How Scottish space data companies are transforming insurance
30 Oct 2025 • 4 minute read
Scottish space companies are providing essential satellite data that can help protect physical assets from extreme weather.
As a result of ongoing climate change, extreme weather events are increasing in frequency and scale. With rising numbers of devastating hurricanes, hail, and flooding wreaking havoc on local communities, better solutions are needed for asset protection.
Typical insurance claims take up to 24 months to process after a severe weather event. This delay means many people have to bear the cost of repairs without financial support from their insurers. However, new parametric insurance plans created using data from satellites is set to help insurers deliver payouts more effectively.
With Edinburgh already known as ‘the space data capital of Europe’ and a national space programme that hopes to position the country as a space hub, Scotland is perfectly placed to provide the resources needed for parametric insurance solutions.
What is parametric insurance?
Where traditional insurance is based on the actual loss incurred, parametric insurance is based on the occurrence of a specific event. This is particularly useful for events that create damage that’s hard to assess, like extreme weather.
Parametric insurance has typically been used in the areas of defence and security, due in part to its use of satellite data. But the use of this kind of data for commercial purposes is rapidly increasing. According to Straits Research, the 'space as a service’ market is expected to grow from $1.07 billion in 2025 to $17.2 billion by 2033.
Space data has an especially important role to play in revolutionising parametric insurance plans. As parametric insurance establishes defined parameters, like flood levels or hailstone size, insurers can make payouts instantly when these parameters are exceeded.
Establishing these parameters using space data is far more effective than using traditional empirical sources. This is because empirical data doesn’t offer a complete picture of locations on the ground, and it may be difficult to get in remote locations.
The benefits of space data for insurance
Data from space can analyse all areas of the Earth’s surface to provide a complete picture of the effects of natural disasters. As well as this when analysed using artificial intelligence (AI), this data can offer modelling predictions to help plan for severe weather events and climate emergencies.
There’s already a growing interest in insurance applications for space data in Scotland. Digital Content Analysis Technology (D-CAT) is a satellite data analytics company based in Glasgow. While the company’s intelligence is currently used in a variety of industries, it’s seeing an increased number of use cases in insurance.
“The data and analysis we can provide from space is providing real information on assets and monitoring assets that insurance companies have never had previously.
“Parametric insurance products require space data analytics because they’re monitoring large areas where they are providing policies for. If you are monitoring drought or flood, the ability to provide updates on what is being experienced by your client’s asset and provide that data is truly important.”
Scotland: a leader in space data
Scotland’s expertise in space is attracting international attention. Weather Stream, a US-based climate and weather data capture company, chose to open its second office in Edinburgh after being attracted by the country’s capabilities.
Weather Stream builds its own innovative, lightweight satellites that can collect vital data for insurers.
“If you’re an insurance company and you’re trying to keep an eye on, say, a tropical cyclone, at the moment you might have observations every three hours from a satellite,” explains Richard Delf, chief product officer at Weather Stream.
“But if you can get updates every 30 minutes to an hour, which we are realistically capable of in the near future, you have a much better understanding of where that cyclone is going to hit and what kind of damage it will cause in what particular location.”
Weather Stream hopes to launch a second satellite to follow its first and broaden its data coverage. It plans to do this from Scotland, as the country is already developing vertical launch capabilities. Scotland’s open areas and large coastline make it a strategically advantageous area for spaceport development.
A one-stop space hub
Once launch capabilities are operational, Scotland will become a one-stop-shop for end-to-end space capabilities, from manufacturing and launch to data collection and analysis. This, combined with its skilled talent pool from the leading universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, make it uniquely appealing to earth observation companies.
McLachlan and his fellow founders chose to base themselves in Scotland because of this strong academic expertise in space.
“They’ve got really great academics in terms of spectral science, which we use a lot of in creating our algorithms and extracting the valuable insights from the raw data,” he says.
Space companies in Scotland also benefit from a close-knit and diverse network of like-minded businesses.
In recognition of Scotland’s rising status as a global space hub, Space-Comm Expo was held in Glasgow in September 2024. The decision to host the conference in Scotland highlighted the country’s unique nexus of talent, research, and innovation in the international space industry.
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