2021 at Previsico: A Year in Review
- Published
- December 22, 2021
2021 has been a big year for Previsico, so we thought we’d share some of our highlights with you!
Over 100 new organisations benefiting from the service
2021 saw rapid growth in the number of organisations benefiting from Previsico’s flood warnings. Almost every sector is affected by flooding so we have been working with a wide range of organisations to help them predict flood and prevent impacts. This has been through both direct relationships with businesses and governmental organisations as well as insurer partnerships.
Zurich Partnership
In early 2021, we collaborated with Zurich to provide flood warnings for the properties they insure for including BT. This covered over 5,000 UK locations that are susceptible to flooding to help BT improve their flood resilience and reduce overall flood risk.
We are excited to work on this pilot with Previsico and BT’s specialist flood risk management team. The pilot’s aims are perfectly aligned with our approach to working in partnering with our clients, and The Zurich Flood Resilience Alliance, a multi-sectoral partnership focusing on finding practical ways to support communities in developed and developing countries strengthen their resilience to flood risk.
We are delighted to collaborate with BT and Zurich to pilot our unique live flood forecasting solution. This agreement will help to reduce the increasing impact of flooding, particularly surface water and small watercourse floods, which increasingly affects businesses such as BT and households across the UK due to the impact of climate change.
In October 2021, Instech London hosted an event on property risk where we discussed how our partnership with Zurich has grown. You can access this here (at the 24 minute mark).
Humanitarian partnerships
Kenyan Red Cross Society
In late 2020/2021 we provided our flood forecasting service on trial to the people of Kisumu (Kenya), supporting increased flood resilience there after a successful trial.
Our technology uses real-time modelling to produce actionable flood alerts that enable people can proactively mitigate the impact of flooding.
We are now delighted to move forward with Previsico, who will enable us to bring highly accurate and timely flood warnings to Kisumu, and then later on, all being well, across both rural and urban communities in Kenya
National Emergencies Trust
Previsico formed a non-commercial partnership with The National Emergencies Trust to provide critical information which will help decide when and where to launch an emergency fundraising appeal for people affected by flooding, reducing major consequences on lives and livelihoods across the United Kingdom.
Previsico’s early warnings help Whalley Bridge mitigate floods over Christmas
As part of a pilot of Previsico’s recently launched connected level sensor solution Whalley Bridge Flood Action group became one of the first users to benefit from uniquely designed for real-time monitoring technology.
The 2015 Boxing Day floods had significant and widespread impacts across Lancashire, including the village of Whalley where hundreds of properties were affected. In response to this event, Previsico have been working alongside Watertight to deliver an early warning system for flooding using sensors to detect changes in river levels.
High level alerts are sent in real-time via email or SMS to give property owners peace of mind that the unexpected events of 2015 will not happen again. On Christmas Eve 2020, the alert system was triggered by rising water levels.
In Whalley the alert went off on Boxing Day evening at around 11pm (2020). It alerted our flood wardens and we managed to get to the Culvert and clear it before it flooded the village. We can only recommend this type of technology as it is the way forward in flood management tools.
We are thrilled to be able to be providing an effective solution to the people of Whalley to support flood mitigation!
£1.75m in Funding Received From Foresight Group
In September 2021, we were thrilled to announced that we had gained £1.75 million funding, led by Foresight Group, a listed private equity and infrastructure investment manager, to support the next stage of our growth and our mission to minimise the impact of flooding globally.
We are really excited to be working with Previsico and helping to develop this market leading technology. Since meeting the team, we have been impressed by both the technical and commercial experience within the management team as well as the interest in the platform from a range of customers. The technology has strong ESG credentials and the company should be well placed to capitalise on some promising opportunities as it looks to grow over the coming years
Accurately forecasting wide ranging surface water flood events
This year saw some of the worst flooding across Europe in decades with 242 deaths and over 200k homes left without power. In the UK, while less severe, a number of events caused considerable damage, particularly due to surface water flooding.
In January, Storm Christoph brought widespread surface water flooding to the UK. Over 70% of flooding from this event came from surface water and ordinary watercourse flooding.
The 12th July was the wettest day on record in Hampstead with around 42mm of rainfall in just one day. Severe damage to people’s livelihoods was felt when the flood water caused damage to businesses, homes and public infrastructure. For insurers, the cost was significant with LV and Allianz alone seeing £22m in claims from the July floods and storms.
Our Growing Team!
We are entering 2022 with a team of over 20 people. Below is a profile of some of our new starters who talk about their year so far at Previsico.
- I’m Vishnu Priya Sethunathan. I started working as a DevOps Engineer at Previsico from October 2021. I’m originally from India and I have around 2 years of experience with AWS DevOps. I work on application automation, deployment, monitoring, security and performance optimisation. I’m very delighted to be a part of Previsico and looking forward to continuing to work together!
- I’m Suzanna, the Administrator here at Previsico. I started in September, so I am just coming up to 3 months and the time has flown by! I am enjoying being part of the growing team and am very excited to be working within such a dynamic and entrepreneurial environment.
- I’m Emily – a Geography with Economics student from Loughborough University working for Previsico on my placement year. I’ve been working with the sales team since July and have thoroughly enjoyed my time so far. Although I am already halfway through my placement, I look forward to 2022 where I hope the team and I can continue to succeed!
- My name is Emma and I am Previsico’s Geospatial Software Developer/Satellite Lead. I joined Previsico in August 2021 from the University of Leicester. My background is in geography, with a focus on satellite-based Earth Observation. Joining Previsico has been really interesting for me and I have learnt a lot in the few months since I joined. I am looking forward to the new year as we start to expand our work with satellite data!
- I’m Ollie. Over the last few years, I have been working for another London based insurtech company which focussed on digitising processes and increasing efficiencies for people working in the commercial insurance sector. It has been a pleasure to work with the highly qualified team at Previsico over the last 4 weeks and I am looking forward to hitting the ground running in the new year.
- I’m Dimos. I previously served as Lead Modeller for RMS, and financial loss flood risk models covering 12 countries in Europe, Japan, India, and Brazil. Other former roles include Senior Project Manager at the National Observatory of Athens and Manager of the Weather Modelling team at Lloyds Banking Group.
Awards and Recognition
Previsico Announced As The British Data Awards 2021 Winners
In May 2021, Previsico were announced as winners and given the prestigious title of “Innovation of the Year” in the British Data Awards 2021.
The British Data Awards is an annual competition that celebrates the organisations and people that are deeply passionate about data and uncovers data success stories[2].
Previsico were also widely featured in the national and insurance press, and were named a top 10 Insurtech by the Insurance Times.
[1] https://thefloodhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Case-Study-Whalley-Early-Flood-Warning-Trial-Hailed-a-Success.pdf
[2] https://predatech.co.uk/british-data-awards-2021-winners/
Previsico in the media
To hear more about what we’ve been up to how about checking out some of the links below:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-58027669
https://www.insurancetimes.co.uk/news/top-uk-insurtechs-revealed/1439303.article
https://www.insurancetimes.co.uk/news/previsico-and-zurich-to-plug-flood-risk-for-big-corporate-customers/1436940.article
https://www.ft.com/fintechft?acqCtxRef=ibm&format=&page=3
https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/uk/news/flood/zurich-previsico-to-work-on-flood-risk-resilience-250929.aspx
Leicestershire-based insurtech Previsico gains £1.75M funding for next-gen flood warning solution