Columbia Lloyds adopts ZestyAI to sharpen homeowners underwriting in storm zones

Columbia Lloyds has chosen ZestyAI’s Risk and Decision Intelligence platform to sharpen homeowners underwriting across Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas, a move that puts property-level intelligence at the center of its storm-zone strategy. The Houston-based regional carrier is using Z-PROPERTY to evaluate roof complexity, materials, condition and surrounding risk factors, while Roof Age cross-validates building permit records against more than 20 years of aerial imagery and assigns a confidence score to each property. In a market shaped by hail, tornadoes and convective storms, that kind of detail is becoming more valuable than broad geographic assumptions.

The company’s appetite for sharper risk selection fits its own history. Columbia Lloyds, also known as Columbia Lloyds/MDOW Insurance Company, was founded in 1985 to serve an underserved Texas low-value-dwelling market. It now markets homeowners, fire dwelling, farmowners and personal auto coverage through independent agents in Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. Sam Bana, who has served as chief operating officer since 2015, has spent much of his career on insurance operations and workflow design. Bana said Columbia Lloyds writes homeowners business in some of the toughest weather territory in the country, and the carrier is clearly leaning on software that can turn raw property data into underwriting action.

That shift comes at a time when the loss environment is still punishing. CoreLogic said two-inch-or-larger hail fell on more than 10 million single- and multifamily homes in the contiguous U.S. from mid-March through November 2023, and it counted 141 days with large hail that year, the highest number in 20 years. CoreLogic also estimated that the June 11 to 16, 2023 severe thunderstorm outbreak generated $6.1 billion in insured wind and hail losses in Texas and between $7 billion and $10 billion nationwide. Texas lawmakers have warned that weather-related catastrophes can negate years of profits for homeowners insurers, and a 2024 legislative handout showed Texas homeowners rates rising more than 28% on average from 2022 to October 2023, the steepest increase in the country.

ZestyAI says its models have more than 200 regulatory approvals nationwide, a detail that matters as carriers look for tools they can defend in underwriting files and renewal decisions. The broader trend is hard to miss: insurers in severe-weather states are moving away from coarse territory-based assumptions and toward auditable, property-specific hazard intelligence. For Columbia Lloyds, the appeal is not novelty. It is a way to protect growth, reduce adverse selection and keep a homeowners book resilient in markets where one bad storm cycle can reshape portfolio results.