Webinar Resources + Q&A - Revolutionizing Agriculture Insurance With Satellite Data

In our recent webinar, Revolutionizing Agriculture Insurance With Satellite Data: Insights for 2025, experts at AXA Climate, SwissRe, GreenTriangle, Suyana, and Planet shared:

Key updates from the 2024 growing season
Real-world examples of how satellite data is improving claims and underwriting accuracy
The latest parametric solutions for Agriculture Insurance

Watch the webinar on-demand for all of the details.

Below are some questions we received during the event and resources to learn more.

Questions

Question: What’s the benefit of using Planet data versus public?

Answer: Many of Planet’s products leverage existing public satellite data, which play a vital role in addressing a variety of use cases and often serve as an excellent foundational solution. Planet’s satellite constellation, PlanetScope, complements public optical sensors such as Sentinel-2 and MODIS. It proves especially valuable in scenarios requiring higher spatial resolution or more frequent revisit times. Furthermore, our Planetary Variables integrate data from public sensors with our proprietary methodologies to enhance derived products, such as soil moisture and temperature observations, delivering added value, back-ups and precision.

Question: How can satellite data be used to detect different crops or harvesting events?

Answer: Daily PlanetScope data at 3 meter resolution is widely utilized by agricultural customers and partners for applications such as crop identification through seasonal pattern analysis and the detection of harvesting events.

Question: When are NDVI values valuable to measure hazardous events and when are they not?

Answer: NDVI time series derived from PlanetScope data enable the detection of in-field variations, which can be instrumental in assessing crop damage following severe weather events, such as hailstorms.

Question: How long does it take for NDVI to react to an event ? How can you use historical NDVI data?

Answer: The timing of NDVI changes varies depending on the specific impact of an event on the crops. For example windthrow damage on high crops like maize, will not be depicted by NDVI until the thrown and non-recovered plants start to wilt. The effect of a drought on the contrary will be captured shortly after the event. For more details and examples, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Question: Which satellite characteristics are more vital to insurance companies - spatial resolution, spectral resolution/indices, or revisit time?

Answer: Insurance companies have different needs for different use cases. For example, for claims checks high revisit is important to be able to get data closest to the event. For property damage, high resolution SkySat 50 centimeter data is critical. For improving risk models, our clients typically use the different bands.

Question: What is the influence of soil types on soil moisture observations?

Answer: Soil moisture retention varies based on soil type. To account for these differences, Planet incorporates soil type maps into its data products.

Question: Is there a correlation between actual yields and the soil moisture index?

Answer: Studies conducted at test locations indicate that soil moisture accounts for 60-80% of yield variability. This is particularly relevant in drought index insurance, where only severe drought events are covered. In such cases, anomalies in soil water content show a strong correlation with drought-induced payouts.

Question: When we talk about drought coverage, the basis is soil moisture index or other indices. How do the companies that offer this coverage determine the triggers and are they scientifically based and tied to actual crop loss?

Answer: Determining the triggers is an important step in the design of a parametric product. To determine the triggers insurance companies use historical yield data and known drought/rain/storm events.