Photo: Tokio Marine

Tokio Marine Holdings (Tokio Marine), a multinational insurance holding company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, has made a strategic investment in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data provider Iceye and will start utilizing its satellite services for new insurance products.

Iceye announced the new investment on Tuesday as part of its Series D funding round that has raised a total of $136 million to date.

Tokio Marine’s investment is structured as a  collaborative partnership. The two companies said they would develop initiatives to facilitate the digital transformation of insurance claims capabilities. Utilizing Iceyes “Daily Coherent Ground Track Repeat” technology, Tokio Marine said it would develop new insurance products that address the increasing frequency and severity of natural catastrophes and the growing impact of climate change.

Iceye’s ability to combine data from its spaceborne sensors with multiple auxiliary information sources allows it to produce ingestible hazard data that can quickly be delivered to insurance companies. Thus, it has focused specifically on the insurance sector as its primary target market.

Tokio Marina Group Chief Digital Officer Masashi Namatame said that his company has been working with Iceye since 2020 and has already jointly developed an insurance claims processing solution for floods, that streamlines and enables quicker delivery of claim payments.

“This collaboration represents both Iceye and Tokio Marine’s strong commitment to take positive action and initiative against additional risks,” said Namatame. “By combining Iceye’s vertically integrated satellite solutions and Tokio Marine’s historical data, we strongly believe that we can develop multiple solutions to address serious natural catastrophe risks and support our customers and society throughout the world in their time of need.”