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How are carriers using ACV roof settlement schedules to manage roof exposure? 

Carriers use Actual Cash Value (ACV) roof settlement schedules to cap claim severity on older roofs: the schedule pays the replacement cost of a roof adjusted for age and depreciation, rather than the full cost of replacing it. ACV is one of several coverage controls carriers use to limit exposure on aging roofs, alongside percentage-based deductibles, cosmetic damage exclusions, age-based payout triggers, and anti-matching provisions.

How fast is ACV roof settlement adoption growing among homeowners carriers ?

Sixfold in a decade among the top 10 U.S. homeowners carriers, from 10% of policies in 2015 to 60% in 2025. Looking at all ~60 carriers ZestyAI reviewed in catastrophe-exposed states, 75% now use ACV roof settlement schedules.

What other roof coverage restrictions are carriers filing?

ACV schedules are only one of several controls carriers are adding. Percentage-based deductibles spread from 60% to 90% of top-10 carrier policies over the same 2015-2025 period. Cosmetic damage and anti-matching provisions — once rare, limiting payouts for damage that's visible but doesn't affect a roof's function — accelerated even faster, from 20% adoption in 2015 to 90% in 2025.

Across all ~60 carriers ZestyAI reviewed in catastrophe-exposed states, the adoption rates were: 93% use percentage-based deductibles, 78% apply age-based coverage triggers, 75% use ACV roof settlement schedules, 49% include cosmetic damage exclusions, 30% require mandatory inspections as a condition of coverage, and 17% include anti-matching language.

How are carriers stacking multiple roof coverage restrictions?

ZestyAI's analysis found that a single roof claim today routinely faces four or more stacked coverage restrictions from one loss event: a percentage deductible, an ACV settlement schedule, an age-based payout trigger, and a cosmetic damage exclusion can all apply simultaneously. Kuczynski described one common pairing: "Attaching a higher flat deductible to your policy specifically targeting wind and hail losses puts a lot more skin in the game for the insured and does help to reduce the cost when claim time does come."

Which states have the highest adoption of roof coverage restrictions?

Texas and Oklahoma lead. ZestyAI found Texas at 100% adoption of percentage deductibles among reviewed carriers, with Oklahoma at approximately 95%. ACV roof settlement schedules were most prevalent in Oklahoma (85%) and Texas (82%), while cosmetic damage exclusions appeared in 57% of Texas filings and 50% of Colorado filings. Carriers facing similar catastrophe pressure aren't converging on one product design; they're assembling the same controls in different combinations depending on geographic concentration, operating model, and risk appetite.

Do roof coverage restrictions increase policyholder complaints?

Not so far. ZestyAI cross-referenced coverage restrictions against state insurance department complaint volumes and found a negative correlation; filings with more restrictions were associated with fewer complaints, not more. "There are less complaints coming in immediately, and theoretically that is due to premium breaks," Kuczynski said. "Everybody likes to have more cash, but we're not seeing any pushback from insureds for this loss of coverage."

Why are carriers layering coverage restrictions instead of relying on rate alone?

Coverage design can target roof-specific severity in ways base rate changes cannot. Controls like percentage wind/hail deductibles and ACV schedules shift a defined share of each loss back to the insured, reducing claim costs while funding the premium relief that appears to be keeping complaint volumes down. For carriers facing rate pressure in catastrophe-exposed states, coverage architecture has become a second lever alongside rate.

What does coverage architecture mean for carrier competitive strategy?

Coverage architecture, how coverage restrictions are layered within a policy, now differentiates carriers as much as rate, because two policies can look nearly identical at bind and behave very differently at claim time, according to Kuczynski. "The difference is that one may achieve a lower premium by layering restrictions that shift more risk back to the policyholder. Consumers naturally focus on the price they pay today, while the cumulative impact of a percentage deductible, an ACV roof settlement schedule, an age-based trigger, and a cosmetic exclusion often doesn't become clear until a loss occurs. That's why a decade-long trend like ACV adoption jumping six-fold matters: the economics of a roof claim under those policies can look fundamentally different."

The broader takeaway: as coverage design increasingly shapes what a roof claim actually pays out, clearer visibility into how these terms are layered — for carriers designing products, regulators reviewing filings, and policyholders comparing coverage — is becoming as important as the rate itself.

How can carriers benchmark their roof coverage against competitors?

Approved regulatory filings show which controls competitors have filed, in which states, and in what combinations. ZestyAI’s analysis drew on more than 2,000 homeowners filings across roughly 60 carriers to quantify adoption of ACV schedules, percentage deductibles, cosmetic exclusions, and age-based triggers. ZORRO Discover gives carriers this filing intelligence on demand: competitor coverage language, adoption rates, and state-by-state comparisons, so product teams can see where their own coverage architecture sits relative to the market.

Read the full article Shrinking Roof Lifespans Create a Pricing Problem for Home Insurers → P&C Specialist, July 1, 2026, by Jennifer Ortakales Dawkins. Includes ZestyAI's regulatory filing analysis and commentary from Stephanie Kuczynski, ZestyAI's director of risk analytics.

ZestyAI today announced that DUAL North America(“DUAL”) is expanding its partnership with ZestyAI to power wildfire underwriting for a new California homeowners program. As part of this expansion, DUAL will use Z-FIRE™ to assess wildfire exposure at the property level and support disciplined growth in catastrophe-exposed regions.

California continues to present significant wildfire volatility, requiring insurers to move beyond broad geographic indicators toward more granular, property-specific insights. Z-FIRE uses machine learning to evaluate each property’s unique characteristics—including defensible space, vegetation proximity, topography, building materials, and surrounding fire behavior patterns—to predict wildfire vulnerability at the individual structure level. 

This property-level insight helps insurers identify structures most likely to suffer catastrophic loss, and those far more likely to survive a wildfire event.

“Launching a California program requires a disciplined, data-driven approach to wildfire risk,” said Luke Wolmer, Chief Actuary at DUAL.

“Z-FIRE delivers the property-level insight we need to confidently assess exposure, differentiate risk within the same territory, and offer coverage with greater clarity and consistency. That level of precision is essential as we grow our portfolio with greater confidence.”

This expansion builds on DUAL’s late-2025 adoption of Z-STORM™ to strengthen hail and wind underwriting across its U.S. portfolio, marking a rapid expansion of its use of the ZestyAI platform.

“After strengthening severe storm underwriting with Z-STORM, DUAL is now extending that strategy to wildfire with Z-FIRE.” said Attila Toth, Founder and CEO of ZestyAI.

“This expansion shows how insurers can grow responsibly in challenging markets when decisions are grounded in verified, property-level intelligence.”

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

What Mitigation-Aware Scoring Does

Mitigation-Aware Scoring allows authorized users to update property attributes within the ZestyAI platform when they have more accurate or more current information.

Some property attributes are used as inputs to ZestyAI risk models and may change the property's risk score when updated. Other attributes are informational only and update the property record without affecting the risk score.

Once submitted, the updated value is stored for that carrier and made available to the underwriting, pricing, and operations teams, so they can make decisions from the same property view.

It supports two review paths:

• Carrier-initiated review: When an underwriter, risk team, or operations team determines a property attribute should be adjusted, they can update it in the platform with an auditable record.
• Policyholder, agent, or inspection updates: When new information comes from a homeowner, agent, field inspection, or third-party source, authorized users can apply that information directly on the platform after the carrier's review process.

How Mitigation-Aware Scoring Works

The workflow happens in the ZestyAI platform:

• Search for the  property by address
• Review property features and current model inputs
• Enter Mitigation-Aware Scoring mode and update the relevant property attribute
• Update the attribute value and review any resulting score changes
• Submit the change and preserve the audit trail

Carriers Stay in Control

The carrier controls how Mitigation-Aware Scoring is used.

Carriers determine:

•  Which users can submit or manage updates
•  How long each update remains in effect
•  What evidence or internal process is required before an update is applied

Original and updated values appear side by side with dates, making every change traceable. Updates apply only within that carrier's environment, so one carrier's updates do not change another carrier's scores.

Available Across ZestyAI Models

Mitigation-Aware Scoring is now available across all ZestyAI risk models, including Z-FIRE^TM, Z-HAIL^TM, Z-STORM^TM, Z-WIND^TM, Z-WATER^TM, and Z-PROPERTY^TM.

The Bigger Picture

Mitigation-Aware Scoring gives carriers a practical way to ensure underwriting and pricing decisions reflect verified property improvements.

It helps carriers:

• Recognize completed mitigation and maintenance
• Support policyholder requests to review property risk scores
• Support underwriting and pricing based on current property conditions
• Maintain an auditable record of each update

To see how ZestyAI risk models can support your underwriting and pricing workflows, book a demo.

Frequently Asked Questions About Mitigation-Aware Scoring

What is Mitigation-Aware Scoring?

Mitigation-Aware Scoring allows insurers to update verified property attributes within the ZestyAI platform and recalculate property risk scores when those changes affect the model.

Can property updates change a ZestyAI risk score?

Yes. Updates to model-relevant attributes can recalculate the risk score, and the platform records every change.

Which ZestyAI models support Mitigation-Aware Scoring?

Mitigation-Aware Scoring is available across Z-FIRE, Z-HAIL, Z-STORM, Z-WIND, Z-WATER, and Z-PROPERTY.

1. Reading Competitor Filings in Market Context

A filing is easier to interpret when teams know the carrier’s market position.

A rate change from a carrier with meaningful market share in a state may deserve more attention than a similar filing from a smaller writer. Without that context, teams can spend the same effort on filings that carry very different competitive weight. To assess the importance of a filing, an analyst usually has to look up market share for that carrier in a separate source, then return to the filing to interpret what it means.

The new Market-Share-Aware Chat brings annually reported carrier size and market position into ZORRO Discover responses. 

Teams can run filing research with each carrier's market position in mind, so activity from the most relevant competitors surfaces first rather than getting lost among smaller, regional filings. For example, a search for separate wind/hail percentage deductibles in Texas may surface filings from carriers of very different sizes, making market context essential. ZORRO Discover can prioritize results from carriers with larger market positions, helping teams focus on the competitors most likely to shape the market.

The impact: a more focused competitive strategy based on relevant competitors, without switching between filings, market-share reports, and separate data sources.

2. Responding to Regulator Objections with Precedent

When a state department of insurance raises an objection, the response can shape the speed, defensibility, and outcome of a filing.

Teams need to know whether other carriers have faced a similar issue, how they responded, which responses succeeded, and which arguments drew more pushback. That requires digging through old filings, objection letters, response documents, and supporting exhibits. The right precedent may exist, but finding it is slow and inconsistent.

The new Objection Research helps teams find relevant precedent across more than two million filings. 

Teams can surface similar objections, review how other carriers responded, and compare how regulators handled comparable issues. For example, a carrier in Florida facing an objection on its hurricane deductible methodology can see which responses succeeded on comparable filings and build on what worked, helping the team craft a stronger response and move through review faster.

The impact: faster objection resolution, fewer manual research cycles, and a clearer path to filing approval. 

3. Knowing the Moment a Competitor Files

Important filings often surface too late.

Teams may discover a competitor filing through a manual SERFF check, a colleague, a meeting, or a leadership request. By then, the filing may already be approved, or the window to respond may be limited.

The new Watchlist helps teams monitor the carriers, states, lines of business, filing types, and rate-impact thresholds that matter to them. When a matching filing appears, ZORRO Discover delivers alerts by email and in-app.

For example, a homeowners carrier in Texas can monitor its top five competitors for material rate changes, track a specific line of business across the state, or set an alert on a keyword like "wildfire deductible" to catch relevant filings as they appear. That gives the team more time to brief leadership, evaluate the move, adjust pricing assumptions, or prepare a competitive response.

The impact: earlier visibility into competitor activity and less reliance on manual filing checks.

4. Turning Filing Tables into Analysis-Ready Data

Rate filings often include valuable data in tables, exhibits, factors, assumptions, relativities, and supporting schedules. Much of that data is locked inside PDFs.

Extracting it manually requires opening the document, finding the right table, copying or retyping values, and rebuilding the structure in a spreadsheet. That work is slow and can introduce errors.

The new Table Extraction pulls filing tables and exhibits into clean CSV files in one click, preserving structure and values for analysis.

For example, an actuary running competitor rate analysis in New Jersey can export rating factor tables directly from ZORRO Discover rather than manually copying data between PDFs.

The impact: analysis-ready data in minutes, without manual transcription.

5. Benchmarking Your Rates Against the Market

Before a carrier commits to a rate strategy, it needs a clear read of the market. 

Understanding rate activity in a state or line of business means locating the relevant filings, extracting rate changes, comparing carriers, normalizing formats, and identifying which moves are material. That requires filing searches, PDF review, spreadsheet work, and manual normalization, repeated every cycle.

The new Rate Intelligence Dashboard brings key rate activity into a single view.

Pricing, actuarial, and product teams can compare rate changes across carriers, states, and lines of business. They can see who is moving rates, how large the changes are, which markets are seeing the most activity, and which filings carry the greatest business impact. For example, a carrier preparing for a Texas rate review can see how approved rate changes from competitors have trended over the past year and whether its planned action is directionally aligned with the market.

The impact: faster competitive benchmarking and better-informed rate review decisions.

The Bigger Picture

Each update removes a specific filing research bottleneck. Together, they shift filing research into a market intelligence workflow

ZORRO Discover brings assembly, analysis, and interpretation into one workflow. 

Filings become structured, contextualized, monitored, exportable, and easier to interpret through an insurance-specific intelligence layer. The platform is built on ZestyAI's regulatory and competitive intelligence expertise, including experience with more than 200 filing approvals.

ZORRO Discover helps insurance teams turn millions of filings into citation-backed insights that reveal pricing trends, competitor moves, regulatory patterns, and market signals with up to 20X greater research efficiency.  Get access to ZORRO Discover today.

ZestyAI has been recognized in the Insurance Risk Analytics50, a report that identifies the leading providers of insurance risk analytics technology across the global market.

Part of Chartis’ broader STORM research program, the Insurance Risk Analytics50 evaluates vendors based on the depth and breadth of their analytics capabilities, with particular focus on how data science, AI, and advanced statistical techniques are integrated into insurance workflows. This year’s report highlights the evolving landscape of insurance analytics, examining the new models, technologies, and operating frameworks enabling carriers to make more data-driven decisions.

This recognition reflects the foundation of what we’ve built at ZestyAI: a Risk Decision Intelligence Platform that combines property-level intelligence, predictive AI, and agentic automation to help P&C insurers underwrite more accurately, allocate capital more efficiently, and adapt to a rapidly changing risk landscape.

ZestyAI’s models — spanning wildfire, severe convective storm, non-weather fire, and non-weather water risk — are validated against real-world loss outcomes and designed with the transparency and explainability that insurers and regulators increasingly demand.

The industry momentum reflects the growing need for this approach. Over the past year, ZestyAI surpassed 200 regulatory approvals nationwide, added 26 new insurance customers, and expanded relationships with leading organizations such as Berkshire Hathaway, the California FAIR Plan, and CSAA. In 2025 alone, ZestyAI’s technology helped enable coverage for nearly one million families and businesses that were previously considered difficult or uneconomical to insure.

The insurance industry is undergoing a fundamental shift in how risk is understood, evaluated, and managed. We’re proud to be recognized by Chartis as part of this transformation and remain committed to helping insurers build more resilient, sustainable portfolios through trusted AI.

ZestyAI today announced the appointments of David Friend as Chief Financial Officer and John Ross as Senior Vice President of Client Development. Both executives bring decades of experience across insurance and enterprise technology and join ZestyAI as insurers increasingly adopt the company’s AI-powered platform for underwriting, pricing, and portfolio management.

The hires come as ZestyAI turns cash flow positive, more than doubles product usage, surpasses 200 regulatory approvals, and adds 26 new carrier customers.

Friend brings more than two decades of experience scaling high-growth enterprise software companies. He most recently served as CFO of Quantum Metric for five years as it scaled through the $100M annual recurring revenue milestone. Earlier, as an investor at Bain Capital Ventures, he partnered with founders building category-defining enterprise software companies. At ZestyAI, he leads finance, accounting, and corporate development.

Ross brings nearly two decades of P&C insurance experience across carriers, insurtech, and data and analytics providers, with a track record of leading teams that drive growth through a relentless focus on customer service. He joins ZestyAI from LexisNexis Risk Solutions, where he ran the Auto and Home portfolio and led the industry's largest commercial relationships across personal lines insurers. At ZestyAI, he leads client development, ensuring customers realize measurable value through precision underwriting, improved rate segmentation, and enhanced access to reinsurance capital.

"David and John are exactly the leaders we need at this stage," said Attila Toth, Founder and CEO of ZestyAI.

"David has built and scaled the financial foundation of high-growth enterprise software companies, and John has spent his career inside the P&C insurance market helping carriers turn data into better underwriting and portfolio decisions. They strengthen how we operate as a company and how we partner with customers as AI becomes core decision infrastructure across the insurance enterprise."

“ZestyAI is operating at the intersection of two major shifts in enterprise software — the move to AI-native platforms and the transition from systems of record to systems of intelligence,” said David Friend.

"The carriers pulling ahead are using property intelligence and agentic AI to underwrite more accurately, deploy capital more efficiently, and respond to risk faster. ZestyAI is built to give them that edge. I'm looking forward to helping more carriers put it to work."

"What drew me to ZestyAI is a rare combination: a company with the technology to genuinely change this market for the better, and the opportunity to do it in partnership with carriers, reinsurers, and ultimately the consumers they serve," said John Ross. “I've spent my career helping insurers turn data into better decisions in challenging markets and move beyond the inertia that too often defines the industry," said John Ross.

"ZestyAI combines property intelligence, predictive modeling, and agentic AI to give carriers a precise view of risk across their portfolio and materially improve how they manage it.”

A Year of Momentum

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
• Launched ZORRO, its agentic AI platform, and ZORRO Discover™ — which reduces manual regulatory and market research by 95% for underwriters, product leaders, and executives
• Launched Z-SPARK™, a property-level fire risk model grounded in modern fire science with 30× greater accuracy than traditional methods
• Welcomed Scott Stephenson, former Chairman, President, and CEO of Verisk Analytics, to its Board of Directors

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 its evolution into a multi-peril decision intelligence platform. That precision gives carriers something rare in catastrophe-exposed markets: the confidence to grow. Insurers using ZestyAI are writing policies they otherwise couldn't have priced — expanding their books while maintaining underwriting discipline.

In 2025 alone, that translated into coverage for nearly one million families and businesses previously considered difficult or uneconomical to insure.