Addressing Earthquake Risk in North America
An ever-present yet highly unpredictable threat, earthquakes continue to pose a material risk across North America—particularly in California, the Pacific Northwest, Mexico, and parts of Western Canada. While recent seismic activity has been less costly than other perils, earthquakes remain a classic peak risk with severe tail exposure, low insurance penetration, and a persistent protection gap.
For organizations operating in high-risk regions, this often results in challenging insurance renewals, constrained capacity, and stricter underwriting, accelerating demand for parametric solutions and structured risk transfer to secure rapid liquidity and strengthen financial resilience following a major seismic event.
Our Parametric Approach to Earthquake Exposure
Descartes' parametric earthquake insurance offers highly sought-after insurance capacity by:
- Designing bespoke payout structures based on data and insights from leading institutions
- Providing a flexible, targeted approach tailored to single or multiple locations
- Enabling mitigation of physical damage to assets or property, while also addressing non-damage impacts, such as revenue loss from area closures, through a swift indemnification process
Our parametric earthquake insurance empowers corporations and public sector clients with increased resilience, offering both capacity and rapid financial protection.
Parametric Cover in 4 Steps
Assess
We assess and evaluate the client’s earthquake risk exposure, leveraging our proprietary risk model.
Customize
Design a customized cover, fit to the client's unique needs, in which payout structures are indexed according to earthquake intensity.
Monitor
Upon policy inception, we monitor the insured's location for earthquakes to determine whether a qualifying earthquake has occurred.
Payout
Insured client receives a payout within days of reporting a loss, accelerating financial recovery and reconstruction.
Our case studies are all over the world
Utilizing Machine Learning and real-time monitoring from satellite imagery & IoT, our state-of-the-art technology helps businesses bounce back faster against climate, cyber and other emerging risks.
Who Should Consider This?
Our parametric earthquake products provide tailored structures for companies with public infrastructure (roads, bridges, and dams), industrial buildings, strategic supply chain assets, underground network and utilities, and high value property.
Capacity
Up to $140M per contract in the U.S. and the Caribbean
Benefits Powered by Parametric Earthquake Insurance
- Our parametric earthquake covers exemplify the effectiveness of parametric insurance solutions.
- Prompt Compensation: A swift, transparent process that clients can rely on, excluding the need for a lengthy indemnity claims process.
- Data-Driven Approach: The observation of historical losses and risk modeling allows us to accurately address clients’ needs.
- Bespoke Policies: Coverage tailored to the client’s needs and budget.
Empowering Brokers to Provide Innovative Parametric Earthquake Insurance Solutions
Our parametric earthquake product caters to the diverse needs of our clients, offering unique indices and payout structures based on Magnitude, Peak Ground Acceleration, Modified Mercalli Intensity (MMI), and more. These parameters are designed to activate payments swiftly, helping companies recover financially from property damage, business interruptions, and NDBI, through real-time monitoring made possible by leading institutions such as the USGS.
Partner with us to effectively manage earthquake risk and maintain resilience in the face of disaster.
Contact Us
Whether you're quoting a complex risk, looking to break into new markets, or just curious about parametric insurance, our team is here to help you win. Reach out and we will get back to you within 48 hours.
