- Based on Terrafirma models, Gamma LI predicts that 10.2 million addresses in Great Britain will be at higher risk of subsidence as a result of climate change by 2050
- Extreme weather events will become more likely according to the IPCC AR6 Climate change 2021 report
- Collaboration between companies will help quantify, inform and reduce risk associated with subsidence and ground movement
- This means homeowners will receive adequate protection and potential claims can be predicted by insurance companies
- Software solutions provider, Gamma LI, is one of the first three resellers to bring Terrafirma’s National Ground Risk Model: Climate™ to market
Manchester, 20 August 2021 – Gamma Location Intelligence (Gamma LI), which provides risk assessment technology to Property & Casualty (P&C) insurance companies, is aiming to help the insurance industry save hundreds of millions of pounds in claims through its latest partnership with Terrafirma.
Together, Gamma LI and Terrafirma – a company which helps homebuyers, lenders and insurance companies to assess ground hazards and support adequate protection cover – will be delivering high-quality, up-to-date insights on subsidence and other ground-related risks. Gamma LI predicts that such information could help to identify at least £413 million per annum in potential subsidence claims by 2050.
This figure is based on an average claim of £12,500 and Gamma LI′s prediction* that a total of 10.2 million addresses in Great Britain will be at elevated risk of subsidence by 2050 as a result of climate change.
In light of the recent AR6 Climate Change 2021 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), extreme weather events are predicted to become much more frequent moving towards the end of this century. As well as increasing the frequency and severity of storms, climate change can also impact rainfall, drought and hot weather spells – all of which contribute to subsidence.
Using location intelligence, Gamma LI and Terrafirma can help investors and regulators to more accurately quantify, inform and reduce the risk associated with subsidence and ground movement. Gamma LI, which expects to generate £5 million in UK revenue by 2025, is one of the first three resellers to bring Terrafirma′s National Ground Risk Model: Climate™ (NGRM: Climate) to the market.
This model covers all 33 million properties in Great Britain and includes risk insights relating to coastal erosion, subsidence, sinkholes and landslides, which have the potential to impact properties on an insurance company’s portfolio, or ones it could potentially underwrite or insure. NGRM: Climate is the only model to cover all ground hazards, including future spatial distribution under UKCP18 (UK Climate Projections 2018).
Richard Garry, Chief Commercial Officer, Gamma LI, said: “Our goal is to help insurers and financial institutions understand property-based risks and give them more choice in terms of data, from flooding and subsidence to fire and crime. Increasingly, they have to consider environmental factors and climate change which could have a major impact on their business and customers. In fact, we are reaching the point where extreme years of subsidence claims, such as 1990/1991 and 1997/1998, could become the new normal. Therefore, being able to visualise and assess this ever-increasing risk properly will be vital over the years to come.
“And that’s precisely where our Perilfinder platform comes in – it gives clients the data they need to make better decisions, enhance the service they deliver and save time on risk assessment. Of course, we wouldn’t be able to do this without partners like Terrafirma. We are extremely proud to work with an organisation which not only has unrivalled expertise, but also shows such enthusiasm for helping companies to understand ground movement and its hidden hazards.”
Dr Tim Farewell, Director of Science and Communications, Terrafirma, added: “Across the UK, many buildings and homes are or will become vulnerable to complex ground hazards. Through this partnership with Gamma LI, we are helping more people and organisations to understand these risks from subsidence, sinkholes, historic mining, landslides and coastal erosion. Insurers now can leverage our team’s expert analysis and innovative models so they can make increasingly informed decisions backed up by reliable data. Insurers now have the potential to not only reduce their exposure to ground risks but also the costs associated with them.”
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*Notes to Editors:
Gamma LI previously predicted, based on Terrafirma’s earlier models, which used the UKCP09 climate models, that an additional 1.9 million addresses in Great Britain would be at risk of subsidence by 2050 as a result of climate change. This latest prediction of an additional 3.4 million addresses is based on the recently released Terrafirma NGRM models which use the latest UKCP18 climate models from the Met Office.
Building on the success of UK Climate Projections 2009 (UKCP09), the UK Climate Projections 2018 (UKCP18) delivers a major upgrade to the range of UK climate projection tools designed to help decision-makers assess their risk exposure to climate.
The UKCP18 project uses cutting-edge climate science to provide updated observations and climate change projections out to 2100 in the UK and globally. The project builds upon UKCP09 to provide the most up-to-date assessment of how the climate of the UK may change over the 21st century.
About Gamma Location Intelligence
Gamma Location Intelligence is a cloud hosted solutions provider that integrates software, data and services to help our clients reduce risk through location intelligence. Established in Dublin, Ireland in 1993, and with offices in Manchester, UK and Bilbao Spain, the company has expanded to become a global provider of information systems, micro-marketing solutions and geographical analysis services. Gamma Location Intelligence’s Perilfinder™ risk mapping platform provides P&C underwriters with access to trusted property-level risk data easily, quickly and accurately. Find out more at https://gammali.co.uk/insurance/
About Terrafirma
Terrafirma helps financial institutions, property professionals and homebuyers to reduce their exposure to the full range of UK ground risks.
The National Ground Risk Model (NGRM: Climate™) helps financial institutions to identify and understand the physical risk posed by ground instability today, and those associated with the impacts of climate change in the future. Our science team’s passion is to continually improve the modelling of how these ground hazards interact with the built environment.
NGRM: Climate provides banks, building societies and insurers with easy-to-understand scores on the risk of coastal erosion, subsidence and landslides impacting an existing property on their portfolio, or one they could potentially underwrite or insure. Developed by Terrafirma’s unique understanding of the risks from leading geology, science, engineering, and geospatial data experts, NGRM: Climateprovides a risk profile for all 33 million properties in Great Britain.
By understanding how these key physical risks are projected to change, financial firms can align their objectives with the Bank of England’s climate strategy and begin to embed Terrafirma’s foresight of ground risks into day-to-day decision-making.
