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Hurricane Ian: losses could highlight property information gaps
Hurricane Ian made landfall in Cuba on 27th September 2022, hitting Florida the next day. It continued on for two days, ending up in South Carolina. Over 100 people have lost their lives and thousands of buildings have been damaged or destroyed.
ICEYE has found that over 296,000 buildings were affected by flooding on the western coastline of Florida, and more than 10,700 buildings were impacted in Puerto Rico. CoreLogic has estimated that insured losses from wind and flood could reach $53 billion in the US, RMS has predicted up to $74 billion and AIR has estimated up to $57 billion of insured losses in Florida and South Carolina.
In the past, major natural catastrophe events have highlighted the areas where insurers lacked up-to-date information on properties. Furthermore, some buildings may be more vulnerable than previously believed. For example, they could be made from a different material or have a roof in a degraded condition. In our recently launched LinkedIn poll, you have the opportunity to tell us how often you think property attribute data should be updated for insurers to understand what they are insuring – have your say and get a preview of what others think here.
Our next report Property Intelligence – the where and what: the 50+ companies to know will be released on 22nd November. It will cover the advancements in technology that are making more accurate and timely data available to insurers, as well as how this data can be accessed. You can register for the report’s launch event here.
InsTech in London: Tropical Cyclone – Managing Tomorrow’s Climate Risk Today
Our next in-person event will be on 1st November, starting at 16:30. We will be supported by Reask and Fathom to review how to understand and manage the key drivers of climate change in cyclones and floods. The event will cover how insurers are incorporating this into underwriting and portfolio management, discussed by some of the companies providing climate analytics and data.
Gamma Location Intelligence: Tracking climate risk – slow, slow then fast
Gamma Location Intelligence provides software and data services to help insurers better understand location risks. Matthew Grant was joined by Richard Garry, Gamma LI’s Chief Commercial Officer, and CEO Feargal O’Neill to discuss the challenges of local address data in Ireland and the UK, ESG data for properties and how the company works with various partners for hazard data.
HDI Global: enabling climate resilience
Headquartered in Germany, HDI Global provides insurance to a range of corporate customers. We recently caught up with Claire McDonald, Executive Board Member and Chief Underwriting Officer for the property, engineering and marine lines of business at HDI Global SE. The discussion covered how the company is thinking about managing climate change, the ways it is supporting clients and how it works with technology companies within IoT, cyber and more.
Arbol: Bringing efficiency, transparency and access to climate risk transfer
Arbol provides parametric climate and weather risk management solutions for sectors such as agriculture, energy, maritime and hospitality. Siddhartha Jha, Arbol’s Founder, CEO and Chairman, joined Matthew Grant and Henry Gale for the InsTech podcast to discuss how his experience of commodities trading helped inspire Arbol, why he built the company and product and how it is addressing the needs of its customers with climate risk transfer.
CGI: tackling insurance technology challenges
Our recent interview with CGI’s Daren Rudd and Tim Scott-Simmons covers the company’s work within insurance, the trends likely to disrupt the industry and the technology challenges that need to be addressed. The discussion also covers the work CGI is doing to create an ecosystem around ESG solution providers and predictive wildfire and flood models.
In the news…
JBA: property flood resilience measures could reduce industry losses
Research from JBA has found that Property Flood Resilience (PFR) measures could significantly reduce losses under an intermediate future climate change scenario. The review was carried out following the launch of Flood Re’s ‘Build Back Better’ initiative, which enables insurers to fund up to £10,000 for each individual property on PFR measures. If 3% of at-risk properties across the UK used the full £10,000 this year, losses could be reduced by £350m a year – a return on the £2.4bn investment in under 7 years. To learn more about JBA’s catastrophe models, flood maps and analytics, you can listen to InsTech’s podcast episode 206.
CAPE Analytics partners with Maxar Technologies to improve wildfire analytics
CAPE will integrate Maxar’s high-resolution satellite imagery to strengthen its Wildfire Intelligence product suite. CAPE’s offering provides clients with the information necessary to mitigate wildfire risk through analyses of property-level characteristics, such as vegetation density and structure footprints, alongside risk scores and other tools. The Maxar partnership will increase CAPE’s total coverage to the whole of the US and will improve the company’s data recency for rural regions.
Marsh extends D&O capacity to European firms performing highly on ESG
European clients will now be able to access additional directors and officers liability (D&O) insurance capacity based on Marsh’s ESG Risk Rating and the strength of the company’s ESG risk management frameworks. The program will see AIG and Zurich consider Marsh clients for preferred D&O policy terms and conditions on ESG-related exposures, such as climate change disclosures. Look out for our London event on 24th November which discusses measuring ESG and carbon emissions.
Geosite to include access to Fathom US flood data
US insurers will now have access to Fathom’s flood hazard data through Geosite’s platform. Geosite has also recently integrated with Socotra, which enables its users to have automatic access to Geosite’s geospatial data. This includes data from a range of providers (and InsTech members) such as Fathom, ICEYE and Tensorflight.
Aon partners with Revalue Nature
Revalue Nature designs and develops nature-based projects to protect and regenerate forests and other natural assets to produce future carbon credits. Aon has partnered with the company to help attract potential investors to these opportunities and to offer insurance solutions to projects and their stakeholders. This will aim to de-risk these assets from damage and destruction due to drought, wildfire and other risks.
Previsico boosts support for US and UK demand
Previsico has announced the appointment of Johnny Stubbs as its new Partnerships Manager to support business development in the UK and US insurance markets. Before joining Previsico, Johnny was UK Head of Insurance and Business Development at Getsafe. For more on Previsico’s solutions, read our interview with Co-founder and COO, Dr Avi Baruch.
Jupiter Intelligence webinar: climate data matters
In this on-demand webinar, Jupiter’s climate scientists explain the models and techniques used to produce future climate projections, how to understand the validity of these different methods and what the company’s ClimateScore Global product offers.
Demex appoints new Chief Risk Officer
Demex, founded in 2020, structures parametric insurance and derivative solutions for organisations to transfer non-catastrophic extreme weather risk. The company has recently appointed Matt Coleman as Chief Risk Officer, where he will work to develop and refine the company’s offerings for climate insurance and risk valuations for clients. He joins Demex from Nephila Climate, where he most recently worked as Director of Strategic Partnerships.