67 items tagged ”Address standardization”

Improve healthcare provider data accuracy and compliance to reduce risk, ensure regulatory alignment, and streamline operations.

<p><strong>OREM, UT, May 29, 2026—</strong>Smarty, a leading address intelligence provider, today introduced <a href="https://www. smarty. com/products/us-business-data">US Business Data</a>, an API-based product that helps companies replace manual business research with automated business data enrichment. The product connects verified US addresses to firmographic details comprising business identity, industry, growth and performance, risk profile, and ownership, helping users understand who operates at a location and what they need to do next.

Learn what a Puerto Rican urbanization code is, why USPS requires it, and how to find and format it correctly for accurate address delivery.

<p>When businesses across industries base decisions on partial datasets, key decision-making signals become disconnected, fragmented, and inconsistent. That’s why risk mitigation is most effective when it’s based on comprehensive location intelligence. Using authoritative location and <a href="https://www. smarty. com/articles/property-data"><u>property data</u></a>, businesses can make data-driven decisions that reduce operational, financial, and compliance risk. </p><p>To ensure their location intelligence stays accurate and contextualized, businesses can:</p><ul><li data-list-item-id="eaeff5332b1ab0e205f5cb62aea95c03b">Validate, <a href="https://www.

<p>Geocoding can seem as simple as putting money in a vending machine and making a selection. You submit an address, get coordinates back. In many instances, geocoding could be <i>that</i> straightforward. </p><p>In business processes, coordinates influence fraud checks, delivery routing, compliance processes, customer experience, and risk decisions across industries like insurance, healthcare, logistics, fintech, and ecommerce. </p><p>However, location signals are often too broad or "plausible.

<p>Invalid or typo-riddled addresses are the petty criminals sabotaging your business. They’re quiet, easy to miss, and even seem harmless at first. But before you know it, they’re sneaking in your checkout forms, settling into customer databases, and slowly wreaking havoc on your logistics, delivery rates, and customer satisfaction. </p><p>If you don’t catch these stinkers early, one tiny slip of the finger can spiral into failed deliveries, tedious manual corrections, and extra work for your already busy teams.

A property deed search by address is a lookup that uses a property's street address to find official ownership records. Learn all about it here!

Learn more about how location truths impact insurance risk assessments (and your bottom line and financial stability!) Hint: it all comes back to accurate data.

Predictive analytics use artificial intelligence, machine learning, and statistical modeling to analyze large volumes of internal and external data in insurance.

For P&C underwriters, the future of underwriting isn’t just moving from paper to predictive models—it’s moving from processing information to interpreting it.

<p><i>Part two of our </i><a href="https://www. smarty. com/content/tags/provider-data-accuracy-series"><i>provider data series</i></a><i> featuring thought leadership from Dave Medlock, Founder &amp; CEO of Maven One Health</i></p><p>If you’ve ever searched your health plan’s provider directory only to find your “nearby” doctor is actually a residential home—or worse, a PO Box—you’ve experienced firsthand why clean provider data matters for more than just compliance. </p><p>Provider data accuracy is also one of the most important aspects contributing to member experience.

<p>If you’ve ever run into an address that seems to <i>exist</i> in more than one place, congratulations—you’ve discovered the world of ambiguous address matches. They’re the <a href="https://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27scat"><u>Schrödinger’s cat</u></a> of location data: valid, yet potentially two distinct locations. </p><p>This blog will focus on a few key things: </p><ul><li><a href="#what-are-ambiguous-address-matches">What are ambiguous address matches?</a></li><li><a href="#why-ambiguous-address-matches-matter-for-compliance-and-customer-service">Why ambiguous address matches matter for compliance and customer service</a></li><li><a href="#how-to-handle-matches-with-address-ambiguity">How to handle matches with address ambiguity</a></li><li><a href="#why-you-should-inform-your-customers-of-ambiguous-address-matches">Why you should inform your customers of ambiguous address matches</a></li><li><a href="#our-final-thoughts-on-ambiguous-address-matches">Our final thoughts on ambiguous address matches</a></li></ul><h2 id="what-are-ambiguous-address-matches">What are ambiguous address matches?</h2><p>An <i>ambiguous address</i> match occurs when an entered address resolves to two or more valid locations with slight but meaningful differences.

<blockquote><p><i>TLDR: Smarty customers won’t feel a thing from the new USPS API restrictions because Smarty doesn’t depend on USPS’s real-time APIs to do address verification. We’ve always used our own, powerful, hyper-accurate data to back our tools and support client needs. </i></p></blockquote><p>While USPS is capping its address verification service at <strong>60 requests per hour</strong> and retiring the legacy Web Tools API on January 25, Smarty keeps verifying addresses at full speed on our own infrastructure.

<p>Welcome to part one of our <a href="https://www. smarty. com/content/tags/provider-data-accuracy-series" target="blank" rel="noopener">new blog series</a> on provider location data—an exploration into the messy, high-stakes world of healthcare compliance, address accuracy, and network adequacy. </p><p>To kick things off, we sat down with Dave Medlock, founder of<a href="https://mavenonehealth. com" target="blank" rel="noopener nofollow"> <u>Maven One Health</u></a> and a contributing thought leader, to discuss why clean provider data is essential for achieving peak regulatory compliance and meeting requirements with ease, thereby avoiding serious consequences if it isn’t done correctly.

<p>At the time USPS rolled out its new APIs on January 25, 2026, its documentation stated that address verification was limited to 60 requests per hour. That stood in sharp contrast to the newly retired Web Tools API, which had previously supported <a href="https://www. usps. com/business/web-tools-apis/address-information-api. htm#:~:text=pattern%3D-,AddressValidateRequest%20/%20Address%20/,Up%20to%205%20address%20verifications%20can%20be%20included%20per%20transaction. ,-(group)" target="blank" rel="noopener"><u>approximately 5 address lookups per transaction</u></a>.

<p>For two days, Smarty gathered address data experts for Pinpoint, our first-ever virtual user conference. There, developers, product specialists, and industry experts delved into the nitty-gritty details of address data that you need to understand in order to succeed in your industry. </p><p>Attendees learned how to process addresses faster (much faster) than the blink of an eye, with and without using code! </p><p>They also got to look under the hood on how insurance is evolving and becoming even more efficient than ever to create a “delightful user experience.

<p>Once you know what capabilities you need, the next challenge is choosing a provider that actually delivers—pun intended. <br><br>This blog is part of our <a href="https://www. smarty. com/blog/tags/what-to-look-for-in-an-address-data-solution">five-part series, <i>What to look for in an address data solution</i></a><i>. </i> </p><p>Previously, we discussed the need to find an address data solution that understands the importance of speed, scalability, and reliability, enabling you to maintain automated, efficient, and accurate workflows in any industry that deals with addresses.

<p>Not all address tools are created equal. The right platform should do more than validate—it should verify, enrich, and future-proof your data. </p><p>This blog is part of our <a href="https://www. smarty. com/blog/tags/what-to-look-for-in-an-address-data-solution">five-part series, <i>What to look for in an address data solution. </i></a> </p><p>Previously, we discussed the hidden costs of poor address data, including misdeliveries, lost revenue, billing errors, and operational inefficiencies.

<p>If data is the lifeblood of your business, addresses are the veins that carry it. They connect every operation—from shipping to customer service to compliance. </p><p>Yet, address data is often overlooked until it breaks something expensive. </p><p>This post kicks off <a href="https://www. smarty. com/blog/tags/what-to-look-for-in-an-address-data-solution">our five-part series, <i>What to look for in an address data solution</i></a>—a practical guide to building a smarter, cleaner, and more reliable address data strategy.

<p>Let's be honest, when it comes to addresses, “'close enough” just isn't good enough. </p><p>At our recent panel discussion with Smarty’s product team members, we really dug deep into what makes address validation work and why it's so crucial for businesses. The themes spanned from Google Maps myths to international quirks, from “non-postal” mysteries to best practices for keeping databases clean. </p><h2>Why Google isn’t the benchmark</h2><p>One of the most common statements we hear from other business owners is the “but Google Maps says…” objection.

<p>Tariffs are spiking. Shipping costs are climbing. Margins are shrinking. </p><p>You can’t control global trade policy, but you can control how efficient and accurate your operations are in response. </p><p>Most ecommerce teams, logistics planners, and data managers miss one of their best cost-saving opportunities: addressing accuracy. </p><p>Bad address data isn’t hidden. It sits in your systems, shows up in carrier returns, and quietly drains profits every day. </p><p>When tariffs rise to 15 to 50 percent in some product categories and import volumes are falling, every shipment becomes more expensive, every delay costs more, and every lost customer hurts more.

<p><strong>November 2025 | 100% online | 100% awesome</strong></p><p>Join us this November for the Smarty Virtual User Conference, a two-day event packed with insights, tools, laughs, and $1000 worth of prizes. </p><p>This event is for you, whether you’re optimizing delivery accuracy, improving compliance, or just trying to figure out if your neighbor <i>really</i> has a breakfast nook. </p><h3><strong>What to expect:</strong></h3><ul><li><strong>2 days, 12 hours of content, zero fluff</strong></li><li><strong>Live sessions</strong> from address data pros</li><li><strong>Hands-on demos</strong> of Smarty’s latest tools and plugins</li><li><strong>Giveaways galore, </strong>like gift cards, swag, and even a chance at a massive LEGO set</li><li><strong>Hidden Easter eggs</strong> throughout the event (no, seriously—find them and win)</li><li><strong>An after-party with games</strong> (shoutout to Brady Amundson)</li></ul><h3><strong>Tailored tracks for every role</strong></h3><p><img src="https://d3jlqkabnnke2x.

<p>Most address validation tools give you a simple thumbs up or down on an address because it either matches or it doesn’t, right? </p><p>But what if you need more than just “valid” or “invalid” as a response? What if you could know <i>exactly</i> what part of the address is off, like a misspelled street name or an unconfirmed vanity city (like Hollywood), and why it isn’t considered valid?</p><p>What if part of an address needed to change in order to make it a mailable, valid address? </p><p>We think you’d want to know that, too.

AI address validation (also referred to as AI address verification) is the sometimes unpredictable and inaccurate process of checking that an address is valid or verified using Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Deepseek, and more.

<p>If you’re using Smarty’s US Address Verification, you're already sitting on a treasure trove of up to 55 points of metadata, already included in every response. Sure, it cleans and standardizes your addresses like a pro, but that’s just the beginning. Without any upcharges, you can use metadata to make your systems smarter, streamline your operations, and sharpen your marketing and business decisions. </p><p>Whether you're focused on fraud prevention, operational efficiency, compliance, logistics, or customer experience, Smarty’s metadata delivers powerful insights to your tech stack that will help you rise above your competitors.

<p>Address data accuracy isn't just about getting mail delivered. Having quality address data will directly impact revenue, compliance, and customer experience. In a <a href="https://www. youtube. com/embed/d3L-U559Wz0?si=HcUvvbv-PueUVI2H" target="blank" rel="noopener">recent webinar</a>, we explored real-world case studies showing how companies across industries leverage address verification and geocoding to solve expensive problems and unlock new opportunities. </p><h2><strong>Healthcare data: Compliance and accuracy at scale</strong></h2><p><a href="/company/case-studies/geocoding-healthcare-compliance-curatus"><strong><u>Curatus</u></strong></a>, a healthcare data provider, faced a critical challenge with provider directory accuracy.

<p>Your product might be HIPAA and ACA-compliant in theory, but a mistyped ZIP Code or invalid apartment number can still trigger privacy violations, eligibility errors, and failed mailings. Misdirected mail is explicitly named in HIPAA breach cases. </p><p>For example, the Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has publicly cited misrouted or misaddressed mail as a cause of HIPAA breaches in their <a href="https://ocrportal. hhs. gov/ocr/breach/breachreport. jsf" target="blank" rel="noopener"><u>breach portal</u></a>.

<p>You finally track down an essential addition to your collector’s set of [insert item of your choice], and you're hyped to buy it until the chaos begins. </p><p>The cart is hidden in a fly-out on the side, cluttered with blocky, overwhelming text. You spend way too long just trying to find the "Proceed to Checkout" button. </p><p>👎 That’s bad UI (user interface): messy, confusing design that makes navigation a chore. </p><p>You make it to the checkout and start entering your info, but the site keeps rejecting your address.

<p>Insurance is drowning in data. <br><br>Some of it’s a goldmine, but much of it’s misleading or incomplete. The sheer volume of information available today—third-party databases, public records, customer input—means that insurers are often using data they can’t fully trust. </p><p>That’s a big deal. Faulty data leads to underpriced policies. It also leads to overpriced premiums, which turn away potential customers and damage NPS, as well as allows your teams to build faulty risk models. This ultimately leads to destabilized portfolios and paying out more than your fair share in claims, potentially leading to a bankrupt program rather than a profitable one.

<p>When you think about theme parks, you probably think of roller coasters, long lines, and $18 turkey legs. But behind all the fun is a surprising need for something a little less flashy yet still gorgeous as all get out—rock-solid address validation (or <a href="/products/single-address"><u>address verification</u></a>, we use them interchangeably). Yes, we’re talking about making sure that the addresses entered by guests are real, valid, and standardized. </p><p>Why? Because today’s theme parks operate like data-rich, customer-first ecosystems.

<p>Address verification is an essential tool that property insurance companies should use when analyzing risk. Perils are often associated with potential hazards located on or near a property, but they can also be tied to the general area a property is in. </p><p>Verifying addresses ensures that a policy falls within a covered area, which is vital for both an insurance company and their customers. </p><p>To start, the insurance policy premium needs to be priced for the property's actual location.

<p>When it comes to address verification, getting a match every time might <i>seem</i> like the goal. After all, a system that always returns a validated address must be working perfectly, right?</p><p>Wrong. </p><p>If your address verification API <i>always</i> forces a match, no matter what, it’s not being helpful. It’s actually introducing risk. In fact, getting a “no match” result can frequently be the smarter, safer outcome. </p><p>Let’s talk about why. </p><h2>What is a "no match" telling you?</h2><p>A “no match” means the input address doesn’t align with any known, valid address in the reference database.

<p>Ask most product owners about their address data, and they’ll probably tell you that “it’s good enough. ” But when it comes to address data integrity, the word “enough” should give you serious pause. </p><p>When it comes to address data, “close enough” is how businesses end up with wasted marketing spend, compliance headaches, failed deliveries, and policies that don’t hold up. It doesn’t matter if you're underwriting insurance on a home, scheduling a broadband install, or mailing a benefits enrollment kit—accuracy isn’t a nice-to-have.

<p>“Remote shopping, while entirely feasible, will flop. ” <a href="https://www. inc. com/geoffrey-james/31-hilariously-bad-high-tech-predictions. html" target="blank" rel="noopener"><u>Time Magazine (1966)</u></a>. This statement is laughable in today’s society. In the last 60 years, online purchasing has become a daily event, and more online purchases are being made every year. </p><p>In fact, ​In 2024, total ecommerce sales in the United States reached approximately <a href="https://www. census.

<p>Healthcare fraud isn’t just an occasional headache—it’s a <a href="https://www. pymnts. com/identity-theft/2022/synthetic-identity-fraud-costs-businesses-billions-each-year-data-shows" target="blank" rel="noopener"><u>$20 billion-a-year black hole</u></a> draining financial institutions. </p><p>And that’s just the fraud we know about. </p><p>As healthcare systems become more complex, fraudsters are also getting smarter, faster, and more creative at exploiting vulnerabilities, especially in address verification.

<p>Address autocomplete is a powerful tool for improving form completions and ensuring users select real, deliverable addresses at entry. However, to maintain long-term data integrity and enhance address-related insights, address verification is a necessary complement. Here’s why:</p><p><strong>1. Gain up to 55 points of metadata per verified address</strong><br>Autocomplete provides real-time address suggestions, while address verification appends additional metadata. Address verification enhances each address with up to 55 points of data, such as:</p><ul><li>ZIP-9 level accuracy geocoordinates (rooftop accuracy also available)</li><li>ZIP+4 Codes</li><li>Residential Delivery Indicator (RDI) to identify residential vs.

<p>Let's start with a number that should make every hospital administrator do a double take: $17. 4 million. That’s how much the average hospital loses annually—just from denied claims due to patient misidentification. This isn’t from equipment costs, not from staffing shortages, and not even from insurance negotiations—just from keeping bad patient data. </p><p><i>Surely, our forms aren’t that bad. (Yes, they are, and stop calling me Shirley. )</i></p><p>But here’s the reality: According to the <a href="https://security.

<p>My name is Jeffrey Duncan, and at the pestering of Smarty’s editor, I’m writing a blog about the many adventures I’ve had in life and how address data has played a big part in them. </p><p>I met my wife about eight years ago on a dating website. At the time, I lived in Provo, Utah, while she lived in Palmwoods, Australia, on the east coast of Queensland. </p><p>On this dating app, I entered the area where I was interested in finding someone, about a 25-mile radius of Provo, Utah. I had no intention of leaving the valley, definitely not the state, and certainly not the country.

<p>Healthcare is experiencing a dramatic shift in how patient information is stored and managed. Electronic medical records (EMRs) and electronic health records (EHRs) have become the new standard, driven by two powerful forces: everyone has mobile devices and the increase in the human population. </p><h2>A growing problem with clean address data in EMRs and EHRs</h2><p>While EMRs and EHRs offer amazing accessibility and storage capabilities (way better than a filing cabinet), they've also exposed a critical weakness in many healthcare organizations: address data quality.

<p>Address verification isn't just <a href="/docs/why-smarty"><u>a nice-to-have feature</u></a>—it's a critical business function that directly impacts your bottom line and customer satisfaction. </p><p>The impact of reliable address verification extends throughout your entire operation. Every returned package or piece of mail represents wasted shipping costs, lost time, and potential damage to customer relationships. Most importantly, <a href="/blog/how-i-reduced-my-returned-mail-using-address-autocomplete"><u>it's an entirely preventable problem</u></a>.

<p>In any industry that’s regulated and works with PII (personally identifiable information), a simple address error can cost more than just a returned letter. With HIPAA violations ranging from $100 to $50,000 per incident and the possibility of criminal charges, getting patient addresses wrong is more than an administrative headache—it's a serious compliance risk under HIPAA, ACA, and other mailing regulations. </p><p><a href="/ebooks"><u>Our new ebook</u></a> explores how address data quality directly impacts regulatory compliance, patient privacy, and health equity requirements, among 12 other hot topics.

<p>There are plenty of address data solutions in the sea. You might need to let them off the hook if:</p><ul><li>Their data accuracy is suffering<ul><li>Too many <a href="https://www. smarty. com/articles/address-false-positives"><u>false positives</u></a></li><li>Spotty data availability (lack of international support? Beuller?)</li><li>Off-the-mark geocoding (not truly <a href="/blog/us-rooftop-geocoding-reverse-geocoding-announcement"><u>rooftop-level accurate</u></a>)</li><li>Missing data enrichment (<a href="/articles/what-is-rdi"><u>RDI</u></a>, <a href="/articles/county-fips-codes"><u>FIPS</u></a>, <a href="/products/features/smartykey"><u>unique ID</u></a>, <a href="/articles/secondary-address"><u>secondary addresses</u></a>, etc.

<p>In 2024, it’s estimated that online purchases, or ecommerce, made up more than <a href="https://www. statista. com/statistics/534123/e-commerce-share-of-retail-sales-worldwide/"><u>20% of global retail</u></a>, with <a href="https://www. sellerscommerce. com/blog/ecommerce-statistics/"><u>2. 77 billion people shopping online</u></a>, and those numbers will only get bigger in the following years. With so much online shopping, more goods and services are being shipped than ever before—including during the height of the Sears catalog in 1970.

<p><a href="/solutions/healthcare">In healthcare,</a> the havoc an inaccurate address can wreak on your financial results is significant in more ways than one, and the boost in overall profitability from maintaining a clean address database is equally worth noting. </p><p>Accurate <a href="/products/us-address-verification">healthcare address validation</a> improves operational efficiency, patient engagement, and compliance and builds revenue to heights that couldn’t be met without it. </p><p>Here’s what we’ll be covering:</p><ul><li>Healthcare address validation pros and cons<ul><li>Con: Increased claim denials and organizational costs</li><li>Pro: Reduced claim denials and reprocessing costs</li><li>Con: Increasing patient match error rates</li><li>Pro: Improved patient matching and data quality</li><li>Con: Complicated billing and collections processes</li><li>Pro: Streamlined billing and collections capabilities</li><li>Con: Exposure to legal liabilities</li><li>Pro: Enhanced regulatory compliance and risk aversion</li><li>Con: Misplaced market strategy</li><li>Pro: Data-driven decision-making and market insights</li></ul></li><li>Epilogue: Avoiding the pain (see our summarized financial savings)</li></ul><h2>Healthcare address validation pros and cons</h2><p>There’s a pro and a con associated with having (or not having 🫣) accurate address data in your healthcare systems.

<p>Just as wearing an “I voted” sticker has a time and a place, so too does the ugliest sweater you own. That’s right. It’s that time magical time when otherwise sensible adults deliberately dress like their grandmother's couch had a love child with a craft store explosion. </p><p>The beauty of Ugly Sweater Day lies in its delicious irony – the more you fail at fashion, the more you succeed at the holiday. It's the only day of the year when "Where did you get that hideous thing?" is a genuine compliment.

<p>At first glance, standardizing country information seems like a straightforward task. After all, how complicated can it be to manage country codes and names? However, once you start diving into the complexities—multiple users, various languages, diacritics, and more—it becomes clear that this process is far from simple. </p><p>What if Germany has a different name for France than France does because of language barriers between German and French? (They do. The name “France” in German is “Frankreich,” but “France” in French is “France.

<p>Happy National Ask a Stupid Question Day! Today’s the day you get a free pass on asking dumb questions like, “Do fish get thirsty?” or “Why isn’t 11 pronounced ‘onety-one’?” We can’t stop people from teasing you until the cows come home (what time is that again?), but we <i>can</i> tell you it’s allowed on this day. In the US, Ask a Stupid Question Day’s default day is today, September 28, but it’s usually observed on the last school day in September. </p><h2>But why?!? Who started this nonsense?</h2><p>Teachers.

<p>Nerds. </p><p>While programmers/coders/engineers are extremely clever, we've found they may not fully understand addresses. <br><br>Sure, they're ready to talk about variables, loops, arrays, the scope of stuff, callbacks, hosting, events, overloading, pattern matching, packets, elements, and more. But if you point out that most house numbering starts at "1" and not "0," their heads may explode. </p><p>We've worked with quite a few developers and helped them understand the facts around address data, beginning with our <i>own</i> engineers.

<p>In our recent webinar, we hosted Jeffrey Duncan, our Technical Product Manager, who discussed the complexities and nuances of managing address data across various international formats. </p><p>While seemingly straightforward, addresses are quite complex, especially when dealing with international data. Jeffrey highlighted the variability in address formats, which can range from the number of address lines to the order of address components, differing significantly from one country to another.

<p><strong>Webinar recap:</strong> In a recent webinar, we showed how address data tools help managers improve business performance in the following areas:</p><ol><li data-list-item-id="e3437de224f424dd4db54b165d09f884d">Network Planning</li><li data-list-item-id="ec04c69801a00e1e1b5f2f18b9be3763c">Asset Management</li><li data-list-item-id="eb514e1e10ce721297ddb7c7523017ea6">Customer Acquisition and Retention</li><li data-list-item-id="e2f2fcd4c9a7f99d50b6ad63ca596cdd6">Data Blending</li><li data-list-item-id="e114cea01972a1d8fc653444da45bf505">Mail and Parcel Delivery</li><li data-list-item-id="e75f120878ebda35faa58850c0f07e2b5">Fraud Reduction</li></ol><h2>1.

<p>At Avengers headquarters, Tony Stark is busily creating gadgets for Spider-Man as a thank-you for his dedication to superheroism. Stark places the final touches and debates how to deliver the package. He could suit up and deliver it himself, convince Doctor Strange to teleport it, or use the boring, everyday mail system. </p><p>Stark runs all these scenarios through his head— Doctor Strange's focus has been a little divided lately, so he'll probably mess up the location and drop it on some poor lady’s head.

<p>In our previous post, we prescribed solutions to the problems associated with having bad address data in the software side of healthcare. If you would like to go over those again, or if you stumbled upon Post 3 before the previous blogs, you can read <a href="/blog/address-affairs-causing-healthcare-hiccups">Post 1</a> or <a href="/blog/healthcare-hiccups-and-address-solutions">Post 2</a> now. </p><p>In this third and final installment, we hope to provide even more solutions to healthcare hiccups on the SaaS side.

<h3>Why accurate addresses matter to healthcare professionals</h3><p>The healthcare system typically relies on human entry for its data entry. Whether the information is added by the customer, a receptionist, a nurse, or even a doctor, there are a lot of areas for the information to be misentered. Not only that, but hospital staff members frequently edit or enter additional information following the patient's first visit. The constant editing and entering of data by a human results in more than just a tiny typo now and again.

<p>Without looking it up, do you know how much insurance losses natural catastrophes caused in 2022? What's your guess?</p><p>According to a <a href="https://www. swissre. com/press-release/Hurricane-Ian-drives-natural-catastrophe-year-to-date-insured-losses-to-USD-115-billion-Swiss-Re-Institute-estimates/2ab3a681-6817-4862-8411-94f4b8385cee">report published by Swiss Re</a>, the world's leading provider of reinsurance, "Natural catastrophes caused an estimated USD 115 billion of insured losses in 2022—coming in well above the 10-year average of USD 81 billion.

<p>As a distinguished leader, diplomat, and explorer in the Star Trek universe, Captain Picard's legacy extends far beyond the realm of science fiction enthusiasts. In 2007, fans decided to bring a piece of Star Trek lore into reality: Captain Picard Day. </p><p>This 'holiday,' first introduced in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Pegasus," is an annual celebration observed on the Enterprise by its youngest crew members. </p><p>The date mentioned in the episode is <a href="https://www.

<p>In today's data-driven world, data security is more important than ever. Data is always at risk for attacks and misuse, and lack of security is an increasing threat. With the rise of phishing attacks and other cyber threats, organizations must be vigilant to protect their data from unauthorized access, theft, and misuse. </p><p>The following is an excerpt from our newest ebook, “Data Governance: An Executive’s Survival Guide”. You can download the entire guide <a href="https://www. smarty.

<p>Master data management is but one section of our recent ebook “Data Governance: An Executive’s Survival Guide”. You can download the full ebook for free <a href="https://www. smarty. com/ebooks/data-governance-an-executive-survival-guide">here</a>. </p><h2>What is master data?</h2><p><strong>Master data</strong> is all the data critical to your business's operation. It's the data that multiple departments depend on to make decisions and drive success. From customer data to product data, financial data to inventory data, master data is the backbone of many organizations.

<p><a href="https://www. smarty. com/blog/international-address-masterclass#international-masterclass">In this webinar</a>, our international address expert Bryan Amundson went over the ins and outs of international address data. He gave details about country designators, transliteration, and other localized things to consider when working with international addresses. He also dove into how to tell how accurate your international data is and other international address hacks you didn't learn in primary school.

<p>Every business executive knows that good data is critical. When you’re developing your sales strategy and talking about how to increase revenue, you probably turn to data to answer questions like these:</p><ul><li>What areas of growth can we exploit?</li><li>Which products are performing well?</li><li>Is mobile or desktop driving more sales? Where is traffic increasing?</li><li>How do we identify the “low-hanging fruit” customers?</li><li>Where can we reduce costs?</li></ul><p>But how do you know if your data is accurate? What steps do you need to take to ensure your data is actionable and driving revenue?</p><p>In our free ebook, <a href="https://www.

<p>Typos, typoes or typo's?</p><p><strong>No matter how you spell the word, typos are a problem. Even the most accurate typist occasionally misspells a word, leaves off a letter at the end, or just types a different word than intended. </strong></p><p>Typos in a text to your friend aren't a big deal. They'll figure out what you mean using context clues. But in a business data scenario, if you're following the logic of traditional address matching, where an address is either an exact match or not a match, you can't account for different formats or misspellings.

<p><strong>We recently released a free ebook, </strong><a href="https://www. smarty. com/ebooks/4-keys-to-unlocking-latent-revenue"><strong>4 Steps to Unlocking Latent Revenue and Driving ROI with Your Address Data</strong></a><strong>, in which we show you how to use your company’s address data to unlock latent revenue and drive ROI. </strong></p><p>In our last article, we reviewed address parsing. Today, we’ll explain address normalization and why it matters for data cleansing and analytics.

<p><strong>Our global economy comprises many industries—healthcare, financial services, insurance, commercial development, and more. But one thing all companies have in common, no matter the industry? They’re all chasing a bigger and better return on investment (ROI). </strong></p><p>While there are many drivers of ROI, have you ever considered the role that address validation plays?</p><p><strong>Clean address data is essential for many business functions. Consider eCommerce, one rapidly growing example.

<p>There are many problems you may run into if you're working with address data. In our recent webinar, our own Adam Charlton went over some of the challenges he's encountered the most, and how to deal with them. </p><p><strong>Here’s some of what he talked about. You can view the full recording at the link below. </strong></p><h2>Standardization</h2><p>Standardizing addresses helps solve many of the problems inherent in data blending (combining two or more address databases together). To properly blend different address databases together, you need to either have an external ID correlate the two sources or have identically formatted address fields.

<p>It’s November, and online shopping is ramping up to its climactic end-of-year blitz. www. blackfriday. com estimates that between Thanksgiving and Black Friday of this year, consumers will spend approximately $13 billion (<a href="https://www. smarty. com/blog/how-to-clean-address-data-for-the-holiday-rush#black-friday-predictions">1</a>). </p><p>That’s great news for your business. But if you don’t have the right tools in place to help you meet that demand, you might be left wishing you had better prepare.

<h2>Smarty unveils unmatched QGIS geocoding accuracy with release of geocoding plugin - US address</h2><p><strong>PROVO, UT - June 21, 2022</strong> - Smarty, a leader in location data intelligence, announces today the release of their QGIS Geocoding Plugin for US Addresses to provide an easy way for users of the popular GIS software platform to validate, standardize, and convert addresses to their <a href="/articles/what-are-geocodes">latitude and longitude coordinates (geocodes)</a>. The plugin allows manual address entry as well as <a href="/articles/batch-geocode">batch geocoding via CSV</a>.

<p>In this webinar, our geocoding and address expert Adam Charlton went over the ins and outs of address data. He gave details about address components and how they influence the way an address is composed. He also dove into the difference between ZIP9 and ZIP11, what a non-postal is, and other address hacks you didn’t learn in primary school. </p><h2>Standardization and validation</h2><p><a href="/articles/what-is-address-validation">What exactly is a valid address?</a> There are lots of different definitions depending on what your goal is with the address.

<p>For address validation, an <strong>international address lookup</strong> is the process of matching foreign addresses against the local authoritative postal databases to ensure they are real and mailable. The process commonly corrects typos, parses the addresses into its component parts and standardizes it to match countries' approved formats. </p><p>The task of looking up and combining data sets for thousands, or even millions of international addresses is a daunting one. Just trying to keep track of each country’s valid address format alone, is a time-consuming challenge.