Arturo Report finds 71.9 Percent of Gulf Coast Homes Have Roofs Susceptible to Hurricane Damage

Solar panels, skylights also add costly risk exposure during hurricane season

Arturo, the proptech company that delivers intelligent analytics from individual property to portfolio, announced the release of its inaugural report “Hurricane Exposure: The State of Gulf Homes” that analyzes more than 17 million homes across the southeast United States ahead of a forecasted above-average hurricane season.

The report finds 71.9 percent of rooftops in the U.S. are asphalt shingle, which can only withstand wind speeds up to 110 mph, or Category 3 force winds. Older or degraded asphalt may only withstand winds up to 50 mph. Metal roofs are more wind-resistant, able to withstand winds up to 160 mph (Category 5), but they only make up 6 percent of roofs in the U.S.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts as many as 21 named storms, with potentially up to 10 hurricanes, three to six of which could be major hurricanes for 2022. The report reviews several critical categories and property features deemed vital to insurers as the industry moves toward a proactive model where understanding risks and areas of underinsurance ahead of claims issues is critical. These categories and property features include wind and water exposure, roof shape, skylights, solar panels and pools, as well as underinsurance characteristics.

“Arturo is enabling insurers to better understand the complete picture of hurricane risk from a property to portfolio level so insurance companies can help educate policyholders on steps they need to take to mitigate damages in hurricane-prone areas,” said Neil Pearson, chief strategy officer of Arturo. “Any changes that occur to a property over time, like the addition of solar panels or other items that result in underinsurance, are detected as they appear so policyholders are more likely to be adequately insured.”

Other highlights from the report include:

• Hip roofs comprise 52% of Texas homes, 47% of Louisiana homes, 44% of Florida homes, and 42.3% of homes across the whole southeast. While more expensive to build, they are more durable under strong hurricane winds, making them more appealing over gable roofs.
• 257,000 homes in the southeast have solar panels, including 2.1% of Florida and 1.9% of Texas homes. While they can provide additional power to homes during outages, they can shatter when struck by hail or damaged by lightning strikes. They can be a financial liability if not properly insured.
• 691,663 homes have skylights across the Gulf Coast states. It would cost more than $1 billion to replace all of these skylights, which are susceptible to hail and wind damage and could cause internal water damage to homes if broken.

To download a full version of the report for more insights about damage exposure from pools, ground AC units and more, please visit here.

Methodology

Arturo’s Hurricane Exposure Report analyzed approximately 17,398,366 single family homes across Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina covering 579,000 square miles. All homes were analyzed in the spring of 2022 using highly-trained artificial intelligence (AI) models using the most up-to-date imagery available for the property. Arturo trains AI and machine learning models by focusing on a strong foundation of ground-truthed inputs and working closely with our customers to retrain our models periodically to continuously improve our model performance.

About Arturo

Arturo combines AI and machine learning models with property images to help businesses decide with intelligence from the property to portfolio level. Across the insurance, lending, securities and real estate markets, Arturo empowers customers with on-demand, accurate property characteristics and predictive analysis to tackle the biggest property challenges with efficiency, accuracy and confidence. Discover more at arturo.ai.

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