Historically, carriers have had to rely on third-party data sources like public tax records, building permits, and hazard information about surrounding areas to inform the underwriting process. But with GIS now informing risk assessment, geospatial data is giving carriers a treasure trove of new insights. Here are some of the tasks being impacted by this data.

Insurance Underwriting — Geospatial data such as current property condition, surrounding property values, crime rates, fire hydrant locations, proximity to water, proximity to emergency services, and more can all better inform insurance underwriting. This level of granular detail wasn't available before GIS and geospatial data.

Hazard & Threat Mapping — Hazard maps display a geographic area's risk for earthquake, landslide, flood, fire or other natural threat. This geospatial data can be leveraged by GIS systems to identify high-risk areas and inform more accurate underwriting practices.

Proactive Risk Mitigation — Geospatial images are regularly taken by satellite or aircraft and are processed by machine learning and computer vision algorithms. Using this data, insurers can automatically interpret the imagery at scale to generate new risk insights. This allows them to proactively protect their customers if they spot an issue, like a deteriorating roof or overhanging trees.

Benefits of using geospatial data & GIS for risk assessment

There are a number of benefits of using geospatial data and GIS for risk assessment, but the most impactful for insurance carriers are:

GIS and geospatial data more accurately inform the risk assessment and underwriting process, ultimately delivering the most accurate quote possible.
This technology allows insurers to increase the speed at which they make accurate property assessments and policy quotes.
By creating faster, more accurate quotes, insurers are delivering a better customer experience, which increases customer conversion rates.
The insights derived from GIS and geospatial data allow insurers to increase ongoing customer engagement – insurers are always looking for ways to build relationships and loss avoidance, so by proactively helping a homeowner protect their property, insurers can nurture customer relationships and protect their investment.
GIS and geospatial data are highly structured, highly objective, and are collected at scale, meaning insurers can deliver new kinds of risk insights that weren't possible before.
Insurers can reduce their combined ratios (impact loss ratio and expense ratio) by better aligning risk with price.

Using GIS and geospatial data is a new frontier for the insurance industry, which means insurers are still discovering the potential of this technology. For carriers, one of the most promising opportunities with this data will be the potential for pre-underwriting. This can occur when insurers have access to geospatial information on homes across the country and can use it to "pre-underwrite" before a customer requests a quote. Insurers can then proactively market to these properties that fit their business model and more effectively target customers that will convert.

Special Reports /

Using geospatial property intelligence & GIS for risk assessment

Related Stories

Recommended For You