Protect Customers with Hail Risk Insights
Oct 2023
Learn how Hail Risk Insights empowers insurers to improve risk selection and rate segmentation, refine underwriting in hail zones and protect customers.
Oct 2023
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Since this post was originally published, Betterview was acquired by Nearmap. References to Betterview, the company, or its products have been maintained for historical accuracy. Betterview is now the primary solution for the insurance industry at Nearmap.
Insurers need tools to mitigate hail risk, one of the costliest and most common sources of claims. The solution is Betterview’s Hail Risk Insights, which combines our structural vulnerability detections with hazard data from trusted third parties—this is done via our Partner Connect program to provide insurers with insights to predict and prevent hail losses. Hail Risk Insights empowers insurers to improve risk selection and rate segmentation, refine underwriting in hail zones, and better protect customers.
Pinpoint Property Vulnerabilities with Computer Vision
The first piece of determining hail risk is what Betterview does best: structural vulnerability. This refers to the specific attributes of a property that increase its susceptibility to hail damage. To pinpoint these attributes, we apply computer vision models to high-quality property imagery and spotlight relevant risk factors.
From there, we analyze historical claims datasets to determine which of these attributes – including building footprint, roof material, roof condition, and roof staining – are most correlated with hail damage. These attributes are synthesized into the numerical Hail Vulnerability Score, allowing users to assess a property’s hail vulnerability in a single glance.
Merging Insights: Betterview and Partner Data
Next, we transform vulnerability insights into a comprehensive view of total hail risk. The key is to enhance vulnerability with hazard, or the likelihood that a property will experience a hail event based on regional factors. To determine hail hazard, we integrate datasets from trusted partners directly into our platform as part of our partner program, Partner Connect.
- Canopy Weather: Canopy Weather provides a wide array of hail-relevant datasets to our platform users, including the dates of past hail events and their severity, as well as maps of the events’ impact. Used together with our property insights, this data helps insurers identify hail damage, anticipate future hail strikes, and prepare properties to mitigate damage.
- FEMA: The FEMA Hail Hazard Risk Index Score is based on expected annual loss, social vulnerability, and community vulnerability to hail damage.
- HazardHub (Guidewire): Our integration with HazardHub features over a thousand peril datapoints for any U.S. location. This includes risk grades and scores for specific perils – including the Enhanced Hail Score, the most precise indicator of hail probability.
To recap: by accessing hazard data through Partner Connect, insurers confidently estimate where a hail event will strike relative to a specific property. Then, with our vulnerability detections, they determine how much damage that property will experience. But how do we make these insights even more powerful? The answer is by combining them into a single, reliable indicator of total hail risk: the Hail Claim Predictor.
Leverage the Hail Claim Predictor
We combined HazardHub’s Enhanced Hail Score or the FEMA’s Hail Hazard Risk Index Score with our own Hail Vulnerability Score to create a single, highly predictive tool: the Hail Claim Predictor. Equipped with the Predictor, you can transition from reactively managing risk to proactively strengthening resilience. The example below demonstrates how property-level vulnerability significantly influences overall hail claim risk. This risk varies, even for properties located in the same area.
Let’s see how the Hail Claim Predictor creates value throughout the policy lifecycle.
- Rating & Pricing: The Hail Vulnerability Score and Hail Claim Predictor are pre-filed for rating in multiple states, allowing you to price more efficiently and more accurately in hail-prone regions.
- Underwriting: No more switching between disparate sources of data. Underwriters have access to the most accurate hail data in a single platform, allowing them to rapidly assess hail risk, flag properties that need an inspection, and straight-through-process solid risks.
- Loss Control: With the Hail Claim Predictor, you can pinpoint the exact property attributes contributing to higher risk, such as a stained or damaged roof. Recommend risk mitigation steps your policyholders can take, shielding them from future damage and yourself from paying out future claims.
With a blend of rich data and artificial intelligence, Hail Risk Insights gives you the tools you need to protect your customers from hail damage, expand profitability in hail-prone regions, and streamline underwriting efficiency. Explore Hail Risk Insights today, including the Hail Claim Predictor and hail data from industry-trusted partners, and take control over hail claim risks.