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A new chapter for risk intelligence

ZestyAI announced that Scott Stephenson, former Chairman, President, and CEO of Verisk Analytics, has joined its Board of Directors, bringing one of the principal architects of the insurance industry’s data modernization to the company at a pivotal moment for artificial intelligence in the industry.

Stephenson spent more than two decades at Verisk, including nine as Chairman, President, and CEO (2013–2022), where he helped transform the company into a global data and analytics leader. Under his leadership, Verisk more than quadrupled its market capitalization, became a component of the S&P 500 Index, and was repeatedly named one of the World’s Most Innovative Companies by Forbes.

Prior to Verisk, Stephenson was a Senior Partner at the Boston Consulting Group, where he advised Fortune 50 CEOs and founded the firm’s Southeastern U.S. practice. He currently serves on multiple public and nonprofit boards, including PSEG (NYSE) and Definitive Healthcare (NASDAQ).

Stephenson’s appointment comes as insurance moves beyond its data-driven modernization phase into a new stage where artificial intelligence is embedded across enterprise decision workflows.

“Insurance is one of the world’s most essential financial systems — a centuries-old institution that underpins economic growth and resilience,” said Attila Toth, Founder and CEO of ZestyAI. “Over the past two decades, data and actuarial science reshaped underwriting and risk management. Scott helped lead that transformation.

"Today, artificial intelligence is becoming the core decision infrastructure across the enterprise. His experience building durable, proprietary analytics platforms at a global scale is invaluable as we build the next generation of AI-powered risk intelligence.”

“This industry has endured for centuries because it adapts,” said Scott Stephenson. “The last major shift put data and analytics at the center of the enterprise. The next competitive frontier will belong to companies that build durable advantages from proprietary data and apply artificial intelligence to understand and manage risk with greater precision.

"ZestyAI is building exactly that kind of platform, pairing property intelligence with trustworthy AI to strengthen how insurers underwrite and manage portfolios. I look forward to working with the team as they scale this capability across the industry.”

A Year of Momentum and Scale‍

Stephenson joins ZestyAI at a moment of accelerating scale and operating leverage. In the past year ZestyAI has:

• Turned cash flow positive while more than doubling product usage across underwriting, rating, and reinsurance workflows
• Added 26 new clients, including Applied Underwriters, California Casualty, Lemonade, and Marsh
• Expanded commercial relationships with 12 existing enterprise customers through new agreements, including Berkshire Hathaway, the California FAIR Plan, and CSAA
• Surpassed 200 regulatory approvals nationwide, spanning multiple products and perils
• Introduced ZORRO Discover™, its agentic AI platform, embedding AI into enterprise workflows, including underwriting, portfolio management, and competitive intelligence
• Launched Z-SPARK™ which provides modern fire science and property-level intelligence to analyze how building materials, maintenance conditions, surrounding structures, local fire response capacity, and climate drive ignition and fire spread

Building on its continued leadership in wildfire risk analytics, in 2025 ZestyAI significantly expanded the adoption of its severe convective storm, wind, hail, and non-weather water suite of models, reinforcing ZestyAI’s evolution into a multi-peril decision intelligence platform.

That momentum is translating into measurable market impact. In 2025 alone, insurers using ZestyAI enabled coverage for nearly one million families and businesses previously considered difficult or uneconomical to insure, expanding access to coverage in catastrophe-exposed regions while maintaining underwriting discipline.

“ZestyAI has delivered what we look for in a market-defining company — disciplined execution, enterprise adoption, and profitable growth,” said Ben Cukier, Founder and Managing Partner at Centana Growth Partners and board member of ZestyAI.

“The company has expanded into a multi-peril AI platform embedded across underwriting, rating, and reinsurance workflows. Welcoming Scott Stephenson to the board at this stage reinforces both the scale of the opportunity and the strength of the foundation already in place.”

ZestyAI today announced a partnership with Kingstone Companies, Inc. (“Kingstone” to deploy property-level wildfire risk analytics as part of Kingstone’s planned expansion into the California homeowners market. As previously disclosed, Kingstone will enter California in Q2 2026 on an excess and surplus lines (E&S) basis, applying the same disciplined, data-driven underwriting approach that has driven record financial results in New York.

As part of its California rating and underwriting framework, Kingstone has integrated ZestyAI’s Z-FIRE wildfire risk model among the tools used to evaluate wildfire exposure at the individual-property level and to support disciplined underwriting in catastrophe-exposed regions.

Z-FIRE uses machine learning to evaluate each property’s unique characteristics, including defensible space, building materials, topography, and vegetation, to assess wildfire exposure at a granular level. This property-level insight enables Kingstone to differentiate risk within the same territory, improving rating and underwriting precision and portfolio oversight.

“Our California entry reflects the same disciplined, data-driven approach that has driven our results in New York,” said Sarah (Minlei) Chen, SVP, Chief Actuary and Head of Product Management.

“ZestyAI’s Z-FIRE model complements our Select platform by providing the property-level wildfire intelligence we need to rate and underwrite with precision in a complex and dynamic market like California.”

“Wildfire risk is pushing the insurance industry to embrace more advanced analytics and AI-driven decision making,” said Attila Toth, Founder and CEO of ZestyAI.

“With a clearer understanding of risk, insurers can make confident decisions about where they grow, how they manage exposure, and how they continue serving communities in wildfire-prone regions.”

Kingstone recently announced plans to enter the California homeowners market on an excess and surplus lines basis as part of its broader growth strategy. The move marks the insurer’s first geographic expansion outside the Northeast and reflects growing demand for insurance capacity in wildfire-exposed regions.

Z-FIRE is approved across all Western wildfire states and was the first AI-based wildfire model approved as part of a carrier rate filing in California. ZestyAI’s broader portfolio of AI risk models has secured more than 200 regulatory approvals nationwide.

Kingstone’s California strategy builds on the operational and underwriting transformation the Company has executed over the past four years. The Company’s E&S structure provides pricing flexibility to apply forward-looking wildfire models, set rates to achieve target margin requirements, and maintain strict underwriting standards including real-time accumulation management. Kingstone is maintaining a 30% quota share on its California business to manage net exposure during the initial scaling period.