The commercial insurance industry is no stranger to market cycles, but the current hard market has left many agents grappling for answers. Rates are up, capacity is down, and policyholders are confused and frustrated. Despite these mounting challenges, many producers are ill-equipped to respond with meaningful explanations. The root of the issue? A lack of continuing education and access to relevant tools.
Too many agents stop learning once they’ve earned their license. The bare minimum—meeting continuing education requirements—is not enough in today’s climate. Producers often resort to online forums, asking where they can complete CE hours “as quickly as possible.” This mindset directly impacts their ability to communicate complex subjects like reinsurance or risk modeling to clients in an understandable way. As a result, they struggle to retain accounts and close new business in an increasingly competitive market.
This is where tools that help explain why a premium is what it is—down to the individual property level—are more critical than ever. If producers can’t explain the risk, they can’t justify the price. And if they can’t justify the price, they can’t retain or win accounts.
In a recent episode of the Power Producers Podcast, I had the opportunity to sit down with Valkyrie Holmes of Faura to dive deep into this exact topic.
Enter Faura, an insurtech company co-founded by Valkyrie Holmes and Amanda Southworth, which is revolutionizing how we evaluate natural disaster risk and property survivability. Holmes brings a unique background to the industry—starting her career in data science with NASA and later diving into climate research. Faura was born out of that research, emerging as a solution to help communities better understand their exposure to disasters like wildfires, hurricanes, and floods.
What sets Faura apart is its singular focus on property survivability. Instead of looking at natural disaster risk in isolation, Faura evaluates how well an individual property is likely to withstand an event. The company is redefining what it means to be a “good risk” by equipping agents and carriers with high-resolution data and actionable insights.
At the core of Faura’s offering is the property survivability score, a 0–100 metric that reflects a structure’s ability to withstand a natural disaster. A score of 100 signifies a resilient, well-fortified property. A score of 60, while not ideal, suggests a mid-range structure that could benefit from a few upgrades. This level of detail is a game-changer, especially in hard-to-place markets where coverage has historically been unaffordable or unavailable.
The scoring model takes into account hundreds of characteristics, such as construction materials, foundation type, window strength, roof type, elevation, defensible space, and more. With just an address, Faura provides producers with an initial risk assessment, followed by an optional digital inspection workflow that dives even deeper.
You don’t need to spend tens of thousands of dollars to significantly improve your property’s survivability. Holmes points out that many of the highest-impact upgrades are small, affordable, and can be completed in an afternoon.
Examples of high-ROI mitigation efforts include:
These aren’t just improvements—they’re insurance differentiators. They help underwriters say “yes” more confidently, and they help insureds protect their most valuable assets.
Faura’s real innovation lies in its ability to bring transparency into a historically opaque process. By generating simple, easy-to-understand reports, producers can quickly see which parts of a property are most vulnerable and how to fix them. Each report includes:
This tool empowers agents to explain coverage decisions and pricing, and it helps policyholders become proactive rather than reactive. In a world where policyholders are increasingly aware of climate risk, this level of clarity builds trust and loyalty.
Natural disasters are happening more frequently and more intensely than ever before. In fact, over the past decade, the U.S. has experienced a fivefold increase in billion-dollar disaster events. The traditional approach—quoting based on zip codes or outdated regional data—simply doesn’t cut it anymore.
Faura focuses on five major perils:
By evaluating risk at the individual property level, Faura enables smarter underwriting, more accurate pricing, and faster decision-making.
While much of the conversation around property survivability focuses on homeowners, commercial properties have even more to gain. Business interruption, equipment damage, and supply chain disruption can cost organizations millions.
Faura is already supporting assessments for:
Additionally, new insurance products—such as parametric coverage for power grid failure—are emerging. These pay out automatically when specific conditions (e.g., power outage > 6 hours) are met. This level of precision requires the kind of data Faura provides.
Beyond risk scoring, a broader conversation is emerging about how we build in the first place. Materials, methods, and speed all matter—especially in the aftermath of catastrophic loss.
David Carothers shared an example of a Florida furniture retailer turning Styrofoam waste into building blocks stronger than cinder blocks, used to construct homes in South Korea and Africa. Meanwhile, 3D-printed homes built from sustainable materials are proving to be not only faster to construct but also more resilient to natural disasters.
In a future where replacing properties with better materials is both cost-effective and fast, insurance products and replacement cost estimates will need to evolve accordingly.
The message is clear: Producers who thrive in this market will be those who educate, empower, and evolve. Tools like Faura are not just nice to have—they’re becoming essential in helping agents secure coverage, retain clients, and reduce total cost of risk.
The insurance landscape is shifting. Catastrophes are rising. Policyholders are more informed. And new technologies are opening up powerful opportunities for producers to lead the conversation—not follow it.
Want to future-proof your sales process and provide value beyond the quote? It’s time to start talking about property survivability.
For years, commercial insurance producers could survive by being good enough across a wide range of industries. They could write a little construction, a little manufacturing, a little hospitality, and a little habitational business and still build a respectable book.
The commercial insurance industry is in the middle of a quiet evolution.
While most conversations still revolve around premiums, deductibles, limits, and carrier appetite, a different category of risk transfer has been gaining traction beneath the surface—parametric insurance. It is not new, but it is finally becoming accessible, relevant, and actionable for middle market producers who are willing to think differently about risk.
In a recent episode of the Power Producers Podcast, I sat down with Brian Thompson from Descartes Underwriting to unpack what parametric insurance actually is, what it is not, and why producers who ignore it may be leaving their clients—and themselves—exposed.
This article breaks that conversation down into practical, producer-friendly language and shows how parametric insurance fits into modern middle market risk management.
The last several years have reshaped the landscape of property insurance across the country. While most national carriers have retreated from coastal states, wildfire zones, and other catastrophe-exposed regions, a handful of disciplined players have taken the opposite path—leaning into difficult markets with a strategic, data-driven approach.
For most entrepreneurs, the decision to start a business is rooted in the promise of freedom. Freedom from a boss, freedom to control income, and freedom to build something meaningful. Yet for many business owners, particularly in service-based industries and middle-market companies, that freedom slowly erodes. What begins as ownership eventually turns into obligation, where the business demands constant attention and the owner becomes the single point of failure.
The insurance industry is full of shortcuts. Some producers look for ways to streamline the quoting process, others avoid hard conversations with clients, and many rely on endorsements or extensions because they are “easier” than diving into the details. Nowhere is this more dangerous than in the world of cyber insurance.
Too many agents assume that a cyber endorsement on a BOP or commercial package policy is “good enough.” It isn’t. In fact, treating a BOP cyber extension as a replacement for a standalone cyber policy leaves clients dangerously exposed, puts producers at risk of losing accounts, and opens the door to costly errors and omissions (E&O) claims.
Cyber threats evolve faster than any other area of risk, and endorsements simply can’t keep up. If producers want to protect their clients and themselves, it’s time to understand why standalone cyber insurance is non-negotiable.
In the middle market, producers don’t lose because the competition has better pricing.
They lose because the competition understands people better—their motivations, their fears, their priorities, and what makes them say yes.
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