Donegal Insurance Group is expanding its use of artificial intelligence (AI) to assess property risk, extending its partnership with InsurTech provider ZestyAI across its personal lines property portfolio as insurers seek more reliable data to inform underwriting decisions.
The US insurer will deploy ZestyAI’s Z-PROPERTY solution across its personal property book, broadening its use of verified property-level intelligence beyond roof age. The platform assesses characteristics including roof condition, roof complexity and debris on a property, helping underwriters evaluate individual risks and giving portfolio managers a more comprehensive view of overall exposure.
The expanded agreement builds on a partnership that began in 2025, when Donegal adopted ZestyAI’s Roof Age product to improve the property data used in its homeowners insurance business. The solution combines building permit records with more than 20 years of historical aerial imagery to estimate when roofs were replaced. According to the supplied information, the technology covers almost all of the contiguous US and achieves accuracy of more than 90%.
Roof age can be an important consideration in property underwriting, but reliable information is not always readily available. By using verified data to establish when a roof was replaced, insurers can make more informed assessments rather than relying on incomplete or uncertain records.
Based in Marietta, Pennsylvania, Donegal has more than 130 years of insurance experience and operates through independent agents across 21 US states. The group also trades under the Mountain States Insurance Group name in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas and Utah, and as Michigan Insurance in Michigan.
ZestyAI provides AI-powered risk assessment technology for insurance carriers, reinsurers, brokers and regulators across the US. Its Risk Decision Platform combines property-level data, predictive models and AI automation to support the assessment, pricing and management of insurance risks.
The company’s models are validated against climate science and historical loss data and cover perils including wildfire, severe convective storms and non-weather water damage. ZestyAI says it has secured more than 500 regulatory approvals across the US.
Donegal Insurance Group chief underwriting officer Jeffery Hay said, “The quality of our decisions depends on the quality of the information behind them. Our initial work with ZestyAI strengthened the roof age data available to our teams. Expanding the relationship gives us a more complete understanding of the properties we insure and greater confidence in how we evaluate, manage and reinsure risk.”
ZestyAI founder and CEO Attila Toth also commented, “Donegal has experienced the benefits of our verified roof age data with regard to underwriting,” adding, “Z-PROPERTY extends that standard across the entire portfolio. The carriers pulling ahead are the ones whose decisions rest on data they can defend.”
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