ZestyAI, the Risk and Decision Intelligence Platform for the insurance industry, has announced that its non-weather water risk model, Z-WATER™, has been reviewed and approved for underwriting and rating in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana and Wisconsin.
The company said the approval allows insurers in these states to set property-specific rates, align coverage with home-level vulnerabilities, and target inspections and mitigation strategies, including the deployment of smart water sensors, according to FF News.
The move is designed to reduce cross-subsidisation and improve overall portfolio performance.
ZestyAI provides advanced analytics solutions to help insurers and reinsurers assess and price risk more accurately. Its platform integrates property-specific data, historical loss information and environmental context to enhance underwriting decisions across multiple perils.
Z-WATER™ addresses the growing challenge of non-weather water losses, which have become a major pressure point for carriers. Claim severity has risen by 80% over the past decade, with average losses now exceeding $13,000, making non-weather water the fourth-costliest peril in homeowners insurance.
Routine incidents such as burst pipes and hidden leaks can now generate catastrophe-scale losses surpassing hurricanes in severity. Traditional rating models, which rely on territory-level or age-based proxies, often fail to capture the property-specific factors that drive interior water damage.
By leveraging verified insurer loss data, Z-WATER™ uses computer vision on aerial imagery and incorporates property-level data, permitting history, localised climatology and infrastructure context. The model predicts both the frequency and severity of non-weather water claims with up to 18× greater accuracy than traditional methods.
Bryan Rehor, Director of Regulatory Strategy at ZestyAI, said, “Non-weather water losses place real pressure on carriers’ books, but they’re also highly preventable when you understand where the risks actually lie. Z-WATER helps insurers pinpoint those vulnerabilities at the property level and price them appropriately, while meeting regulators’ expectations for clarity and fairness.”
These new approvals build on ZestyAI’s wider regulatory momentum. The company has secured more than 80 approvals nationwide across five perils, including wildfire, hail, wind, storm and now non-weather water. Its property and roof analytics solution, Z-PROPERTY™, has also earned broad state-level approval, providing insurers and reinsurers with trusted parcel-level insights and regulatory-grade transparency.
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