Beating the Odds in Insurance With ZestyAI
Insurance is not just about playing the odds—it's about beating them. In an industry facing relentless pressure from rising catastrophic losses, inflation, and soaring reinsurance costs, staying ahead of risk is more critical than ever. That’s where ZestyAI comes in.
We built a platform that we believe is a true game-changer, designed to help insurers tackle these challenges head-on. With our ‘Property Insights’ and peril models, we give companies the power to manage risk with unmatched precision.
Delivering a 10X Return on Investment
But at ZestyAI, we don’t stop there—we deliver a promise: a 10X return on investment (ROI) for our customers. In my last post, I shared what makes us stand out. Today, I’m going deeper into how we turn every dollar invested into ten. That’s not just a claim; it’s what we do.
While AI initiatives often promise big results, we consistently show how advanced risk analytics translate into tangible, financial wins for our clients.
While AI initiatives often promise big results, we consistently show how advanced risk analytics translate into tangible, financial wins for our clients.
Property intelligence provided by our platform includes Digital Roof, Roof Age, and Location Insights™. Our peril-specific models include Z-HAIL™, Z-WIND™, Z-STORM™, Z-FIRE™, and Z-WATER™, with many more in the R&D pipeline. Our suite of products provides carriers with the insights they need to strategically adjust premiums, manage risk, and make more profitable decisions—all while keeping those all-important loss and expense ratios under control.
So, how exactly do we turn $1 into $10? Let’s get into the details.
Nailing Premium Strategies with Precision
Growing the Premium Base With Property-Specific Risk Assessments
ZestyAI helps carriers grow their premium base by delivering precise, property-by-property risk assessments. While traditional models rely on broad geographic segmentation, our AI platform digs deeper, assessing risk at an individual property level. This enables carriers to offer competitive, risk-aligned pricing—growing in low-risk segments while strategically managing exposure in higher-risk areas.
Let’s be honest: territory-based segmentation is like spreading peanut butter. It’s imprecise. With ZestyAI, carriers avoid the pitfalls of adverse selection, where "good risks" get undervalued, and "bad risks" take over. Our models allow insurers to price policies based on actual risk, not generalizations, ensuring profitability even in higher risk regions. This is growth that’s smart, targeted, and sustainable.
Capturing Additional Premiums Through Accurate Data
ZestyAI’s insights also help carriers capture additional premiums through more accurate data. We enable insurers to:
- Accurately estimate property square footage
- Identify premium roofing materials (tile, slate, metal)
- Understand roof complexity (facets, pitch, penetrations)
- Locate solar panels and their total area
- Spot swimming pools, trampolines, decks, and skylights
- And more.
These detailed insights ensure premiums reflect the true risk and value of each property, leading to improved loss ratios.
Reducing Loss Ratio: Mitigating Risk With Data-Driven Insights
Predicting Losses
The cornerstone of controlling losses is precise underwriting. Carriers can define threshold levels using our predictive analytics and set clear criteria for the risks they’re willing to accept. Take Z-HAIL, for example: it scores hail claim frequency on a scale of 1 to 10. Milliman’s research paper shows that properties with a Z-HAIL score of 10 have a hail-only loss ratio of 50.4%, compared to just 2.4% for those with a score of 1. That’s a 21X lift—segmentation power that speaks for itself.
But it’s not just about predicting losses.
Proactive Risk Mitigation
ZestyAI helps insurers take proactive steps to mitigate risk before a policy is even issued. With insights like roof condition or surrounding vegetation, carriers can require clients to make repairs or clean up overgrown areas before taking them on. The result? Fewer costly claims, better underwriting, and a healthier bottom line.
Moreover, our platform helps insurers manage losses through more accurate policy adjustments. From adjusting deductibles to offering coverage at actual cost value (ACV) instead of replacement cost value (RCV), we provide carriers the data they need to make smarter decisions. The result? Better policy fit, reduced claims, and healthier loss ratios.
Taking the Hatchet to Expenses
Efficiency is the name of the game when it comes to expense ratios, and ZestyAI’s suite of products helps insurers cut costs while boosting productivity. Our high-speed APIs provide real-time data, allowing for straight-through processing—reducing the need for manual underwriting and saving time.
Take one of our recent success stories: a major national carrier was renewing part of their book, and we helped them identify 7% of their properties as high risk. By integrating our insights into their workflow, their underwriters processed each of these high-risk properties in under 30 seconds, with a 93% agreement rate. This efficiency led to $40 million in savings and a 4-point reduction in their loss ratio for that section of their book.
This efficiency led to $40 million in savings and a 4-point reduction in their loss ratio for that section of their book.
When it comes to inspections, ZestyAI applies the Pareto Principle with laser focus. We help insurers avoid unnecessary inspections for properties that can be confidently underwritten using our data, while targeting the high-risk properties that need deeper evaluation. This approach saves time, money, and resources, and—most importantly—helps carriers manage their expense ratios more effectively.
Securing Superior Reinsurance: Gaining the Competitive Edge
A Competitive Advantage in Reinsurance
In today’s market, the ability to secure favorable reinsurance terms is a serious competitive advantage. ZestyAI equips insurers with the data they need to become industry leaders—the “haves,” favored by reinsurers for their sophistication in managing risk.
Reinsurers increasingly favor carriers who take a property-specific approach, like the one ZestyAI provides. By leveraging AI-driven insights, carriers can demonstrate that they accurately assess risk at an individual property level. This positions them to not only secure more capacity but also negotiate better terms and pricing.
We’ve seen carriers using Z-FIRE, Z-WIND, and Z-HAIL present a more refined risk profile to reinsurers by providing a detailed, property-specific approach that goes beyond traditional portfolio catastrophe (CAT) models. It’s about more than just getting reinsurance—it’s about showing reinsurers that you’ve taken proactive steps to assess, mitigate, and manage risk with precision.
It’s about more than just getting reinsurance—it’s about showing reinsurers that you’ve taken proactive steps to assess, mitigate, and manage risk with precision.
Moreover, using ZestyAI’s insights, brokers can enhance their CAT modeling results with secondary modifiers or complement traditional models with next generation, AI-powered models for a more comprehensive view into risk. This enables brokers to position their clients as “haves” who are not only sophisticated in their risk management but also proactive in securing the best possible reinsurance agreements.
The 10X ROI: Our Promise
At ZestyAI, value isn’t just a buzzword—it’s our promise. Our commitment to delivering a 10X return on investment drives everything we do. With our advanced data insights, insurers can grow premiums strategically, cut losses, slash costs, and secure better reinsurance terms, turning every $1 into $10.
Each of our predictive analytics models can shave one to two points off a carrier’s combined ratio, and when multiple products are used, the impact multiplies. In one case, we helped reduce a carrier’s combined ratio by seven full points—an outcome that speaks for itself. These savings aren’t just incremental; they’re transformative.
As we continue to innovate, our mission stays the same: to empower insurers to tackle risk with precision and confidence. We’re not just a data vendor—we’re changing the way risk is managed, one dollar at a time, and turning it into ten.