Extreme climate occasions have gotten more and more frequent, costing insurers tens of millions of kilos in claims as they wrestle to become familiar with this alteration. In response, Ageas has began utilising WeatherNet’s SurgeCast utility, which is able to give it granular knowledge on the exact location of policyholders. This may allow the insurer to take a extra proactive method and warn and advise prospects liable to upcoming climate occasions.

GlobalData’s UK Prime 25 Normal Insurance coverage Competitor Analytics discovered that Ageas was the seventh-largest family insurer within the UK in 2023. It accounted for a market share of seven% and £418.3m in gross written premiums in 2023, making it a key participant on this line. Consequently, its shift to a extra preventative method might be the beginning of a wider pattern throughout the trade as insurers wrestle with more and more costly climate occasions. Such initiatives profit prospects vastly too: the extra info they’ve and the sooner they obtain it, the extra motion they will take to cut back damages. Ageas may even present session companies, which ought to assist scale back the influence of maximum climate occasions.

GlobalData’s 2023 UK Insurance coverage Shopper Survey discovered that 29.8% of family claims in 2023 had been attributable to extreme climate. 12.2% had been attributable to climate occasions excluding floods or storms whereas 9.2% and eight.3% had been precipitated particularly by floods and storms respectively. That is significantly problematic for insurers as such claims are typically extraordinarily costly. For instance, PwC estimates that Storm Babet in October 2023 value the trade not less than £450m. 2024 has already seen two massive storms between 21 and 24 January, which may even show expensive for insurers.

The growing frequency of such occasions and the way a lot they value imply it’s an pressing drawback for insurers. Family insurance coverage premiums are already rising, and the trade might face sure areas of the nation being nearly uninsurable because of the excessive stage of danger, as we’re already seeing in elements of Australia and the US.

Due to this fact, Ageas utilising WeatherNet’s SurgeCast app—thus switching the main target in the direction of prevention and decreasing the influence of such storms—is a constructive transfer from a number one insurer. The price-of-living disaster means customers are already battling premium inflation throughout a spread of traces, so insurers needs to be doing all the things attainable to maintain claims all the way down to retain and entice prospects. Being proactive on weather-based claims is a very good place to begin.