Eyes on Earth

How are satellite imagery and sensory data changing the insurance process from underwriting through damage response and claims?

Stephen Lathrope: We’re all very aware in the industry that the risks related to catastrophic weather events continue to increase; data, including from satellites, is playing a central role [in risk assessment and management], and part of that increased role is driven by the technology. The miniaturization of the satellite hardware, the associated cost reduction for manufacture, and specifically for launch and the ongoing operation of constellations, mean that we can have way more technology orbiting the Earth and we can revisit areas of interest around the globe multiple times a day, driving a huge increase in the frequency of data that we capture and the resolution that we capture it at. Those two factors together mean that, particularly with the sort of radar-based technology that ICEYE uses, we’re able to provide really rich information about events as they unfold. If you can see the detail of the hazard—for instance, flooding extent or depth of water—while the events are developing, and see the specific properties that have been impacted, you can understand which neighborhoods are affected and to what extent. Then, you’ve got a huge range of opportunities to manage the event, reserve more effectively, optimize claims, and support subrogation in areas as well.

Then the extent of information that’s building up as more and more observations are made of these events, that also enables better risk selection and pricing into the future. There’s a huge wealth of data that is being built up from lots of sources, and satellite-based radar imagery is a really important part of that change. That data is put out within 24 hours of the event starting. The unique benefit there is that if you think about something like the Lahaina fire in Hawaii, to be able to get data on that, when you’ve got really high winds, you’ve got potentially smoke it’s really tough to scramble aircraft and get a view of the entire event. So, being able to fly over with the satellites and see through those conditions is extremely important, and being able to get that data out quickly to both first responders on our government solution side, but also for our insurance partners to start to understand what’s happened on the ground and what they might need to do next, are vital.

It’s the same thing with the L.A. fires—even more of a longer-term duration before other imaging techniques could get airborne because of the extremely high winds. Being able to use our sensors to see what was happening was in some cases the only data that emergency responders and insurers were able to leverage for multiple days.

Satellite technology has certainly sparked investor interest. ICEYE raised $65 million in December and more than $500 million to date. What value do investors see in your technology?

Lathrope: Our investors recognize ICEYE as a leader in the rapidly growing space industry, a leader in small, lower-cost satellites with very sophisticated Earth observation technology. Our specific technology is synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and that has some really powerful features. Beyond the optical imagery of Earth that we’re used to, synthetic aperture radar sees day or night because it’s an active sensor. We send a signal and then we receive a bounce-back from the planet. And that has a huge amount of information in it about the shape of terrain or of objects and locations. We can do that 24/7, through clouds, through dust, through smoke, and that has huge application in defense and intelligence. That’s part of the business that we run here at ICEYE that is valued by our investors. But the thing that’s really unique about ICEYE is the focus that we’ve put, beyond defense and intelligence, on civil government and commercial solutions.

One of the challenges that comes with the satellite imagery is that it’s a very rich data source, meaning it’s quite difficult to handle and analyze, and as such requires a lot of specialist skills. Another challenge is that to really understand natural catastrophe events you often need to combine that radar image with other data. What ICEYE has done that is special, over the last three-and-a-half years or so in particular, is to invest in creating solutions that are tailored to areas of specific business requirements, starting with insurance, actually, but now extending out into banking and utilities as well.

What is SAR technology and what does having the largest SAR satellite constellation enable ICEYE to do?

Steven Sanders: The capability of seeing through all of the atmospheric conditions, seeing at night, allows us to do some really important things that no one’s been able to do before, especially relative to natural catastrophes. We can capture things like peak flood levels, for example, and where a hurricane’s making landfall, and we can see what’s happening on the ground while the clouds are still there. The speed and scale which enable us to provide data back to the insurance market is something that’s not been possible prior to this.

We were able to pre-image the coastline prior to Hurricane Helene [striking the Southeast United States in September 2024], to take a snapshot of what everything looked like on the ground, then image again immediately after the impact of the hurricane so we can see what changed. What’s really unique is that we were able to then pre-image again prior to Milton [reaching Florida in October], so we could take into account all that had been damaged with Helene, and then also the cleanup that had started to occur, and then used that as the new baseline for what happened with Milton when it made landfall.

If you combine that change detection data that we can provide with our flood solutions, you can really start to piece together what’s happened on the ground and what the impact is going to be and then what operations an insurance carrier might need to deploy, based on the situation.

We’ve just seen extreme wildfires in Los Angeles and the 2023 Lahaina wildfire in Hawaii. How does ICEYE help manage and address wildfire risk?

Sanders: We can provide real-time building damage assessment during a wildfire. We can fly the satellites over the area, take images, and then look to see where the buildings are located, based on their building footprint data, and then we can determine based on that radar signature that comes back whether that building has been damaged or not.

That data is put out within 24 hours of the event starting. The unique benefit there is that if you think about something like the Lahaina fire in Hawaii, to be able to get data on that, when you’ve got really high winds, you’ve got potentially smoke it’s really tough to scramble aircraft and get a view of the entire event. So, being able to fly over with the satellites and see through those conditions is extremely important, and being able to get that data out quickly to both first responders on our government solution side, but also for our insurance partners to start to understand what’s happened on the ground and what they might need to do next, are vital.

It’s the same thing with the L.A. fires—even more of a longer-term duration before other imaging techniques could get airborne because of the extremely high winds. Being able to use our sensors to see what was happening was in some cases the only data that emergency responders and insurers were able to leverage for multiple days.

Do you address other natural catastrophes, such as convective storms and earthquakes?

Lathrope: Hail is relatively difficult for us because the damage caused by hail is typically lots of small impacts, rather than larger-scale deformation of shapes on the ground, which is what the technology is better at seeing. For earthquakes, because they are less predictable and less forecastable, what we’ve been doing in Japan is pre-imaging the whole of Japan on a fairly regular basis so that we have a pretty up-to-date view of the country such that when an earthquake or tsunami occurs, we can then capture imagery very rapidly after the event and do a comparison between the two. We’re sponsored by a couple of customers there, including Tokio Marine, for this pilot work. We actually reported on two earthquake events in Japan to our customers last year. And that is a product that we plan to take to what we call general release and are looking to bring to California as soon as we’re ready and we get some pull from the market for that. That’s our next real focus on natural catastrophe perils.

Does the ICEYE data enable new insurance products such as parametric coverage?

Lathrope: Absolutely. We are enabling a lot of innovations in the traditional indemnity insurance space, but we’re definitely well suited as a data provider to support the growth of parametric. We all understand the power of parametric insurance in facilitating a rapid payment related to an event to individuals, businesses, communities impacted is one of the key advantages of that type of product.

We’re very proud to be involved in both commercial and public sector parametric innovation, including arrangements in Ghana and Nigeria. That was initiated by the Insurance Development Forum, which is a really important international vehicle for bringing insurance to various communities around the world. Also, closer to your home, the New York City Flood [parametric insurance] program, a first of its kind providing relief to vulnerable communities around New York City.

Is ICEYE considering moving into new areas of the insurance sector?

Lathrope: We’ve got an increasing number of auto insurance customers and that’s about understanding from a risk selection and pricing perspective where flooding has impacted before and where there are areas of higher or lower risk. Also, where we do some of our rapid impact analysis and our early warning reporting where we basically say, here’s where we think it’s going to flood, and automobiles are fairly mobile assets. But we’re also definitely thinking beyond those lines. So, for example, we have customers using our data to assess impacts on supply chains.

One of the things we’re particularly excited about is our increased focus on utilities and our ability to provide insight into what is happening with energy assets and energy security and also continuity of their performance. We’ve been looking recently at wind turbines. I was surprised to see from some of our recent R&D work that we can observe not only the hundreds of turbines in an overall wind farm on shore or offshore, but we can also actually see the individual turbine blades.

What’s next for ICEYE?

Lathrope: Our constellation is increasing—we’ve got 48 spacecraft launched so far and we expect to launch more than 20 this year and another 20 the year after. The latest generation of spacecraft that we’ve launched has the highest ever resolution. We now have a 25-centimeter resolution at our highest zoom-in, so that is a very high-resolution image, particularly when you’re talking about taking it from space 500 miles away. As the size of the constellation increases, we can do more of what we call persistent monitoring.

We’ve got a long way to go with our existing capability, applying it to new natural catastrophe areas. We’ve also got the potential to use that back catalog of data to support modeling, risk selection, and pricing as well. Then, as the capacity and the resolution continue to increase, we will start to do more persistent monitoring, and that is about the predictive aspect of looking at change and saying, “What do we think might happen next?” Which is what we’re really excited about because, of course, if you can avoid a loss, then that’s even more valuable than mitigating the loss associated with something that has happened.