Case Study: California Earthquake Authority reduces earthquake risk with Moody's Analytics North America Earthquake Model

Creating a More Resilient Earthquake Insurance Marketplace in California

The California Earthquake Authority (CEA) faced the challenge of quantifying the effectiveness of its Brace and Bolt seismic retrofit program in order to reduce the earthquake insurance protection gap for homeowners. To scientifically demonstrate the impact of retrofitting on potential insurance losses, CEA partnered with Moody's Analytics, utilizing their Moody’s RMS North America Earthquake Model.

Moody's Analytics implemented a solution by incorporating the latest scientific data into their model to analyze over 48 building variants. The analysis by Moody's Analytics provided definitive results, showing that retrofitting could reduce average annual losses by up to 70% for certain home types. These insights have been used to develop potential insurance credits, supporting the program which has now provided grants to over 20,000 homeowners and helped make the insurance marketplace more resilient.

California Earthquake Authority(CEA)

Janiele Maffei

Chief Mitigation Officer