MetLife Auto & Home looks to insurtech for wildfire assessment accuracy

MetLife Auto & Home has partnered with Zesty.ai, an insurance risk analytics platform, with the goal of improving assessments in wildfire protection.

To improve what was insufficient satellite imagery, with less granular details, MetLife will use Zesty.ai’s Z-FIRE to incorporate multidimensional digital imagery and third-party resources into its processes.

di-cali-fires-111318.jpg
A firefighter stands on a hillside covered in fire retardant during the SKirball Fire in the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, U.S., on Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2017. Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg

According to Carol Anderson, MetLife Auto & Home executive, “Z-Fire differs by finding different solutions, bring in the sources of data and machine learning improves the insight to make the information more actionable.” Getting three-dimensional imagery was a key selling point, Anderson added:“It can’t be one dimensional anymore, we need more dimensions for better results.”

With Z-FIRE, the ability to automatically assess risk exposure at a property level, as opposed to the broader ZIP-code level, allows MetLife Auto & Home to have an individual property view of the risk that can be transparently shared with agents, regulators as well as the customer. Along with artificial intelligence, high resolution satellites, and third party data, Z-FIRE also uses history and fire science to increase property accuracy.

With plans to not just become a single use project, Anderson shared that since Z-Fire can be used to address other catastrophe models.

“It is an exciting time for this industry when you think about the use of machine learning it just opens up a lot of opportunities, and I am excited to see what evolves from this,” she says.

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, click here.
Artificial intelligence Sensor data
MORE FROM DIGITAL INSURANCE