McKenzie Intelligence Services, the geospatial imagery and re/insurance intelligence consultancy, has been awarded a contract for a European Space Agency (ESA) demonstration project.
Awarded through ESA’s business application programme, ESA Space Solutions, the €685,000 in co-funding will enable McKenzie Intelligence to develop and deliver a global event observer for the insurance industry, and to validate its performance with involved pilot users.
Since 2016, McKenzie Intelligence has exclusively been the geospatial imagery and intelligence provider for Lloyd’s, its managing agents, third-party administrators and partners, providing access to exposure management and claims data following global events via the MIS-Intel Portal.
The ESA-supported global event observer status represents the evolution of McKenzie Intelligence’s technology capability, and will enable the further collection and use of highly accurate, geotagged external data from a range of sources, including augmenting data from internet of things devices and satellite and aerial imagery, to provide early warnings of loss events.
Vicky Mills, chief product officer at McKenzie Intelligence, said: “The features of a global event observer are far reaching, we can automatically ingest risk data, store and monitor it against insured perils, using a huge number of data sources from around the world.”
“Once a trigger event happens, we send that data back to the client system and they act upon it in either their exposure management, claims or other workflows, greatly speeding these up workflows and providing very accurate data from the ground. For parametric policies, the benefits are multiplied.”
Nick Appleyard, head of space solutions at ESA, said: “ESA sees a significant opportunity for space to support financial services, in particular the insurance sector, since space-derived data allows a rapid assessment of both risk and damage over a wide area of observation.”
“We’re excited to support McKenzie Intelligence for this venture with their partners in the insurance sector, which promises the automatic generation of event-driven claims, based on triggers written into the insurance contract and underpinned by cost-effective and trusted information that can be used to remotely investigate and assess the situation on the ground.”
Forbes McKenzie, chief executive and founder of McKenzie Intelligence, added: “Our relationship with the Lloyd’s market has gone from strength to strength and this announcement is a significant milestone. The value of what McKenzie Intelligence can potentially deliver to the market could be truly remarkable in providing very early data from catastrophe or other loss events quicker than the insurance industry has been able to deliver before.”
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