London, UK (23 June, 2025): Leading global specialist insurer, Hiscox, today announced a partnership with Bellwether*, a team at X, Alphabet’s Moonshot Factory**, to bring an innovative approach to wildfire modelling to the Californian insurance market which aims to increase the availability of insurance to homeowners in the state.
The partnership sees Hiscox London Market’s Property division working with the Bellwether team to integrate its groundbreaking, AI-powered wildfire model alongside its existing risk scoring and modelling, resulting in enhanced risk selection and pricing alongside increased availability of cover. The new model is already helping provide additional insurance options for Californian homeowners.
Bellwether’s wildfire prediction tool analyses large volumes of data to help estimate wildfire risk at any location, using historical information about the environment in combination with thousands of other risk drivers such as tree species, wind qualities, and types of infrastructure. The Bellwether model is the only system that can forecast wildfire risk up to five years in advance, allowing Hiscox to deliver insurance solutions in a sustainable way. The Bellwether model is also the only model to generate absolute wildfire risk scores that include transparent accounting of what factors contributed to each score.
Commenting on the partnership, James Brady, Hiscox London Market’s Property Divisional Director, says: “This partnership allows us to integrate the very latest AI-powered modelling from Bellwether, with other third-party models and our own advanced risk modelling framework. It’s a powerful combination that can support a much more sustainable insurance solution for Californian homeowners. With this world-class, multi-model approach, we can quantify an insured’s exposure to wildfire risk with more precision, which in turn enables us to offer Hiscox capacity to a wider range of customers.”
Sarah Russell from Bellwether adds: “Bellwether leverages the best of Google’s geospatial knowledge and AI technology to help companies and communities adapt better to the changing landscape of severe weather events like wildfire. We are excited to be working with Hiscox to show how Bellwether can help provide additional measurement, analysis, and predictions for this dynamic risk and, in turn, assist in the availability and sustainable provision of wildfire insurance for Californian homeowners.”
ENDS
For further information please contact:
Hiscox
Carmel McCarthy, Global Media Relations Lead: [email protected], 07769 280 903
Notes to editors
About the Hiscox Group
Hiscox is a global specialist insurer, headquartered in Bermuda and listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE:HSX). Our ambition is to be a respected specialist insurer with a diverse portfolio by product and geography. We believe that building balance between catastrophe-exposed business and less volatile local specialty business gives us opportunities for profitable growth throughout the insurance cycle.
The Hiscox Group employs over 3,000 people in 14 countries and has customers worldwide. Through the retail businesses in the UK, Europe, Asia and the USA, we offer a range of specialist insurance products in commercial and personal lines. Internationally traded, bigger ticket business and reinsurance is underwritten through Hiscox London Market and Hiscox Re & ILS.
Our values define our business, with a focus on people, courage, ownership and integrity. We pride ourselves on being true to our word and our award-winning claims service is testament to that. For more information, visit www.hiscoxgroup.com.
* About Bellwether
Bellwether is a project at X, The Moonshot Factory. The team is building the world’s first prediction engine for Earth and everything on it. The Bellwether team has created a breakthrough technology platform that combines AI with real-time Earth observation data to provide insights across all stages of natural disasters, from forecasting to preparation, to rapid response. Bellwether’s goal is to enable businesses, communities, and emergency responders to more effectively prepare for and respond to cataclysmic events. In 2024, Bellwether was named one of TIME Magazine’s top inventions of the year.
** About X, the Moonshot Factory
X, The Moonshot Factory (formerly known as “Google X”) is Alphabet’s innovation engine. X’s inventors, engineers, designers and makers apply audacious thinking and radical new technology to some of the world’s hardest problems. X tackles ideas that have the riskiness of research and runs at them with the focus and speed of a startup. Our goal is to develop and de-risk early-stage technologies and turn them into products that can be the foundation for large, sustainable businesses. Since X’s start fifteen years ago, the team has delivered a range of impactful technologies and businesses, including Google Brain, Verily life sciences, Intrinsic robotics, Waymo autonomous cars, and Wing delivery drones.
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