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A Top-Down View of Insurance Risk: Understanding the Geospatial Insurance Consortium

November 22, 2021 by Susanne Sclafane

One of the best-kept secrets about the property/casualty insurance industry is a member-centric organization that manages the largest aerial imagery program in the world.

Executive Summary

"Insurance touches everything, and everything that insurance touches has a location." Ryan Bank, the managing director of the Geospatial Insurance Consortium, explains the history and the business model of the GIC, a member-centric organization that gives insurers aerial views of every location they need to analyze at costs they can afford. Watch related videos: "The World's Largest Aerial Imagery Program—Managed by Insurers" and "A Top-Down View of Insurance Risk: Unlocking the Benefits of Geospatial Technology" on the Carrier Management channel of InsuranceJournal.TV Photos supplied by GIC and Vexcel

Executive Summary“Insurance touches everything, and everything that insurance touches has a location.” Ryan Bank, the managing director of the Geospatial Insurance Consortium, explains the history and the business model of the GIC, a member-centric organization that gives insurers aerial views of every location they need to analyze at costs they can afford.

Photos supplied by GIC and Vexcel

That’s right. The world’s largest high-resolution aerial imagery program in existence isn’t something that was developed by Google or Microsoft. It was created by insurers and reinsurers, who also pay to keep a fleet of fixed-wing aircraft equipped with special cameras flying over every square inch of the continental U.S., most of Canada, Puerto Rico, all of Western Europe, the UK, Scandinavia, Australia and New Zealand.