ZestyAI’s Z-WATER™ Greenlit in Five States as Non-Weather Water Losses Intensify

ZestyAI, the Risk and Decision Intelligence Platform for the insurance industry, today announced that its non-weather water risk model, Z-WATER™, has been reviewed and accepted for use in underwriting and rating in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, and Wisconsin. 

Insurers in these states will now be able to set property-specific rates, align coverage with home-level vulnerabilities, and target inspections and mitigation strategies—including smart water sensors—to reduce cross-subsidization and improve portfolio performance.

Non-weather water has become a major pressure point for carriers. Claim severity has climbed 80% in the past decade, and average losses now exceed $13,000, making it the fourth-costliest peril in homeowners insurance. Routine failures like burst pipes and hidden leaks are now producing catastrophe-scale losses that surpass hurricanes in severity. Yet the peril has been difficult to model using traditional rating tools, which rely on territory-level or age-based proxies that overlook the property-specific factors driving interior water losses.

Using verified insurer loss data, Z-WATER applies computer vision to aerial imagery and incorporates property-level data, permitting history, localized climatology, and infrastructure context to capture the property-specific drivers of interior water losses. By modeling how these variables interact, Z-WATER predicts both the frequency and severity of non-weather water claims with up to 18× greater accuracy than traditional models.

“Non-weather water losses place real pressure on carriers’ books, but they’re also highly preventable when you understand where the risks actually lie,” said Bryan Rehor, Director of Regulatory Strategy at ZestyAI. “Z-WATER helps insurers pinpoint those vulnerabilities at the property level and price them appropriately, while meeting regulators’ expectations for clarity and fairness.”

These approvals add to ZestyAI’s broader regulatory momentum. Across five perils—including wildfire, hail, wind, storm, and now non-weather water—ZestyAI has secured more than 80 approvals nationwide. Z-PROPERTY™, the company’s property and roof analytics solution, has also earned broad state-level approval, giving insurers and reinsurers trusted parcel-level insights with the same regulatory-grade transparency.