Descartes Underwriting, an insurtech focused on climate risk modelling and data-driven risk transfer, has partnered with ICEYE, a provider of flood hazard data.
The partnership will combine Descartes’ ability to incorporate its technology into its parametric insurance product design with ICEYE’s synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) flood data and monitoring capabilities.
Leveraging ICEYE’s multi-source flood insights, Descartes will be able to establish precise parametric triggers for a larger global client-base and make swift claims payment based on exact client locations within a flood event.
Floods rank among the most costly and recurrent natural hazards across all regions of the world.
Largely influenced by climate change, flood risk has also proven increasingly challenging to model and insurer. Accurate assessment and data coverage for areas with granular elevation changes, or rapidly expanding impervious surfaces, pose technical hurdles for insurers.
The partnership will see the two companies addressing data loss and inaccuracies during flood events, which can prove challenging for insurance pricing and claims processing.
Sebastian Piguet, Co-founder & Head of Underwriting at Descartes Underwriting: “We consider access to accurate data, provided by an independent third party, to be a prerequisite for all parametric insurance contracts.
“We are thus delighted to partner with ICEYE to advance the frontier of parametric flood insurance and expand our offering to a wider geographic client-base based on ICEYE’s data.”
Lisa Wardlaw, Global Head of Insurance Solutions at ICEYE: “The climate crisis calls for a revolutionary approach to insurance that fuses science, data and finance. We are proud to partner with Descartes, a company that shares our commitment to innovation.
“Our unique global flood monitoring solutions consistently provide data on whether a given parameter has been met or exceeded at any location worldwide. By reporting on such activity quickly and effectively, ICEYE is enabling flood monitoring that has been impossible until now.”
