Liberty and ICEYE team on parametric wildfire insurance using satellite data

Liberty and ICEYE, a provider of satellite data and services to inform decision-making and analysis, have partnered together to launch a new parametric wildfire insurance solution that uses satellite data to assess building-level damage.

The launch of this solution from both Liberty and ICEYE comes as wildfire risk continues to increase in frequency and severity, which ultimately impacts communities and drives significant economic losses.

According to the announcement, the solution will initially be available in the United States and Australia, where wildfire exposure is particularly high, but targeted to expand together with ICEYE’s product scope expansion.

The solution is reportedly designed for a wide range of clients, that includes homeowner associations, residential communities, municipalities and public risk pools, as well as owners of critical infrastructure and re/insurers with residential and commercial property portfolios seeking to reduce their wildfire exposure.

Moreover, Liberty’s remotely sensed parametric property wildfire solution, facilitates a swift response by granting immediate access to liquidity during critical times.

Central to this solution is ICEYE’s global constellation of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites, which offers ongoing surveillance of regions impacted by wildfires. These satellites are capable of capturing high-resolution images through smoke, at night, and under any weather conditions, thereby ensuring consistent and reliable data collection.

“Following a wildfire event, SAR imagery is combined with detailed property footprint data and advanced automated machine learning algorithms to deliver an objective, building-level damage assessment. Each insured property is classified against predefined criteria as either “destroyed” or “undamaged,” with results that could be delivered within hours,” Liberty and ICEYE explained.

According to both firms, this transparent, binary approach eliminates the need for site visits, loss adjusters, or subjective assessments, and instead, enables fast and consistent evaluations at the individual property level, triggering payout procedures within days when agreed parameters are met.

Jean-Christophe Garaix, Head of Parametrics & Agriculture at Liberty, commented: “By pushing the boundaries of technology, we are delivering a new generation of parametric wildfire coverage that is faster, more responsive, and fully data driven. Our property wildfire cover is remotely sensed and designed to address the growing threat of wildfires, providing reliable protection alongside traditional insurance that allows for more efficient claims settlement.”

Anke Sielker, Head of Reinsurance Solutions at ICEYE, said: “We are delighted to be working with Liberty on this ground-breaking solution. Built on rapid and verifiable observation data from our SAR satellite constellation, this offering provides quick confirmation when agreed loss parameters are met. The result is fast, precise, and consistent damage assessments at the individual property level, and can be deployed in high-risk areas to support multi-asset portfolios or regional programs.”