SAS AI weighs risk of flood and fire

Insurers using SAS software will be able to bring Swiss Re’s natural catastrophe risk data directly into underwriting, pricing and portfolio decisions under a new partnership between the two companies.

Swiss Re’s CatNet risk intelligence will be integrated with the SAS Insurance Life Cycle Accelerator. The combination aims to help insurers assess hazards such as floods, hailstorms and wildfires within actuarial modelling and decision-making workflows, rather than relying mainly on historical loss data.

“Insurers cannot rely solely on historical loss data to understand risk,” says Stu Bradley, SAS senior VP for risk, fraud and compliance solutions. “The combination of SAS’ AI and actuarial modelling capabilities with Swiss Re’s catastrophe intelligence will enable insurers to make faster, more transparent and more resilient underwriting and pricing decisions.”

Secondary perils, primary risk

As climate-driven events increase in frequency and severity, says SAS, insurers are facing mounting pressure from so-called “secondary perils” such as floods, hailstorms and wildfires. According to Swiss Re Institute, 99.9% of insured catastrophe losses in the United States in 2025 originated from secondary peril events, underscoring the growing importance of managing these risks.

The offering, say the companies, will provide insurers with the following:

• Powerful data integration – Users can view high-resolution CatNet natural catastrophe data directly within existing SAS workflows via secure APIs and geocoding. Hazard intelligence is directly integrated into actuarial and underwriting workflows – no manual data manipulation.
• Automated and advanced decisioning – Real-time model scoring using machine learning incorporates current hazard information and event notifications. Enriched decision intelligence is automated for pricing, rating and underwriting. Model scores are unified with business rules, and champion-challenger strategies are run within guardrails for profit-loss ratio, fairness and compliance.
• Portfolio risk steering – Insurers can better understand concentration risk, assess portfolio impacts, and perform “what-if” analyses across geographies and perils.
• Proven operational efficiencies – SAS and Swiss Re expect their combined solution to drive massive productivity gains, including a 95% increase in decisioning efficiency and a 50% efficiency boost in the modelling process.
• Bottom-line and volume growth – Underwriting teams will be able to review 40% more risks with the same manpower, driving both top- and bottom-line impact.
• Robust governance and auditability – Governed, explainable AI workflows support regulatory and operational transparency. Rather than fragmented spreadsheet logic, a unified, cloud-native approach ensures full lineage, visibility and audit control from exposure data to final rate deployment.

The combined capabilities are designed to help insurers improve operational efficiency while strengthening profitability and resilience in the face of rising catastrophe exposure.

Ali Shahkarami, Swiss Re head risk data solutions insurance, says: “Secondary perils are not secondary in terms of their financial impact. Insurers need the ability to understand how risk is evolving across portfolios and geographies in near-real time. Together, Swiss Re and SAS are enabling carriers to integrate catastrophe intelligence directly into underwriting and actuarial decision-making so they can better anticipate risk, close protection gaps and build more sustainable portfolios.”

Franklin Manchester, SAS principal global insurance advisor, says: “The future of the insurance industry will be led by enterprises embracing the concept of ‘new collar. Insurance professionals collaborating with AI agents to bring agility to decision making will be the hallmark of leaders – and the bane of laggards – when the dust settles.”

SAS, Swiss Re and Definity discuss catastrophe risk and property pricing in a free webinar, Sustainable Property Pricing for Today and Tomorrow in an Evolving Natural Catastrophe Landscape. The sessions cover the rise of secondary perils linked to climate change, sustainable property pricing and risk selection, and approaches to strengthening portfolio resilience.

 * Guido Russo is writer and contributor for Gadget.