Wildfire risk assessment with Smarty®

Wildfire risk assessment is more accurate with Smarty

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January 27, 2025

Growing challenges of wildfire risk assessment

Wildfires are increasingly growing in frequency and intensity due to climate changes, lack of water, and urbanization.

Hotter and drier winds continue to contribute to these walls of flame as extended droughts and dying vegitation provide fuel. Pair that with their 100 mph winds and you literally have the perfect fire storm.

Then, we add to wildfire risk by building homes and businesses in areas that intermingle with the wildland-urban interface (WUI). This essentially means that humanity is building on and living in fire-prone areas.

This makes life and work more stressful for anyone who is responsible for any part of an insurance policy.

You can’t tell people where to live, and you can’t change the weather, but you do have control over what properties you choose to insure and at what premium amount.

Using Smarty as your top-tier provider won’t only help you to avoid taking on too much risk when insuring properties or vacant land, but will also help you to somewhat predict the future trends of wildfire risk in your assessment.

Here’s how.

Geocoding

Geocoding (gathering the latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates on an address or land parcel spread) has grown in popularity for insurance and insurance tech industries. Insurance carriers can verify exact building locations down to the secondary address and ensure they’re tied to the correct geocodes.

Smarty’s rooftop geocoding places homes at precise locations, avoiding misclassifications in fire-prone areas.

Rooftop accurate geocoding means a pin can be placed on the roof

Rooftop accurate means rooftop accurate

Some companies will claim they have rooftop accuracy but won’t provide the data for addresses that don’t technically contain rooftop-level accuracy geocodes. Smarty is not some company. When we say “rooftop,” we mean it. Plus, even if we only have parcel-level geocodes, you'll know because we deliver an accuracy rating with every lookup.

Property data updated monthly

Yep. You read that right. Smarty’s data is updated monthly so that you’re empowered with the most up-to-date address information available. When we say accurate, we also mean it.

Why is frequently updated address data important?

Street names change, ZIP Codes change, and even city names will change from time to time. Knowing that the information you have is wholly updated is critical for ensuring the property you’re insuring is linked to the address provided (not one in the next city over). It helps you mitigate and effectively take on the appropriate risk, further protecting your clients from being under or overinsured.

Enhanced risk modeling is more possible than ever when combining Smarty’s updated and verified addresses with GIS tools to better predict wildfire exposure for underwriters. Smarty has a QGIS plugin that helps insurers, underwriters, and anyone curious about terrain differences visualize the area they’re being asked to insure before assuming the risk.

The best approach to wildfire risk assessment starts with access to accurate address data and GIS tools with built-in FEMA fire hazard maps and other risk indicators.

Address accuracy is noted in the DPV footnotes

Smarty tells you the level of accuracy that we’ve been able to achieve on any given address. Not every company does this, but here’s why it’s important. In Smarty’s footnotes, you’ll see results like these:

Unknown — The coordinates for the entered address are not known, possibly because the entered address is invalid.

None — The coordinates for this address are not provided. Military addresses such as APO, FPO, and DPO often don’t provide coordinates as part of safety protocols.

Zip5 — The geocode is accurate to a 5-digit ZIP Code level (least precise).

Zip6 — The geocode is accurate to a 6-digit ZIP Code level

Zip7 — The geocode is accurate to a 7-digit ZIP Code level

Zip8 — The geocode is accurate to an 8-digit ZIP Code level

Zip9 — The geocode is accurate to a 9-digit ZIP Code level (the most precise geocode available with the basic subscription)

Parcel — The geocode is accurate to the centroid of a property parcel. This precision requires the US Rooftop Geocoding subscription.

Rooftop — The geocode is accurate to the rooftop of a structure for this address. This precision requires the US Rooftop Geocoding subscription.

Now, imagine that your land parcel is in an agricultural sector. In the case of a potential fire, flood, or other insurable natural disaster, the more precision there is on where the structure is built, the better.

wildfire risk assessment being performed by an agent

You will feel equipped to make a call on how to insure that structure accurately. You will also have the most information available to decide if you are willing to assume risk for that structure or not.

SmartyKey makes all of this cooler

With the power of SmartyKey® (our persistent, unique identifier), you can track historical changes in your address data and persist this data over time for analysis and reanalysis. A historical overview of a property or parcel of land will help you achieve better risk modeling.

Speaking of risk modeling, we know you probably depend on a few vendors to build an accurate risk model. SmartyKey is also great at helping you blend data from your other vendors to make sure all risk factors are accurately connected to the correct address.

This is all very useful information for pre-disaster wildfire risk assessment, but how does having the most accurate address data support those who work with insurance claims following the event?

Insurance challenges and solutions following a disaster

Accurate address data improves efficiency in post-fire recovery and claims management. Smarty’s data ensures that insurance adjusters have the correct location data for damage assessments to fulfill clients' claims.

It’s also a protection measure for you. The FBI estimated that there is over $40 billion per year from property and casualty insurance fraud in the US. Fraud prevention through address verification is possible and saves you and your clients money in the long run.

Address discrepancies in policyholder data can be programmed to flag claims that might potentially be fraudulent, and a second pair of eyes might be needed to avoid making payments on claims for properties not affected by the fire zone.

wildfire destroyed city with no recognizable signs or monuments

It can also be difficult to find properties in fire-damaged areas where street signs and building markers have been reduced to dust. Smarty’s US Reverse Geocoding assists you and others in finding locations in the highest-risk areas by providing the geocodes linked to an address. This information can also be integrated with drone imaging and other technologies to validate claims efficiently.

Hippo case study for address data and natural disasters

Hippo utilized Smarty’s address data intelligence to provide information on where an address is located without the actual address. Geocoding technology supported Hippo Hippo is more confident in its wildfire risk assessment.

The bigger picture: Preparing for the future with better wildfire risk assessments

The role of data intelligence in wildfire management is critical. Smarty’s address solutions can integrate with AI-driven predictive modeling to prepare for future disasters and contribute to broader wildfire mitigation efforts.

Insurance carriers should adopt Smarty’s address intelligence as their top-tier address data provider to stay ahead of growing wildfire risks.

Precise address data prevents fraud, enables efficient and accurate recovery and claims processing, and provides preventative assessment capabilities for insurers and their customers to feel confident in the policies they write being able to withstand a natural disaster.

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