Delos Insurance Solutions, a catastrophe insurance managing general agency (MGA) with a specialty in California wildfire-related risks, announced that its seed funding round has closed. The $5.3 million round, led by IA Capital along with participation from Avanta Ventures, Red Dog Capital, a syndicate of strategic investors led by insurance executive Jonathan Crystal, and Futureland Syndicate, will permit Delos to further expand within the California homeowners insurance market, which is struggling with record-breaking wildfire losses. Delos proprietary underwriting technology empowers insurance carriers to profitably insure homes within areas that incumbents had deemed as high risk for wildfire.
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“I am very pleased that our investors have shown such strong confidence in Delos and our technology,” said Kevin Stein, Co-Founder and CEO. “With this round of financing, Delos can go much further in achieving its dual mission of making reasonably priced insurance available to California homeowners while providing insurers and reinsurers a reliable stream of profitable revenue.”
Driven by persistent drought and excessive heat, among other factors, damage caused by California wildfires continues to exceed historical norms. Homeowners’ insurance carriers have taken corrective action, but many continue to lose money on wildfire-exposed business. Underwriters face increasing uncertainty in their risk selection criteria and pricing methodologies as the wildfire risk landscape continues to evolve under extreme conditions.
Delos’ underwriting model quantifies wildfire risk under a wide range of actual and hypothetical scenarios, even amid rapidly changing conditions. Using satellite images and other data sources, proprietary machine learning algorithms identify and quantify relationships among factors such as vegetation condition, ignition sources, weather, terrain, and loss mitigation measures. Delos has catastrophe modeling and climate modeling expertise vertically integrated into all levels of the company, allowing them to adapt and react immediately as the wildfire peril evolves. This confluence of machine learning technology, data, and expertise leads to more dependable data-driven underwriting, pricing, and portfolio management decisions.