As soon as it became clear that Hurricane Ian would make landfall in Florida, Swiss Re began delivering insights into thousands of individual Security First Insurance policies that could be triggered by property damage from the hurricane. By the time Ian moved inland, Security First was in the process of reserving, planning loss adjustment and allocating claims resources.

Abhishek Mishra from Swiss Re’s RDA team worked closely with Security First Insurance during Hurricane Ian. “Our work began even as Ian was still developing. Before it landed in Florida, we were getting data and images to provide clarity on the probable impact on our clients’ portfolios. We could then combine these high-tech image-capture tools with our AI”, explains Abhishek.

RDA draws on Swiss Re’s proprietary hazard models, analysis of a client’s portfolio and artificial intelligence on aerial imagery to assess the impact of natural catastrophes – with the process starting before the catastrophe even strikes.

Quick access to insights is valuable to insurers because assessing their claims burden in the aftermath of natural disasters proves challenging. For Hurricane Ian, Swiss Re’s own internal assessment, the so-called Post Event Catastrophe Assessment Team (PECAT) process, took approximately three weeks of intensive portfolio analysis overlaid with natural catastrophe modelling to ensure that Swiss Re could announce a robust best estimate to the market.

For clients like Security First Insurance, things need to move fast. It is imperative that they can get information about damages and effectively allocate their claims resources – even if impacted areas remain inaccessible.

With RDA, Swiss Re's teams used high-resolution aerial images to detect the severity of damage for insured properties on clients' books. Within six days, they had assessed 35 000 properties, and after two weeks, this grew to over 88 000 properties. 

Abhishek explains: “Claims payments are what people need from their insurer when disaster hits – and the sooner the better. RDA allows clients to efficiently plan resources. They know where to focus. This planning helps them keep costs down throughout the claims cycle.”

The RDA solution’s insights also helped insurers reach out to clients. Since many policyholders have only a holiday home in Florida, but live elsewhere, many were out of town during Ian. RDA’s insights allowed many clients to let these policyholders know they may be able to file claims.

For the team involved, this proved to be rewarding work – with people directly benefitting from Swiss Re’s technology and pre-planning. Abhishek notes: “Across the RDA team, we are very aware that speeding up claims means speeding up recovery. This gives us an enormous amount of pride in our work. My passion is cutting-edge tech. With RDA, I am combining that passion with a satisfying purpose – helping communities rebuild and making the world more resilient.”