A small London insurtech, founded in 2019, that uses satellite and weather data to build parametric insurance for businesses exposed to extreme weather.
BirdsEyeView is an insurance technology company that uses data from space. Its main product, called RAPTOR, is an underwriting engine that processes weather and climate data from sources such as the European Space Agency and NASA to design parametric insurance. Parametric insurance pays out when an agreed event happens, such as a certain amount of rain or a certain wind speed, rather than after someone has counted up their losses, which can make payments faster and the process clearer. BirdsEyeView says this kind of cover has mostly been used by large companies, and that it wants small and medium-sized businesses to be able to use it too.
The company's chief executive and co-founder is James Rendell. He has said the company aims to develop RAPTOR so that insurers and policyholders can get better and more accurate insurance services. Its second product, WEATHER ANALYTIX, helps underwriters understand how exposed their portfolios are to climate and weather. The company was part of the seventh cohort of the Lloyd's Lab accelerator in 2021, where its focus areas were climate change, decarbonisation and parametric cover.
BirdsEyeView is based in London. Press coverage in 2022 described it as a London-based insurtech, and the Lloyd's Lab profile lists its head office and main office as the United Kingdom. It works with the London insurance market: after the accelerator it signed contracts with several Lloyd's syndicates, brokers and London Market insurers. London Market insurers use WEATHER ANALYTIX to measure their exposure to extreme weather and natural catastrophes, and brokers and underwriters use RAPTOR to automate underwriting and policy administration. The company serves clients globally from its UK base.
The pages we could read did not describe BirdsEyeView's culture or values, so we do not describe them. The Lloyd's Lab profile lists a team of 1 to 10 people, so this is a very small business in which each person covers a lot of ground. A 2022 article places the company in the wider story of insurers using satellites and drones for climate risk: it noted global economic losses from natural catastrophes of $190bn in 2020, of which $101bn was uninsured, which is the gap that parametric cover tries to close.
The work in a company like this includes data science and engineering, building and testing the underwriting engine, meteorology and climate analysis, underwriting and product design, and working with brokers and insurers. Because it is a very small team, there are probably few people in each role, so anyone interested in climate, space data or insurance who is willing to learn quickly is the kind of person this kind of firm needs.
Website: www.birdseyeviewtechnologies.com
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