Aon has entered into a partnership with US insurance technology provider Zesty.ai to enhance property underwriting services using the latter’s artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
Image: Aon enters into partnership with US insurtech Zesty.ai. Photo: courtesy of geralt/Pixabay.com.
The technology of Zesty.ai improves underwriting of insurers by providing access to over 130 billion data points on US buildings and their surroundings, said Aon. As a result, insurers are enabled with granular risk analysis and informed pricing for underwriting property insurance.
The data is sourced by using AI technology on frequently updated satellite and aerial imagery and other data sources, thereby removing the need of being physically present at the premises.
Zesty.ai CEO Attila Toth 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.”
According to Aon, using its distribution network, insurers can assess their portfolio risk through Zesty.ai’s wildfire risk model. The insurers can also gain access to high fidelity property insights for underwriting catastrophic and attritional risk alike, said the UK-based professional services firm.
Zesty.ai’s new wildfire model, called Z-FIRE addresses the challenge faced in underwriting wildfires, by using machine learning to combine vital property details. The technology gathers details like vegetation, building materials, topography, weather patterns and others for this and combines them with actual loss data.
Aon said a predictive risk score is generated from the factors at the individual property levels, thereby resulting in a critical tool for risk assessment.
The company said that Z-FIRE complements its own US wildfire catastrophe model from Impact Forecasting for purchase of reinsurance and exposure management.
Aon also said that insurers can benefit from Zesty.ai’s property risk analytics platform to more accurately record characteristics of individual properties. The technology is said to help in developing models for autonomous underwriting while enhancing underwriting rules, loss ratios, and reinsurance analysis.
Aon InsurTech senior managing director and head Jobay Cooney said: “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.”