Reference Peril Vocabulary: Design Specification

Version 0.2, draft for review. Specifies the reference peril vocabulary of LATTICE’s applied insurance reference implementation, and how Open CBAA uses it as one of the peril schemes an agreement may bind. Open CBAA authors no peril scheme: the contract’s drafter or the market supplies it, and the MORK bridge connects what they supply to this reference. The companion whitepaper argues why the vocabulary has the shape it has, and the asset exposure ontology is its main consumer outside the contract.

Citations of design-spec and of codes AP, DP, D and I refer to Open CBAA’s design specification and LATTICE integration specification. Where this sketch and the applied insurance reference epic or its ADRs (A-98 to A-102) differ, they take precedence.

1. Purpose and Position

A peril, in this vocabulary, describes a event or condition that could result in an adverse outcome: an earthquake, burst pipe, riot, ransomware attack, insolvency, etc. Market usage stretches the word much further, to consequences (business interruption), the thing harmed (cargo), legal bases (product liability), and to lines of business (such as “automotive”).

The reference vocabulary keeps the word to its core sense and gives each of those other axes its own scheme, so each can be matched, excluded and crosswalked on its own terms (whitepaper §4).

1.1 What the CBAA drafts ask of it

The module drafts and their base tables define the requirements the vocabulary must serve.

2. Principles

3. Architecture

One release contains several schemes, each a separate voc:ConceptScheme edition with its own identity, so each can be versioned and bound on its own.

flowchart TB
    subgraph Release["Reference peril vocabulary release"]
        C["Cause scheme (backbone)<br/>~240 concepts, 8 families"]
        M["Mechanism scheme"]
        A["Agency scheme"]
        O["Onset scheme"]
        D["Definition basis scheme"]
        K["Accumulation class scheme"]
        Q["Consequence scheme"]
        H["Harm subject scheme"]
        I["Intensity measure scheme"]
        B["Collections<br/>bundles, model groups, standard sets"]
    end
    C -- "prl:typicalMechanism" --> M
    C -- "prl:typicalAgency" --> A
    C -- "prl:onset" --> O
    C -- "prl:definitionBasis" --> D
    C -- "prl:accumulationClass" --> K
    C -- "prl:intensityMeasure" --> I
    C -- "prl:typicalConsequence" --> Q
    B -- "skos:member" --> C
    I -- "prl:measuredOn" --> V["qnt:ValueSpace"]
    X["Crosswalks<br/>open cat codes, market cause-of-loss lists"] -- "skos:*Match / MORK" --> C

4. Namespaces, Files and Versions

An insurance sub-domain module of LATTICE’s applied layer, applied/insurance/peril/, beside common/, exposure/ and the others (asset exposure ontology §3). It has its own release cycle for editions and crosswalks. Its scheme contract is in insurance/common/, so modules that only classify by peril need not import the vocabulary. Applied content is not substrate, so LATTICE’s clean-room rule does not govern its naming. Open CBAA resolves it through its catalog by release tag, as it does LATTICE’s layers.

… is https://www.nebularis.org/neuro-semantic. Namespace https://www.nebularis.org/neuro-semantic/insurance/peril#, prefix prl:, for properties and datatypes. Schemes and concepts live in the vocabulary’s own namespace, https://www.nebularis.org/neuro-semantic/insurance/peril/vocab#, prefix prl-voc: (ADR-A98 decision 6). Examples in this sketch write concepts as prl:: read them as prl-voc:. Each scheme carries skos:editorialNote stating it is a reference edition, and fnd:hasGovernanceState Active.

Every concept carries:

• skos:prefLabel (at least @en), skos:definition, skos:inScheme
• a reference code as skos:notation typed prl:ReferenceCode (the dotted codes of §5). Codes are stable across editions, and a retired code is never reused
• prl:typicalAgency, prl:onset and prl:definitionBasis (cause scheme only), so every cause is placed on those axes and none is left implicit
• optionally skos:scopeNote, skos:altLabel, market notations (§9) and the relations of §6

5. The Cause Scheme

Eight top concepts. Codes are family.group.concept. K marks a kind (prl:broaderGeneric), P a part of an event (prl:broaderPartitive), per §6.1. Unmarked children are kinds. The last column gives the open cat-model code where one exists, and notes.

5.1 N — Natural hazard

5.2 T — Technological and accidental

5.3 E — Error, defect and deterioration

5.4 H — Deliberate human acts

5.5 P — Conflict and political

5.6 C — Cyber

The first split is by agency, because every market wording that treats cyber splits there (malicious act, or non-malicious event with a write-back). The agency characteristic is still asserted on each concept, so both views agree.

5.7 F — Financial and counterparty

“Financial guarantee” is not a cause. The CBAA standard exclusion that names it reads as a class of business and an insurable interest, and the reference collection for that exclusion (§7.3) says so (whitepaper §3.2).

5.8 L — Life and health

6. Structure Beyond SKOS

SKOS gives broader, narrower, related, collections and mapping properties. The vocabulary needs six more things, each added in a form SKOS consumers can ignore safely (PV9).

6.1 Kinds and parts: generic and partitive broader

prl:broaderGeneric    rdfs:subPropertyOf skos:broader .   # a kind of
prl:broaderPartitive  rdfs:subPropertyOf skos:broader .   # a part of the parent event

Aligned with the international thesaurus standard’s RDF vocabulary (iso-thes:broaderGeneric, iso-thes:broaderPartitive) by owl:equivalentProperty, so thesaurus tooling reads them. Each concept states exactly one of them to its primary parent, and skos:broader is materialised so SKOS consumers and LATTICE’s HierarchicalMatch (which walks skos:broader+) see the plain hierarchy.

The distinction matters in three places. A hurricane deductible applies to kinds of tropical cyclone, not to its parts. “All tropical cyclone perils” for a model means every part. A generated design-time class (Surface) may need either reading. Matching on generic links only needs an Eligibility option LATTICE lacks (whitepaper §7, L-P2).

6.2 Typed associative relations

prl:canTrigger  a owl:ObjectProperty , owl:IrreflexiveProperty ;
    rdfs:subPropertyOf skos:semanticRelation .       # directed: initiating → secondary
prl:overlaps    a owl:ObjectProperty , owl:SymmetricProperty , owl:IrreflexiveProperty ;
    rdfs:subPropertyOf skos:related .                # symmetric: extensions intersect

prl:canTrigger records cross-family causation (tropical cyclone to inland flood, cyber to fire, freeze to pipe burst). It is directed, and SKOS has no directed associative property: its only associative relation, skos:related, is symmetric, so a sub-property of it would entail the association in both directions. prl:canTrigger is therefore a sub-property of skos:semanticRelation, which SKOS provides as the super-property for relations of meaning between concepts. It is neither symmetric nor transitive: chains of triggering are facts about occurrences (§6.7). In the §5 tables, “prl:canTrigger from X” means X prl:canTrigger the row’s concept. SKOS makes only skos:related disjoint with skos:broaderTransitive (S27), so the SKOS integrity shape (§10) states the same rule for prl:canTrigger explicitly: it never links an event to its own parts (PV2 puts those under broader).

prl:overlaps is declared symmetric itself, because a sub-property does not inherit its super-property’s symmetry.

It records that two concepts’ extensions intersect without either being a kind of the other: named storm and tropical cyclone, cyclone surge and coastal flood, social engineering fraud and social engineering attack. It is the signal that a wording may classify an occurrence under either, and every overlap is a candidate for a classification statement (§8).

6.3 Characteristic properties

Plain object properties with domain skos:Concept, each constrained by a scheme contract to its characteristic scheme:

“Typical” marks a default. An occurrence’s actual agency or mechanism is a fact about the occurrence (a loss record, a claim), recorded there with the same characteristic schemes.

6.4 Links to Quantification

prl:intensityMeasure  a owl:ObjectProperty ;   # cause concept → intensity measure concept
    rdfs:domain skos:Concept .
prl:measuredOn        a owl:ObjectProperty ;   # intensity measure concept → qnt:ValueSpace
    rdfs:range qnt:ValueSpace .
prl:definingThreshold a owl:ObjectProperty ;   # threshold-defined concept → qnt:RangeSet
    rdfs:range qnt:RangeSet .
prl:customaryEventWindow a owl:ObjectProperty ; # informative: qnt:Quantity on a duration space
    rdfs:range qnt:Quantity .

Each intensity measure has a qnt:ValueSpace with a unit contract (acceleration in g or m/s², wind speed in m/s, kn or mph, depth in m). A threshold-defined concept (hurricane, a wording’s “storm”) points at the range set that defines it, on the measure’s space, with the averaging period stated by the measure (1-minute sustained against 10-minute mean are different measures, not different units). Parametric triggers reuse the same spaces.

prl:customaryEventWindow records the window a peril’s occurrences are customarily grouped by (72 hours for wind, 168 hours for earthquake and flood are common). It is informative only (PV8). The window that applies is a contract term.

6.5 Links to exposure data

prl:relevantAttribute   a owl:ObjectProperty .  # cause concept → exposure attribute type concept
prl:minimumGeoPrecision a owl:ObjectProperty .  # cause concept → geocoding precision concept

prl:relevantAttribute names the exposure attributes that change loss for the peril: roof geometry and opening protection for tropical cyclone wind, soil class and soft storey for shaking, first-floor height and basement for flood. The exposure ontology uses it to derive completeness warnings and data requests. prl:minimumGeoPrecision states the geocoding level below which a peril’s hazard cannot be assessed (building level for flood and wildfire, street level for shaking, postcode level for cyclone wind).

6.6 Market and regional labels

Regional synonyms are skos:altLabels when they denote the same concept (bushfire, tempest). Where a label carries a market’s meaning, the market edition uses SKOS-XL labels with a scope note, or, if the meaning differs, a narrower concept of its own with a crosswalk (§9).

6.7 What was considered and not adopted

6.8 Checks across cause and characteristics

Eligibility never reads the vocabulary’s structure beyond skos:broader. A check that accounts for a cause and its characteristics is a profile with one condition per axis, each bound to the same subject (ADR-A91). The London cyber write-back, “a non-malicious cyber event that results in fire or explosion”, evaluates each link of a loss’s cause chain (asset exposure ontology §5.12):

ex:cyber-write-back a elg:AdmissionProfile ;
    elg:compatibilityOperation elg:AllRequired ;
    elg:hasCondition ex:is-cyber , ex:not-malicious , ex:burns .

ex:is-cyber a elg:Condition ;
    elg:matchStrategy elg:HierarchicalMatch ;
    elg:constrainedByContract icm:PerilContract ;
    elg:requiredConcept prl:C .
ex:not-malicious a elg:Condition ;
    elg:matchStrategy elg:SetMembership ;
    elg:constrainedByContract icm:PerilAgencyContract ;
    elg:requiredConcept prl:Accidental , prl:Negligent .
ex:burns a elg:Condition ;
    elg:matchStrategy elg:SetMembership ;
    elg:constrainedByContract icm:PerilMechanismContract ;
    elg:requiredConcept prl:Fire , prl:Explosion .

ex:is-cyber-binding a elg:EvidenceBinding ;
    elg:bindsCondition ex:is-cyber ;
    elg:subjectClass aeo:LossCause ;
    elg:evidenceStep [ a elg:EvidenceStep ; elg:stepIndex 0 ;
                       elg:stepProperty aeo:peril ; elg:stepDirection elg:Forward ] .
ex:burns-binding a elg:EvidenceBinding ;
    elg:bindsCondition ex:burns ;
    elg:subjectClass aeo:LossCause ;
    elg:valueReading elg:SomeValue ;         # a link may record several mechanisms (ADR-A103)
    elg:evidenceStep [ a elg:EvidenceStep ; elg:stepIndex 0 ;
                       elg:stepProperty aeo:mechanism ; elg:stepDirection elg:Forward ] .
# ex:not-malicious binds to aeo:LossCause through aeo:agency the same way.

The other uses of the structure reduce to things Eligibility already does:

Against a drafter’s list, the same profile degrades without new rules. The list’s codes carry no characteristics, so conditions reading them are Undetermined (exe:MissingCandidate), and hierarchical match over a list without a hierarchy leaves unnamed codes Undetermined (exe:NoHierarchy, ADR-A100). A reviewed crosswalk that maps a code exactly lets it be decided against the reference (MORK bridge §3).

7. Collections

7.1 Kinds

Collections are editioned with the vocabulary and immutable once published. A market edition supplies its own bundles (§9.3). Membership includes narrower concepts implicitly: a bundle member means the member and everything below it.

7.2 Using collections and open perils in scopes

Collections are expanded at bind time into required or excluded concepts of an Eligibility condition, so no Eligibility change is needed. An open-perils grant is a hierarchical condition whose required concepts are the top concepts of the edition in force, generated at bind time, with the exclusions as excluded concepts (ADR-A87). elg:Wildcard is not used: it would also admit a value from outside the bound scheme, and “all perils” means all perils of the edition.

# CBAA vacant property segment: "direct physical loss or damage excluding flood and earthquake".
ex:perils a elg:Condition ;
    elg:matchStrategy elg:HierarchicalMatch ;
    elg:compatibilityOperation elg:AllRequired ;
    elg:wildcardSemantics elg:NoWildcard ;
    elg:constrainedByContract rsk:PerilContract ;
    elg:requiredConcept prl:N , prl:T , prl:E , prl:H , prl:P , prl:C , prl:F , prl:L ;
    elg:excludedConcept prl:N.HYD.FLD , prl:N.GEO.EQ , prl:N.MET.TC.SRG , prl:N.MET.TC.RFL .

The last two exclusions show why the choice between reading flood by cause and flood by mechanism has to be made in the wording (§8): the bound statement’s classification decides whether cyclone surge and rainfall flooding are excluded as flood.

7.3 Reference collections

8. What the Vocabulary Leaves to Wording

Open CBAA’s statement kinds (design-spec §3.3) carry the contract-relative meaning the vocabulary refuses to fix:

The vocabulary’s prl:overlaps links are the checklist: every overlap a bound scope touches should be resolved by a classification or definition in the wording, and a shape can warn when one is not (§10).

8.1 Agency is not liability direction

The agency characteristic records who or what acted to cause an event. It does not say who was harmed, who is liable, who claims or who is paid. Those are party roles, and liability direction (first party, third party, insured against insured, fourth party) is derived from them (term parameters §7). A D&O wrongful act is a cause (H.WRA.MGT) with an agency, and reaches a programme along whichever direction its roles give it.

9. Market Editions and Crosswalks

9.1 Binding

The reference cause scheme is the unscoped fallback (voc:boundScheme) on the applied insurance peril contract and, in Open CBAA, on rsk:PerilContract. Agreement-scoped, organisation-scoped and market-scoped bindings take precedence (MORK bridge §2). A market edition may be independent of the reference (bridged by crosswalk) or extend it (adding narrower concepts and bundles, with skos:broadMatch and skos:exactMatch into it, design-spec §4.3) and is bound by a voc:SchemeBinding scoped to the market, and where needed to a legal regime:

ex:us-surplus-lines-binding a voc:SchemeBinding ;
    voc:forContract rsk:PerilContract ;
    voc:bindsScheme ex:us-market-peril-edition ;
    voc:bindingScope ex:london-market , ex:us-risk-regime ;
    fnd:hasTemporalScope [ a fnd:TemporalScope ; fnd:validFrom "2026-01-01T00:00:00Z"^^xsd:dateTime ] .

LATTICE’s precedence rule (a binding whose scopes are a strict superset wins) makes this binding win over a London-only binding for US risks written in London, without any Open CBAA logic.

A drafter’s flat list or simple taxonomy is bound the same way, at agreement or organisation scope. It need not extend the reference. Checks run at the structure it has, and are Undetermined where they need more (§6.8, MORK bridge §3).

9.2 Crosswalk kinds

The CBAA SoUA tables point at a flat market cause-of-loss list of several hundred codes. Its crosswalk is the main MORK mapping graph of this module. Each code decomposes into at most one cause and zero or more characteristic values, and codes with no cause (a legal basis, a consequence, “no details”) map to characteristic values only.

9.3 London and US framings

9.4 Risk pools

Pools and residual mechanisms are not perils. A pool scheme (prl:PoolScheme, reference edition empty, deployment editions populated) has concepts with prl:coversPeril (to cause concepts or collections) and prl:poolTerritory (to territory concepts). The CBAA SoUA “applicable pool schemes” row and the exposure ontology’s pool participation both use it.

10. Shapes

Vocabulary well-formedness, run over the reference and each edition that extends it before publication. They are publication rules for structured editions. A drafter’s list bound for use is not required to pass them.

11. Worked Snippet

prl:N.MET.TC a skos:Concept ;
    skos:inScheme prl:CauseScheme ;
    skos:prefLabel "Tropical cyclone"@en ;
    skos:definition "A rotating, organised storm system originating over tropical or subtropical waters."@en ;
    skos:notation "N.MET.TC"^^prl:ReferenceCode ;
    prl:broaderGeneric prl:N.MET ; skos:broader prl:N.MET ;
    prl:typicalAgency prl:Natural ; prl:onset prl:Sudden ; prl:definitionBasis prl:Physical ;
    prl:accumulationClass prl:Catastrophe ;
    prl:canTrigger prl:N.HYD.FLD.FLU , prl:N.HYD.FLD.PLU ;
    prl:overlaps prl:N.MET.NS ;
    prl:customaryEventWindow [ a qnt:Quantity ; qnt:onSpace stm:DurationSpace ; qnt:numericValue 72.0 ; qnt:inUnit ex:Hour ] .

prl:N.MET.TC.SRG a skos:Concept ;
    skos:prefLabel "Tropical cyclone storm surge"@en ;
    skos:notation "N.MET.TC.SRG"^^prl:ReferenceCode , "WSS"^^prl:CatModelCode ;
    prl:broaderPartitive prl:N.MET.TC ; skos:broader prl:N.MET.TC ;
    prl:typicalMechanism prl:Inundation ;
    prl:overlaps prl:N.HYD.FLD.CST ;
    prl:intensityMeasure prl:SurgeHeight , prl:InundationDepth ;
    prl:relevantAttribute ex:FirstFloorHeight , ex:BasementPresence ;
    prl:minimumGeoPrecision ex:BuildingLevel .

prl:N.MET.TC.HUR a skos:Concept ;
    skos:prefLabel "Hurricane"@en ;
    prl:broaderGeneric prl:N.MET.TC ; skos:broader prl:N.MET.TC ;
    prl:definitionBasis prl:Threshold ;
    prl:definingThreshold ex:hurricane-strength-range .   # on the 1-minute sustained wind space

prl:N.MET.NS a skos:Concept ;
    skos:prefLabel "Named storm"@en ;
    prl:broaderGeneric prl:N.MET ; skos:broader prl:N.MET ;
    prl:definitionBasis prl:Designation ;
    prl:overlaps prl:N.MET.TC , prl:N.MET.ETC .

12. Open Items