The expansion will see BHHC extend the use of Zesty.ai’s AI-powered wildfire risk model, Z-FIRE™, to 12 states.
Zesty.ai pointed to a recent report from Aon, which found there were three separate wildfires in 2021 alone that generated economic losses beyond $1bn. The company said this highlights the growing importance of property-specific risk models for maintaining coverage in wildfire-prone states.
The wildfire risk model not only provides regional and property-specific risk scores but also an explanation of the specific risk factors affecting the property. Using artificial intelligence that has been trained on more than 1,500 wildfire events across more than 20 years of historical loss data, it considers property-level features that influence risk. Topography, historical climate data and critical factors extracted from high-resolution imagery such as building materials and surrounding vegetation in multiple defensible spaces are taken into account.
Zesty.ai explained that this empowers insurers with a “true property-level risk score” that effectively splits risk, while providing the flexibility to recognise mitigation efforts by homeowners and their respective communities.
Brian Hall, vice president of products and nderwriting at Berkshire Hathaway Homestate Companies, said, “Unfortunately, wildfires are impacting communities well beyond the western US, and managing that risk requires advanced models that help us truly understand wildfire risk at the individual-property level. Zesty.ai’s model has outperformed our homegrown wildfire risk model.
“We started working with Zesty.ai last year and saw an immediate opportunity to leverage granular wildfire insights that allow us to confidently write policies that commensurate with a property’s true risk.”
Earlier this year, Zesty.ai raised $33m in conjunction with their Series B led by Centana Growth Partners.
