Donegal Insurance Group is expanding the use of AI-powered property analytics in its underwriting operations through a wider agreement with ZestyAI, bringing additional property risk indicators into assessments across its personal lines portfolio.
The insurer is rolling out ZestyAI’s Z-PROPERTY solution to gain a more detailed understanding of the homes it covers. Alongside roof age, the technology analyses characteristics such as roof condition, roof complexity and debris on a property. These insights are intended to help underwriters assess individual policies with greater confidence and give portfolio managers a more comprehensive view of insured risks.
The latest deployment builds on a relationship established in 2025, when Donegal began using ZestyAI’s Roof Age solution to strengthen the property data supporting its homeowners insurance business. The technology uses building permit records and more than 20 years of historical aerial imagery to determine when roofs were replaced. It covers almost all of the contiguous US and achieves accuracy of more than 90%, according to the supplied information.
Reliable property data can influence how insurers evaluate homes and determine the risks associated with providing cover. Donegal’s initial adoption of roof age intelligence was intended to improve the information available to underwriting teams. By extending the relationship, the insurer is now applying this approach to a broader range of property features.
Donegal has operated in the insurance industry for more than 130 years and is headquartered in Marietta, Pennsylvania. It distributes insurance through independent agents across 21 US states. The group also operates under the Mountain States Insurance Group name in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas and Utah, as well as Michigan Insurance in Michigan.
ZestyAI develops risk assessment technology for the insurance sector, serving insurers, reinsurers, brokers and regulators across the US. Its Risk Decision Platform combines property-level information with predictive AI models and agentic AI automation to support risk evaluation, pricing and management.
The company’s models are validated against climate science and historical loss data. Its technology covers a range of insurance exposures, including wildfire, severe convective storms and non-weather water damage. ZestyAI has secured more than 500 regulatory approvals across the US.
Donegal Insurance Group chief underwriting officer Jeffery Hay said, “The quality of our decisions depends on the quality of the information behind them. Our initial work with ZestyAI strengthened the roof age data available to our teams. Expanding the relationship gives us a more complete understanding of the properties we insure and greater confidence in how we evaluate, manage and reinsure risk.”
ZestyAI founder and CEO Attila Toth also commented, “Donegal has experienced the benefits of our verified roof age data with regard to underwriting,” adding, “Z-PROPERTY extends that standard across the entire portfolio. The carriers pulling ahead are the ones whose decisions rest on data they can defend.”
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