The Cincinnati Insurance Company Partners with Zesty.ai to Assess Wildfire Risk at the Individual Property Level

PR Newswire

OAKLAND, Calif., March 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Zesty.ai, the leader in climate risk analytics powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI), today announced that The Cincinnati Insurance Company has signed a long-term contract to fully integrate Z-FIRE™ across the Cincinnati Insurance portfolio. With Z-FIRE, Cincinnati insurance agents are able to assess wildfire risk using an AI model that's been trained on more than 1200 wildfire events across several decades and accounts for the property-level factors that contribute to wildfire risk, compared to the regional perspective that legacy models rely on.

"We knew we needed a modern solution to improve the accuracy of fire risk assessment, and while we evaluated several options, we were immediately impressed with Z-FIRE's ability to provide precise risk scores for individual properties at scale," said Scott Schuler, VP of Product Management & Head of Personal Lines for The Cincinnati Insurance Company. "Z-FIRE empowers our agents with the insights they need to confidently offer coverage for homes that legacy models might deem too high risk, which increases revenue while simultaneously giving homeowners more coverage options. It's a huge value add for our business -- especially as it enables us to grow confidently in western states like California."

When assessing risk, Z-FIRE considers building materials, topography, historical weather data, and critically, factors extracted from high-resolution imagery like vegetation clearance and mitigation efforts, which legacy models fail to evaluate. It then combines these details with actual loss data to derive a predictive risk score, giving insurance carriers a much more accurate risk metric to inform underwriting, while taking into account many of the home hardening efforts taken on by property owners.

"Five of the six largest wildfires in California history occurred last year. As the costs of climate change continue to increase, it's critical that the insurance industry and its customers look beyond the status quo and embrace emerging technologies like AI to better understand the risks associated with natural disasters," said Attila Toth, CEO of Zesty.ai. "The Cincinnati Insurance Company has always been known for its progressive approach, and we're proud of our partnership with them as they further cement their pioneering position, providing homeowners with policies that accurately reflect a property's wildfire risk."

For more information on Zesty.ai please visit www.zesty.ai. For more information on The Cincinnati Insurance Company please visit www.cinfin.com.

About Zesty.ai (www.zesty.ai)
Zesty.ai accelerates digital transformation in the Property & Casualty insurance market with powerful data and new artificial intelligence technologies. The company accurately models the potential impact of catastrophic and attritional loss events using the latest advancements in AI on 130+Bn data points on residential and commercial properties. In a world where outdated tools often left insurance carriers with a zip code-level visibility into risk, Zesty.ai brings the industry into a new age that enables data-driven dialogue between insurers, customers, agents and regulators. Visit https://zesty.ai for more information.

About Cincinnati Financial
Cincinnati Financial Corporation offers primarily business, home and auto insurance, our main business, through The Cincinnati Insurance Company and its two standard market property casualty companies. The same local independent insurance agencies that market those policies may offer products of our other subsidiaries, including life insurance, fixed annuities and surplus lines property and casualty insurance. For additional information about the company, please visit cinfin.com.

Media Contact:
Abby Schiller216-870-1835
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