness Grading Schedule (BCEGS) classifications, advisory loss costs, and standardized commercial property reports for insurance companies underwriting property in Washington state. Its data is approved by the Washington State Office of the Insurance Commissioner, and the bureau is authorized to submit filings on behalf of subscribers, creating a regulatory-anchored dependency for compliant insurance pricing in the state.

The underlying platform combines community-level fire protection assessments (evaluating fire department, water supply, emergency communications, and fire safety controls) with on-site inspections by a team of commercial property analysts, plus specialized tools such as the patent-pending SlopeScout (elevation/topographic slope analysis), the Location Information Report (a consolidated PDF of hazard and classification data), Individual Risk Premium Modifications, and Compliance Services. A wholly-owned subsidiary, BuildingMetrix, extends the offering with earthquake, cannabis, and other property risk data sets distributed nationally alongside every WSRB subscription. Distribution occurs through a subscriber website, API integration into insurer underwriting systems, and book-review requests.

WSRB operates a subscription-based B2B revenue model with annual billing. Subscribers are primarily Washington-state P&C insurance carriers, with secondary stakeholder relationships to fire service professionals, community officials, building owners, and insurance consumers. The company has approximately 51-100 employees, reports no public financials, and is not backed by venture capital or private equity. Recent product launches (Location Information Report in late 2024, SlopeScout and HauntHound in 2025, and the W Classification in early 2026) indicate an accelerating cadence of product surface expansion, though the core business remains geographically anchored to Washington state.

Name

Washington Surveying & Rating Bureau

Legal name

Washington Surveying and Rating Bureau, Inc.

Website

https://www1.wsrb.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

1911

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

51–100 employees

Short description

Washington Surveying & Rating Bureau (WSRB) is a not-for-profit rating bureau providing independent protection class evaluations, loss costs, commercial property inspections, and risk assessment tools to insurance companies underwriting property in Washington state.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Seattle

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Subscription Services: Insurance companies subscribe to WSRB services, gaining access to protection class data, loss costs, commercial property reports, compliance and filing services, and the BuildingMetrix Suite. Subscribers can access updated and regulator-approved forms and rules, order inspections at no additional cost, and receive API access.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

Washington Surveying & Rating Bureau (WSRB) is an independent, not-for-profit rating bureau that produces protection class evaluations, advisory loss costs, and commercial property inspection reports for property and casualty insurers underwriting property in Washington state. The company generates community-level fire protection ratings, BCEGS classifications, and on-site COPE (Construction, Occupancy, Protection, Exposure) reports, and distributes this data via subscription, including through its BuildingMetrix Suite subsidiary and API integrations.

Product overview

WSRB offers a unified data and analytics platform for property and casualty insurance, primarily serving Washington state. The core platform includes protection class evaluations, loss costs, and commercial property inspections. The BuildingMetrix Suite (a subsidiary) extends capabilities with additional risk assessment tools. Key products include Location Information Reports, SlopeScout for slope analysis, Commercial Property Reports (CPR), BCEGS classifications, HauntHound for paranormal exposure, Individual Risk Premium Modifications, and compliance/filing services. The platform also offers API access for system integration.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• BuildingMetrix Suite: A collection of high-value, hard-to-find data sets designed to help insurers stay ahead of emerging risks, gain clearer insight into existing risks, and strengthen business portfolios. Includes tools for earthquake, cannabis, and other property risk factors.
• HauntHound
• SlopeScout

Products and services

• WSRB Solutions Platform (Subscription)
• BuildingMetrix Suite
• Protection Class Evaluation
• Advisory Loss Costs
• Commercial Property Reports (CPR)
• Building Code Effectiveness Grading Schedule (BCEGS)
• Location Information Report
• SlopeScout
• Individual Risk Premium Modifications (IRPM)
• Compliance and Filing Services
• Geospatial and Consulting Services
• HauntHound
• W Classification

Quantifiable outcome

• Protection Class evaluations cover fire department, water supply, emergency communications, and fire safety control - providing comprehensive fire risk assessment
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers1 record

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature7 records

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• BuildingMetrixcoreOthersBuildingMetrix is a wholly-owned subsidiary of WSRB offering advanced risk assessment tools including earthquake risk data, cannabis risk factors, and other property risk datasets. BuildingMetrix Suite is included with WSRB subscription in every state where subscribers do business, extending WSRB's reach beyond Washington state.

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Verisk: National leader in insurance data analytics, originally Insurance Services Office (ISO). Operates the dominant US insurance rating bureau plus analytics, claims, and underwriting data products — directly comparable to WSRB's protection class and loss cost services but at vastly larger national scale.
• AAIS (American Association of Insurance Services): Member-owned P&C insurance advisory and rating organization that develops advisory loss costs and forms for participating insurers. Closely comparable in mutual/non-profit-like structure and P&C rating mission to WSRB's regulator-blessed loss cost advisory.

Broad incumbents

• CoreLogic: Large property data and analytics provider serving insurance, mortgage, and real estate. Overlaps with WSRB on property-level risk data for underwriting, but operates a much broader portfolio across the housing and mortgage lifecycle.
• RMS (Risk Management Solutions, Moody's): Catastrophe risk modeling firm used by insurers worldwide. Comparable to WSRB's SlopeScout and BCEGS products in modeling physical property risk, though RMS focuses on large-scale catastrophe loss models rather than community-level protection grades.
• AIR Worldwide (Verisk): Catastrophe risk modeling firm, now part of Verisk, providing probabilistic models for property catastrophe. Overlaps with WSRB on environmental hazard assessment for insurance underwriting but at multi-peril national scale.

Emerging players

• ZestyAI: AI-driven property risk analytics company using computer vision and machine learning on aerial and interior imagery. Emerging direct competitor to WSRB's manual commercial property inspections and BCEGS-style assessments, but with a national, capital-backed footprint.
• First Street Foundation: Non-profit climate risk data provider producing property-level flood, fire, and heat risk scores. Overlaps with WSRB's environmental risk products (e.g., SlopeScout, BCEGS) and shares a non-profit-style mission of supplying public-interest risk data.
• KatRisk: Catastrophe risk modeling firm producing probabilistic flood, hurricane, and wildfire models. Partial overlap with WSRB's property hazard data products, though KatRisk focuses on catastrophe-scale modeling rather than community protection classification.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/wsrb
• Xx.com/wsrbsolutions
• Facebookfacebook.com/WSRBSolutions

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles6 records

Subsidiaries2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Washington Surveying & Rating Bureau