Climate experts and professionals in the insurance, finance and mortgage industries shared their insights into trending and emerging climate-risk innovations at ClimateTech Connect, held April 15-16, 2025 in Washington D.C.
Panelists discussed innovations with Generative AI and digital tools for improved customer experience and education, new approaches to financial solutions for resiliency efforts at the community and homeowner levels and advances in risk detection with Internet of Things (IoT), space and aerial devices.
Risk detection from space to predict disasters and prevent damage.
Earth Observation (EO), the gathering of geospatial data via satellite, aerial or ground-based remote sensing, was discussed throughout multiple sessions as a significant opportunity for the insurance sector in risk assessment and climate resilience support.
Jacqueline Legrand, CEO and co-founder of Maptycs, said that the quality of data that EO provides benefits both the insured, who can use the information in loss mitigation or prevention, as well as the insurers, which can use the higher quality data for improved loss projection.
"We have historical and real-time data, and thanks to Earth observation, it's very granular," Legrand stated. "We can really help our client map properties with satellite imagery, and they can assess at the building level, in a very granular way, but also see the surroundings. It helps all the risk management value chains."
Raghuveer Vinukollu, climate insights and advisory at Munich Re, said that the 24/7 feed of high-quality information from EO and satellite imagery is beneficial for risk assessment.
"We have to constantly feed in a little bit more information, however we can get it. And Earth Observation is constantly giving that information," said Vinukollu. "In the insurance business…we already have that portfolio that will be insured for the next one year, because that's an annual contract. But what we can provide to our clients is coming up with aggregation frameworks with all of this information and what your portfolio concentration is by looking at different regions' hazards."
Nima Pahlevan, program scientist and manager at NASA HQ, shared that NASA is open to forming more commercial partnerships as part of its Earth Science enterprise. Pahlevan explained
"The Earth Science enterprise is comprised of five different elements, which ranges from technological developments, flight missions, data dissemination and systems, research and analysis and, ultimately, creating and enabling actionable science…" Pahlevan stated. "Our research analysis and Earth Action elements and programs work hand-in-hand to support activities around mapping, detecting, tracking, predicting and projecting risks associated with fires, floods and hurricanes. We try to essentially provide you with the information that you need to be able to go the extra mile."
The NASA programs are end-to-end systems, according to Pahlevan, that provide a variety of tools and use cases for actionable results. This includes mapping tools using lighter assets, flood and water extend maps and digital twins that address scenario-based assessments for floods, fires and power outages.
"The granularity of our offerings varies from tens to hundreds of meters," said Pahlevan. "We have wonderful, trusted, foundational data sets for your further decision-making. If you want higher sampling, we partner with the commercial sector and partners to support those higher, finer granularity for the insurance domain."
Gen AI as a multi-purpose tool: claims, underwriting and communication.
In the opening keynote discussion, panelists agreed that Gen AI is an essential and valuable multi-purpose tool across workflows and departments.
"I don't think you're going to be able to compete going forward, nor are we going to be able to cover the protection gap, or deal with climate, without having AI tools," said Peter Miller, president and CEO of The Institutes. "For the evolution of the industry, Gen AI–as a general purpose tool and for specific uses–is integral to that evolution."
Beyond its uses in office automation, such as a Copilot, Miller said that he sees high adoption of agentic AI, which assists in the claims space for improved processing and in underwriting for better analytics. Slower adoption for some carriers may be attributed to data governance issues.
Miller also shared that AI has the potential to communicate with consumers and educate them of the severity of potential climate risks. He shared an example of an app powered by gen AI that simulates the effects of an extreme weather event, such as the wildfire destruction of a house and how the losses could be prevented or mitigated by removing shrubs or trees around the property.
"I think most people don't really think about insurance except when they have to pay the premium and when they have a loss," Miller stated. "But the ability to personalize and quantify an individual's risk, and show what that means through simulation, would be effective."
Digital risk assessment tools that improve customer engagement and retention.
Denise Garth, Majesco chief strategy officer, suggested that by re-evaluating traditional risk assessment processes and introducing digital tools, insurers can address portfolio gaps and improve the customer experience.
"One of the things that we've done as an industry, particularly from a property standpoint, is loss control. We have boots on the ground and we send people out, but we only do that for the high-value types of properties out there. Unfortunately, for many insurers, that leaves a huge piece of their portfolio not assessed from a risk standpoint…" Garth said. "You need to have digital tools that are easily used by your customer. That means being able to do a digital self-survey, where they can go out and complete the [assessments] themselves, and in the process, they might actually understand a little bit about the risk that they're assessing."
Garth also suggested leveraging video, paired with high quality data analytics and models, to provide consumers with a comprehensive risk assessment. This could not only help reduce the risk, but also the property's cost of insurance.
"We have to rethink this whole process and not think that we have to do it as an insurance industry, but that we engage our customers in the process. In that way, we're educating them, we're helping them understand that risk and we're helping them make decisions on what they are going to do to actually help reduce that risk…" Garth stated. "It gives a really great opportunity to create a different kind of customer experience that hopefully will retain them as prices do go up."
