ICEYE, a provider of natural catastrophe solutions and insights, released a beta version of Wildfire Insights, a product that uses advanced analytics, machine learning, and satellite imagery to provide building-level impact data for wildfires in near real-time.
The ICEYE Wildfire Insights product is the first of its kind, offering data for any wildfire that affects communities throughout the US.
During the beta phase, ICEYE will invite select insurers to participate in the final testing of the product functionality before its planned General Availability release in Q3 2023.
The solution utilizes ICEYE’s Synthetic-Aperture Radar (SAR) constellation, which can monitor ground events regardless of atmospheric conditions. The SAR satellites capture high-resolution imagery of building damage through clouds, at night, and most importantly, through smoke.
ICEYE captures satellite imagery of wildfires that exceed a certain threshold based on size and proximity to a community. The imagery is analyzed with building footprints to determine the impact on each building, and hazard information is provided to insurers within 24 hours of the initial analysis and every 24 hours until the wildfire stops affecting additional buildings.
Insurers will use the ICEYE Wildfire Insights’ data to support multiple critical business functions, including managing event response activities and sizing portfolio loss. The solution will also inform field adjuster allocation and deployment for more efficient and effective event response, allowing insurers to communicate proactively with policyholders and event response partners as a wildfire is developing and in the immediate aftermath, ICEYE explained.
“Wildfire events are rapidly increasing in severity and frequency across the US. Insurers struggle to respond because they don’t have actionable insured building damage data in a timely, reliable manner. Traditional methods to gain this vital information often take several days if not weeks,” Penelope Kourkouli, ICEYE Wildfire Insights Product Manager, said.
“The ICEYE Wildfire Insights product enables users to access ground-level hazard data for wildfire events in the US within hours of the damage from the event. Through our SAR constellation and data analysis capabilities, we provide a level of hazard insight, and in timeframes, that were not previously possible. This is a critical development in the evolution of how the industry addresses the growing wildfire peril and we are excited to work with insurers during the Beta testing phase ahead of our launch,” Kourkouli added.
