UK direct insurer More Th>n is to use mapping technology to assess the risk of subsidence at individual addresses in an effort to deliver more accurate home insurance premiums.
The insurer, which already uses its Risk Mapping System to assess the risk of flooding for each individual property in Britain, will be the first company to do the same for the risk of subsidence.
Steve Kingshott, home insurance manager at More Th>n says: "Not only does our 3D digital terrain model allow us to accurately assess the risk of damage by flood and subsidence at an individual address, we will be developing this system further to include arson, theft and storm over the next twelve months."
More Th>n’s Risk Mapping System is an intranet application based on the company’s own geological engineering risk techniques combined with digital terrain mapping and address verification information from Ordnance Survey and a geographical information system supplied by ESRI (UK) Ltd.
The firm says an estimated 3.7 million homeowners live in areas susceptible to subsidence, many of whom will be paying over the odds for insurance because their insurance company only looks at information at a generic postcode level.