Portfolio Benchmarking: see how your book compares
Sep 2026
Portfolio Benchmarking compares your insured portfolio against the wider US property market, so you can see where your book sits before loss ratio tells you.
Sep 2026
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NOTE: this product is currently available in North America only. A future expansion to Australia is on the roadmap and will be communicated when it’s available.
US insurance technology spending is projected to reach $173 billion in 2026, a 7.8% increase over the previous year. Much of it has gone into analytics that give carriers a clearer view of the risks they hold.
That intelligence stops where the book does.
An insurance carrier knows what it holds and how the book has performed, right down to the state of individual roofs. Say 12% of the roofs it insures in one county are in poor condition. Is that good?
A carrier knows what it holds and how the book has performed, right down to the state of individual roofs. Say 12% of the roofs it insures in one county are in poor condition. Is that good?
Nothing inside the book answers that question.
Loss ratio answers it eventually, long after the policy has been written and ceded. By then the adverse selection behind the result has been running for two renewal cycles.
Bigger decisions hit the same wall: underwriting strategy needs a view of portfolio quality. So does a rate filing, and so does a reinsurance negotiation. Carriers assemble that view from historical performance and internal assumptions, or they work from an analysis handed over by the party across the table.
A benchmark that answers “compared to what?”
An external reference for portfolio quality has to meet a few conditions:
- Sit outside the carrier’s own experience
- Reflect current property condition rather than historical loss
- Work at the geography the decision is made at
- Compare like with like
That’s why Nearmap is introducing Portfolio Benchmarking, a new add-on to Portfolio Intelligence that compares an insured portfolio against the wider US property market. Benchmarking runs on the Nearmap Roof Spotlight Index (RSI), an AI-derived measure of roof condition scored from current high-resolution aerial imagery. Many carriers already use RSI at the property level, where it informs underwriting decisions and directs inspection spend.
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Benchmarking applies that same index to the market side of the comparison. So the score describing your book and the score describing the market around it come from one consistent, familiar measure.
Your portfolio is measured against the Nearmap US property database of more than 100 million parcels, covering approximately 88% of the US population.
Results are available at state, county, ZIP, and neighborhood levels, so the comparison can be read at whatever geography the decision demands. Residential and commercial portfolios are compared like for like and agency filters show what each agency writes against the market it operates in.
The output is a position: where the book sits in the distribution, and which parts of it sit somewhere different.
Where market context changes the decision
By adding trusted, nationwide market evidence, Portfolio Benchmarking enhances Portfolio Intelligence and helps carriers:
Identify concentration and drift
Understand portfolio risk concentration and pinpoint geographies or segments where they have drifted from market norms while there is still time to act, ahead of the point where the shift surfaces in claims and loss ratios.
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Support rating and reinsurance conversations
Reinsurers and regulators both ask a version of the same question: how does the book/property compare to the market? Carriers answer it from loss history, which describes the past and takes years to settle. Benchmarking adds a current, carrier-specific view of portfolio quality, evidenced against the market rather than asserted. You bring that to the table instead of accepting the read or inviting objections the other party gives you.
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Boost agency performance
Agency performance is usually judged on loss ratio, which reports risk selection years after it happened. Benchmarking shows it now. Compare what each agency writes against the market it writes in, at national level or down to the neighborhood. Agencies drifting below the market around them surface while there is still time to coach them.
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Achieve profitable growth
Cross-reference above-market property condition against low carrier penetration, and expansion decisions gain a quality dimension alongside volume and competitor presence.
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Portfolio decisions with a market reference point
Nearmap property intelligence is trusted and used by top P&C insurers. Portfolio Intelligence with market benchmarking data extends that intelligence from the individual property to the whole book, and from the carrier’s own experience to the market it competes in.