Understanding the Intersection of Resilience, Big Data, and the Internet of Things in the Changing Insurance Marketplace

There has been a recent explosion of data and technology, affecting every aspect of society. The resilience movement is no different. This paper examines the intersection of big data, including efforts to measure resilience and telematics, and the Internet of Things (IoT), including smart home technology.

From the 2005 initiative to score individual houses as part of the $250 million My Safe Florida Home program, to current efforts at the U.S. Resiliency Council to rank buildings for seismic performance, one thing is clear—comprehensive building rating programs are emerging alongside the call for disaster resilience in communities across the globe.

The other side of measuring resilience and big data generally is the IoT. Specifically, the smart home technology movement has the potential to create an enormous amount of data, and that data can revolutionize how we understand risk. This paper explores how smart home technology can make homes not just smarter, but safer and stronger as well.

The potential for smart home technology is limitless. A home can be transformed in a way that both optimizes the functionality of a dwelling, and provides previously unknown insights about the behavior of the homeowner to more accurately assess risk. There are crucial considerations to the success of smart home technology, and security and data privacy are essential. The status of telematics is examined, as well as how they represent a full circle back to the role of big data.

This paper provides a framework of considerations for approaching the potentially groundbreaking convergence of big data and the IoT to transform the resilience movement and the overall safety and strength of residential structures.

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