Flood Re
Client
Flood Re
Company
Specialist re-insurance scheme for properties in previously flooded or high-risk areas
Industry
Insurance
Services
Advise, Design & Build
About Flood Re.
Flood Re works to ensure that home insurance is available and affordable for homes at risk of flooding.
We designed and built a data platform to help support an insurance business provide quick response to flood events and enable analysis of their portfolio.
Forecasting Capital Reserves with Flood Re.
Flood Re helps households at risk of flooding by making home insurance policies more affordable and more widely available. The Flood Re re-insurance scheme was established by the Water Act 2014 and is a joint initiative between the UK insurance industry and the UK government.
Cynozure helped Flood Re grow its capabilities, and improve its flood response capability, by implementing a new data platform and custom-made dashboard.
What we did
What was Flood Re looking to achieve?.
1.
Flood Re wanted to improve its ability to accurately forecast the capital reserves required to meet insurance claims linked to flood events. To do this, it needed to first collect the data that follows a flood event and then analyse the data to predict future claims.
Ben Smith, Head of Data, IT and Security at Flood Re first approached Cynozure in November 2018 following previously unsuccessful attempts by the organisation to establish this capability. Part of the issue was that Flood Re needed a partner who appreciated that this was the start of their journey in this space and that the desired end-state was not a fully formed picture. Flood Re needed a partner who recognised the need to start small and develop the capability incrementally in response to evolving requirements, providing guidance and expertise as they learnt what worked and what didn’t along the way
What we did.
2.
Data gathering
Ben explained how Flood Re had explored a number of options with other data services businesses and that ‘a fresh approach was needed’.
The approach offered by Cynozure involved taking more direct control of the data gathered, and establishing a new Microsoft Azure-based data platform to hold it all. Cynozure helped Flood Re bring together a range of different datasets, which included storing geospatial maps generated from drone footage, third-party weather data and policy and claims data gathered from third parties.
Having all this data centralised in one platform that Flood Re controlled was a key enabler to delivering new and innovative use cases for Flood Re.
Design and delivery of an Event Response Dashboard
A tailor-made Event Response Dashboard in Power BI enabled Flood Re to draw together a number of data points relating to flood events. Flood Re needed to be able to accurately predict future capital requirements and the Event Response Dashboard helped it make a ‘significant amount of progress’ in this area.
Design and deliver a Portfolio Dashboard
Cynozure also designed and delivered further dashboards that visualised Flood Re’s portfolio of the different risks that were on their books, the different insurers they dealt with, and the various constituents that the risks related to.
Essentially, Cynozure introduced customised Portfolio Dashboards that provided a comprehensive visual map of their insurance data.
Streamlining Data Governance processes
Cynozure developed the data analytics solution to introduce a range of capabilities that transformed Flood Re’s data governance processes. This included online review processes, spreadsheet complexity assessments, random evidence collection, automated data log for tracking issues and a dashboard to visualise the data. “I was delighted with the results” said Ben, who reported how,
“as a direct result of the data analytics solution which Cynozure introduced, we have been able to streamline and automate how we govern data.”
Securing shared data
It was vital that data hosted by Flood Re remained secure when shared with third parties. To this end, Cynozure delivered data solutions that provided Flood Re with the ability to retain control of the data as its primary asset, but which also allowed it to be securely accessed via a third-party tool hosted by another company.
Identifying future requirements
With Cynozure’s support, Flood Re was able to establish a flexible and agile platform which allowed it to grow its capabilities into the future, simplify processes and enable a better exchange of data with partners.
Ben explained:
“the solutions that Cynozure provided enabled Flood Re to further our purpose of making home insurance more affordable and available to people at risk of flooding.”
Training and development
Ben was particularly pleased with the training that Cynozure was able to deliver. Matt Clarke [Solution Architect] provided coaching and one-to-one support to Flood Re’s in-house Flood Risk Specialist, having crafted a specific programme of activities to help widen their skills.
The training covered a range of relevant areas and multiple training sessions took place that built confidence in key data science toolsets.”
Ben also reported that in terms of their individual experiences, the team at Cynozure were able to demonstrate a “strong breadth of cover in terms of what they could bring to the table”. He specifically identified James Lupton, Chief Technology Officer, as having a particularly strong technical background and the ability to communicate technical information effectively.
What’s Next for Flood Re?.
3.
As a result of working with Cynozure, Flood Re was able to articulate and deliver new capabilities in the data space and is now in the process of implementing a new integration architecture.
For Ben, the stand-out feature of working with Cynozure was that it:
“felt like being on one team. There was no sense, at any time, that Flood Re was working with a third party, and what we’ve been able to achieve with Cynozure’s support has really pushed the business forward in ways we couldn’t have anticipated.”
Jason Foster, Cynozure’s CEO, added “the work we have achieved together with the Flood Re team is right at the heart of our purpose as a business. With Flood Re focused on helping those in high-risk flood zones get the insurance they need and deserve, it sits brilliantly with our desire to help deploy data to create a better society. Together we’ve been achieving that, and I’m extremely proud of the joint success we’ve had”
