Aug 6, 2021 | 2 min Read
The Zest
- Regulators would like insurers to take property-specific mitigation efforts into account.
- Wildfires losses continue to increase.
- Artificial intelligence offers an opportunity to better understand wildfire risk.
Attila Toth recently had the opportunity to share how artificial intelligence offers valuable, up-to-date insight into the future of mitigation efforts with AM Best TV’s John Weber.
“Regulators believe that the future of wildfire risk mitigation is property specific and it has to take into consideration all the mitigation efforts that the property owners and business owners have done to the property, and also community level mitigation efforts,” Toth said.
“One example is the recent draft regulation that the California Department of Insurance (CDI) has passed, in which they are encouraging the industry to come forward with wildfire models and wildfire rate structures that are incorporating property specific and community specific mitigation efforts.
Insurers have seen increased levels of losses from wildfires over the past five or so years. On average, we have seen between 5 to 10 billion dollars of insured losses, just in the US West. Insurers understand that the tools they have been using in the past to understand wildfire risk, many of them about 20 or 30 year old models, need to be updated. They are looking to new technology to better understand wildfire risk,” Toth shared.
You can watch the full interview below.
