Betterview Announces Partnership with Iceye
Nov 2022
Betterview partners with SAR satellite imagery provider Iceye to boost property intelligence platform
Nov 2022
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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.
Betterview, the insurtech company insurers rely on to identify and manage real property risk, today announced a new partnership with Iceye, the leading provider of reliable, timely, and accessible geospatial data. Data from Iceye will now be available to all Betterview users through Partner Connect (formerly PartnerHub), integrating third-party geospatial data into the company’s Property Intelligence & Risk Management Platform.
Iceye was conceptualized and founded in 2012 by a group of researchers exploring how Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) technology could solve problems related to geospatial imagery. SAR sensors can even “see through” clouds and smoke, allowing them to capture data before aircraft are able to fly over an area. Thanks to SAR, the Iceye team was able to build a product that provided information about every square meter of the globe updated every hour, regardless of weather. Iceye’s high-quality, reliable SAR imagery is perfectly suited for geospatial use cases across multiple industries and is particularly useful for obtaining imagery following a catastrophic weather event.
“The partnership between our two companies is going to dramatically expand how insurers can respond to catastrophic events, particularly floods,” says Armin Monajemi, vice president of strategic partnerships at Betterview. “By combining Iceye SAR imagery with additional insights on the Betterview platform – such as first-floor elevation – insurers can identify properties with flood damage well before a physical inspection team. Insurers can respond more rapidly to claims, better protecting homeowners, businesses, and communities in their hour of need.”
Working together, the two companies aim to remove the guesswork from how insurers respond to catastrophic events. “The technologies we are dealing with have the capacity to solve some of the most challenging problems in the world,” says Paul Barron, global head of partnerships, at Iceye. “When you synthesize our post-flood SAR imagery with the computer vision detections and workflow management tools on the Betterview Catastrophic Response System, you have all the tools you need to respond immediately and strategically after a catastrophic event.”