Allianz Re to Use Radar to Improve Crop Insurance Modeling

Allianz Re's agriculture team is developing remote sensing technology augmented with radar to help it better assess risk for crop insurance.

The technology, developed in conjunction with Swiss mapping firm Sarmap, can convert satellite images into data material of considerable informational value, irrespective of weather conditions and the time of day, Allianz says. The company says the innovation will provide much more granular data than remote sensing technology that is based on purely optical sensors and will help to solve key problems associated with crop insurance.

"We can quite literally watch the grass grow," says Thomas Heintz, agronomist and Head of Agriculture at Allianz Re, describing how the tool works. "When the European Space Agency (ESA) starts in 2013 to make satellite images available on the Internet on a weekly basis and free of charge, we will have this technology at our fingertips. We can estimate a field's current potential yield and monitor how it develops during the vegetation period - a fundamental prerequisite for multi peril crop insurance."

The company adds the technology will make loss-assessment in agricultural areas more accurate and less labor-intensive and will open new markets in the developing world for crop insurance, where data gaps have made agricultural insurance difficult in the past.

"This technology means that we can help the primary insurers to overcome market entry barriers and offer agricultural insurance at competitive prices,” Heintz adds.