The Zebra, an insurance comparison and buying platform, announced a partnership with Annex, a digital platform built for catastrophe-exposed residential property.

The partnership gives The Zebra’s network of independent agents direct access to Annex’s homeowners and flood insurance products. The integration, live since August 31, is designed to help agents place coastal, wildfire, and flood risks.

The Zebra’s agents receive an Annex rate directly within their existing quoting experience, and the underwriting data they’ve already captured is automatically transferred to Annex. After adding a few more details about the applicant and property, The Zebra agent can quote, bind, and complete required disclosures and e-signatures online, while Annex handles surplus lines compliance, lienholder notifications, payments, and policy issuance.

Coverage is currently available in Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Alabama, Massachusetts, and Mississippi, with additional states planned as the partnership grows. Annex currently offers residential homeowners and flood insurance across Florida and much of the East Coast, as well as Texas and California, with many more states and products planned.

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LexisNexis Risk Solutions, a provider of data and analytics for the insurance and automotive industries, and IMS, a global connected insurance technology company, announced the integration of the LexisNexis Drive Metrics scoring model into the IMS EdgeSDK.

This integration aims to benefit U.S. auto insurance carriers and consumers through an all new smartphone based telematics solution that gives drivers the ability to share driving data with their insurers.

It also enables more insurers to launch or improve existing usage based insurance programs, taking advantage of potentially significant cost savings by eliminating cloud processing and storage fees associated with traditional telematics programs and reinforcing user transparency and data privacy.

Driving behavior information stays on the user’s device while generating scores and attributes that can be quickly incorporated into existing workflows and are consistent across LexisNexis Telematics Solutions.

Sources: The Zebra, LexisNexis Risk Solutions