Aon, a reinsurance broker, recently partnered with Zesty.ai, a US-based AI startup, in a bid to bolster its underwriting data insights.
The alliance between the two entities is expected to help insurers in leveraging Aon’s distribution network to assess their portfolio risk via the wildfire risk model from Zesty.ai, as well as derive high-fidelity property insights intended for underwriting both attritional and catastrophic risk.
Aon’s Impact Forecasting team said that the latest wildfires in California led to insured losses of about $16 billion back in 2017 and a maximum of $18 billion last year.
According to Aon, wildfire has historically been difficult to model: furthermore, fire risk severity region maps often lack granularity relating to the physical aspects of properties that can aid insurance firms in pricing each risk accurately.
Z-FIRE, the new wildfire model from Zesty.ai, helps in overcoming this impediment by leveraging machine learning to integrate actual data loss with property details, including weather patterns, topography, building materials, vegetation among others.
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Thanks to Aon, insurers will be in a position to access the 130 billion US properties-related data points, which are developed for easily integrating into the available models and systems, and assists in informed pricing and granular risk analysis.
These aspects at the individual property level develop a predictive risk score that offers a tool for evaluating risk.
George deMenocal, the US CEO and president of Aon’s Reinsurance Solutions business, explained: “Immediate access to new, useable and meaningful data insights is continuing to advance insurance underwriting.
Instant insights on risk are becoming an increasingly important element for insurers as they modernise their underwriting platforms.
This technology evolution, coupled with new partnerships, brings opportunities for Aon to deliver new products that meet clients’ needs today and tomorrow, in a transparent and efficient way.”
Jobay Cooney, Aon’s senior managing director and head of insurTech, said: “Aon is committed to helping clients adopt new technologies that advance their strategic initiatives.
We chose to partner with Zesty.ai as they have demonstrated they are an innovative leader in this space and that insurers can derive value from their granular data and visual assessments.
This value includes customer engagement, underwriting accuracy, inspection cost savings and post-event claims analysis – plus offering premiums that more accurately reflect the risk to their customers.”
Attila Toth, chief executive officer of Zesty.ai, said: “As a nimble InsurTech, Zesty.ai can bring the latest technologies, such as AI, machine, learning, and big data analytics to the Property & Casualty insurance industry.
In collaboration with Aon, we can offer carriers a powerful, data-driven solution to better underwrite, manage risk and delight customers with a digital buying experience.”
Early in December 2018, Zesty.ai received a 13 million investment in a series A round of funding that was led by Blamar, a private investment fund based in Luxembourg.
Aon is a London-based professional services company that offers health, retirement, and risk consulting
The company has 500 offices globally, which serve 120 nations with nearly 50, 000 employees.
Back in 2011, the company was ranked as the biggest insurance broker globally based on revenue.