Helping Protect Insurers And Customers

Reference: Found here

Robert Clark is the founder and CEO of Cloverleaf Analytics , a leading provider of insurance intelligence solutions.

These weather disasters pose risks to civilians, businesses and government infrastructure. For insurers, there is unpredictability, but not everything about disaster preparedness or response is hard to forecast. With modern insurance analytics that can bridge insurer operational data, customer data and third-party data in visually engaging manners, insurers can be nimbler in helping disaster-wrought regions.

It's no secret that wildfires, tornadoes and storms have significantly impacted the nation in recent years, often hitting the same states and cities repeatedly. But it's the unusual events, like what happened in Hawaii , that no data analytics can fully predict.

Let's take California as an example. Half of the 58 counties in California that are normally impacted by wildfires are high risk to very high risk . There is enough historical insurer data, third-party data and information from California FAIR plan claims for insurers to forecast the likely range of annual disasters, premiums and claims for the next season. To do this type of analysis within the context of their business, insurers must work hard to clean up and organize their data into one single data lake. This will make advanced data analysis easier to enter, synthesize and evaluate new third-party data as events evolve.

Seasonal weather data becomes available months in advance, providing insurers with critical insights to enhance forecasting and issue proactive warnings to their customers. Insurers should aim to be faster than government agencies in alerting policyholders and educating the uninsured on the importance of preparing for the coming season. This approach is not about generating revenue; it's about safeguarding lives, protecting property and strengthening customer relationships.

When a community is preparing or recovering from a disaster, the last thing an insurer wants to deal with is fraud. For the consumer, fraud will impact the future products and services available to them if an insurer feels they are more at risk of false claims.