Novel usage of remotely-sensed flood footprints in the re/insurance sector

Flooding has been consistently one of the most recurrent and costly natural catastrophes globally. Only in 2021 large flood events claimed more than 2 000 victims and caused over USD 75 billion of economic losses, of which a quarter was covered by the insurance sector.
Modelling floods and simulating their impact have proven to be particularly challenging in locations with fine-scale changes in elevation, complex terrains and man-made structures as is typical for dense urban centres.  By partnering with ICEYE, the largest commercial synthetic-aperture radar satellite operator, Swiss Re aims to advance flood risk modelling, assist disaster response and provide enhanced insights and new products to its clients. 

We present few applications for the re/insurance sector of the remotely acquired flood maps at high resolution and water depth estimations. Firstly, the flood footprints are provided to clients for assessing the event magnitude and enabling faster loss assessment and payouts. Secondly, they are used as input to flood catastrophe models to obtain a first loss estimation for reinsurance portfolios. Thirdly, new insurance products that rely on the remotely-sensed flood footprints to trigger a payout have been explored. These parametric flood insurances, even with their limitations, present relevant potential applications for cities, large regions and the agriculture sector.