In this MGAA webinar, Heikki Vesanto will look at the increasing risks facing the insurance sector as a direct result of climate change, from subsidence to wild-fires, floods and coastal erosion to windstorms. Heikki will examine a number of stark predictions for the future and highlight the increasing value of geospatial data intelligence and data visualisation tools to the insurance market in predicting, understanding and managing environmental risks and will cover topics and themes the MGAA audience will understand all too well.
Learning Objectives
By the end of the event, delegates will be able to:
- Understand the current state of climate change in the UK, and expected changes to the weather
- Describe the impact of climate change on the U.K. insurance market, list the perils that are impacted and to what extent
- Be able to prepare for the future with knowledge of expected impacts and be aware of the data sources that can help them adapt
Heikki Vesanto, Manager, GIS data science, LexisNexis Risk Solutions, UK and Ireland, Insurance
Speaker Biography
Heikki Vesanto is a GIS professional with a MA with Honours from the University of Glasgow in Geography and History and a MSc in Geoinformatics from the University of Helsinki. Heikki joined LexisNexis Risk Solutions in July 2018 as GIS Data Assistant supporting insurance clients in the UK, US and Ireland. During this time, he developed the machine learning workflow for extracting speed limits from street level imagery. He has also worked as part of a team implementing a predictive model for the US insurance market predicting home fire frequency and expected losses. This used the drive-time to the nearest fire station, which was calculated for every property in the US to every fire station.
In his current role, Heikki manages a team of data scientists working on a large variety of projects from ETL workflows, to statistical modelling and innovative R&D.
He has helped create a predictive model for U.S. roof claims based on weather events, topographic data, property characteristics, and remote sensing imagery. He has also created a number of predictive models, including windstorm, based on 130 years of storm data, a basement indicator to detect the presence of basements in homes, and a buildings level accumulation model utilising building outlines for more accurate correlated fire risk assessment.
Heikki has a passion for all things spatial with specific interests in open source, web GIS, and remote sensing.
