This paper describes the development of insurance and reinsurance business applications for earthquake risk analysis in Japan. The paper will provide a background to the particular insurance requirements, the processes involved in developing the models, and the application of the model to business needs. The paper will deal with geodemographic analysis for insurance rating and for market analysis and will consider the availability and suitability of various data sets for analysis of insurance needs. The paper will include examples of business applications in ArcView GIS.