Parametric insurance customizes solar hail coverage by stone size

The report depicts a clear rising trend in the number of days of hail over 2″ in diameter each year — and last year was a particularly active one

In 2023, Louisiana saw 65% more days with 1″ hailstones compared to the 20-year trend, Tennessee 60%, Alabama 54% New Mexico 45%, and Texas at 42% more.

A GCube report from late last year confirms that the effect of these intersecting trends is already being felt: Hail is now responsible for more than half of all solar claims costs, despite constituting only a fraction of solar claims by volume

The average solar hail claim now comes to a whopping $58.4 million

In 2023, The New York Times reported, State Farm’s hail claims totaled over $6 billion — more than the previous two years combined.

benefit of a parametric policy is that it has “the ability to tailor coverage off very specifically designed and agreed-upon policy triggers — namely, hailstone size.”

Solar owners can thus determine what size of hailstone their panels can withstand, calculate the probability that future hail will exceed that size, conclude how much risk they want to retain, and then very precisely make up the difference between that retention and a general P&C policy

U.S. has good radar infrastructure; there are Doppler radars networked throughout the country, and we work with third-party data providers that accurately certify that data

“We’re able to look at, in quite granular views, the hail swath or the hail track of an event and see what hailstone sizes were falling, and we can see what area of the asset was impacted.”

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