Risk profiles of insured properties evolve over time and it can be challenging for property and casualty insurers to update policies to keep pace with normal year-to-year changes. Climate change adds a substantial wrinkle to the equation by increasing the frequency and impact of natural disasters. Access to visual data will be critical for P&C underwriters and adjusters to help their customers recover quickly from disasters, as well as to mitigate and adapt to future changes that impact the claims environment.

The future viability of insurers will hinge upon how they handle the challenges posed by climate change and an evolving world. Challenges include:

• Rising sea levels threaten major coastal cities. Municipalities, such as Miami, are undertaking large-scale infrastructure projects just to remain livable. This means insurers need better and more current data about flood risk so they can develop models to help with loss prevention.
• Non-coastal areas are facing other adverse climate effects. Droughts have affected the far West, the Northeast, and the Chicago area while flood-inducing rains have done significant damage in Southern California, Eastern Kentucky, and Northern Texas. Barge traffic on the Mississippi has been impeded by low river levels. Some zip codes have become hard to insure, as droughts and lower soil moisture, combined with higher temperatures, have created areas that are newly prone to wildfires. And erratic weather patterns have led crop insurers to seek better data on soil health and moisture content.
• Populations are shifting rapidly. Some cities are shrinking while some are growing rapidly, meaning residential patterns are changing. More people are living full-time in what were once "vacation" sites, and thanks to new communications technologies, many people are now living and working in what had been remote locations. Consequently, insurers will find it harder to map and model urban areas without better data sources and more frequent updating.

All this is driving mounting losses: $480BN was incurred by U.S. P&C insurers in 2021, according to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. To decrease this trend, there is an opportunity for carriers to take action on preventative measures to reduce asset risk. This can be achieved by getting the right imagery, with the right degree of resolution, on a timely basis. This imagery can help insurers respond more quickly and effectively to disasters, but it can also help them advise customers on how to keep small problems from becoming large ones. One example: spotting and replacing missing roof tiles before a weather event can head off many thousands of dollars in damage.