How Faura.us Is Reinventing Climate Risk for Homeowners

Published Date: 05/07/2024

In an age of escalating natural disasters—wildfires, hurricanes, floods, and extreme storms—homeowners are facing a hard truth: the places we live are more vulnerable than ever. At the same time, the insurance industry is struggling to keep pace. Carriers are exiting high-risk states, premiums are soaring, and many consumers are left with fewer options and higher costs.



But a new wave of technology is emerging to help close that gap. Valkyrie Holmes, co-founder and CEO of Faura.us, is leading one of the most promising efforts. Her climate risk and property analytics platform is designed to help insurers make smarter underwriting decisions—while giving homeowners practical tools to reduce risk and protect their properties.

In a recent conversation with Karl Susman on Insurance Hour, Holmes explained how Faura.us is using data, AI, and homeowner engagement to reshape how risk is measured and managed.

The Vision: Aligning Everyone Around Safer Homes

Holmes came to insurance through an unconventional path. With a background in data science, satellite technology, and sustainability research, she saw that climate resilience is not just an environmental challenge—it’s a coordination and data challenge.

“There are so many stakeholders involved in disaster risk—homeowners, insurers, real estate agents, policymakers,” Holmes said. “The only way to truly reduce losses is to align them all with a shared understanding of risk and the tools to act.”

That vision led to the creation of Faura.us (pronounced “Fora”), a platform that uses climate and property analytics to identify structural vulnerabilities and guide homeowners and insurers toward meaningful mitigation.

From the consumer side, Faura provides a free, interactive tool for homeowners to understand how their property may perform in a wildfire, hurricane, or windstorm. From the industry side, it delivers verified data that insurers can use to make more accurate underwriting decisions and expand insurability in high-risk regions.

The Homeowner Experience: Turning Risk Into Action

Faura’s platform is built to be accessible to everyday homeowners, with no special equipment or software required. The process is self-guided and designed to turn awareness into action.

Here’s how it works:

• The homeowner enters their name and property address.
• The platform walks them through questions about the home’s structure, roof, siding, vegetation, and foundation.
• Using a smartphone or tablet, the homeowner takes guided photos and short videos of key areas around the property.
• Faura’s system combines AI analysis with human verification to interpret the data, assign a resilience score, and generate a customized report.

The final report includes both a quantitative risk score and clear, practical recommendations—such as clearing defensible space, maintaining gutters, or sealing vents to prevent ember intrusion.

“We don’t just want to identify risk,” Holmes explained. “We want to help people actually reduce it.”

How Insurers Use Faura for Smarter Underwriting

While the consumer-facing tool is educational, Faura’s greatest impact may be on the insurance side of the market.

Traditional underwriting often relies on aerial and satellite imagery, which can be outdated and limited. These images can’t see behind structures, under roof lines, or into backyards—where many critical vulnerabilities exist.

Faura solves this by using fresh, ground-level imagery directly from homeowners, creating a more accurate and current picture of a property’s condition. Insurers are using the platform in two primary ways:

• Underwriting Validation: When a property falls into a gray area, insurers can request a Faura assessment instead of sending a physical inspector. The verified report allows underwriters to make faster, more confident decisions.
• Discount and Incentive Programs: Carriers can verify mitigation efforts—like replacing a wood shake roof or clearing defensible space—and offer premium discounts or better terms based on documented risk reduction.

One early adopter is Hawaiian Hurricane Group, which is using Faura to better understand wind and storm resilience after severe tropical events. The goal is to balance safety, affordability, and access to insurance in high-risk markets.

Beyond Wildfire: Expanding to Flood and Other Risks

Faura’s initial focus has been on wildfire and wind-related risks, including hurricanes and tornadoes. But expansion is already underway.

“The next product we’re developing is for flood risk,” Holmes said. As the platform moves into the East Coast and Gulf regions, flood exposure becomes a central concern.

Over time, Faura aims to build a full resilience profile for properties nationwide—a “climate fitness score” that reflects how well a home is prepared for multiple disaster perils.

Privacy and Data Security by Design

Because Faura involves property imagery and detailed risk data, privacy has been a central design priority from the beginning.

“Homeowners own their data,” Holmes emphasized. “We don’t sell it to third parties.”

If a homeowner uses the platform independently, their data is processed to generate the report and then deleted unless they choose to save it. When used through an insurer or agent, data is stored securely in protected accounts with encryption and access controls.

Faura also uses geofencing to confirm that photos are taken at the correct address. If images don’t align with GPS data, the system flags them for review to prevent misuse or fraud.

Improving the Homeowner–Insurer Relationship

Property inspections have long been a source of tension. Homeowners often feel blindsided by inspections, while insurers struggle with incomplete or outdated data.

Faura’s digital self-inspection model reduces friction on both sides. Homeowners control when and how the inspection happens, while insurers receive fast, reliable insight into property conditions.

“It’s about improving the customer experience,” Holmes said. “Inspections don’t have to be stressful. They can be collaborative, transparent, and even educational.”

This shift mirrors what telematics did for auto insurance—rewarding proactive behavior with better pricing and greater transparency.

Why Property-Level Data Matters in a High-Risk Market

For years, insurers have relied on broad geographic averages when evaluating wildfire and disaster risk, often treating entire ZIP codes as uninsurable.

Karl Susman summed up the problem clearly: “Some homes are far better prepared than others, but they get treated the same. Technology like this finally gives us nuance.”

That nuance is especially critical in California, where many homeowners have been pushed into the FAIR Plan despite significant home-hardening investments. By verifying property-level mitigation, Faura’s technology could help reopen pathways to private insurance for homes that would otherwise be excluded.

“The more we can personalize and verify risk reduction, the more insurable the state becomes,” Holmes said. “It’s not about denying coverage—it’s about enabling it responsibly.”

Looking Ahead: Building a More Resilient Future

Faura’s long-term goal goes beyond underwriting efficiency. Through pilot programs involving thousands of homes, the platform has already improved homeowner awareness, accelerated insurer decision-making, and reduced property vulnerabilities.

Future development will integrate real-time data from IoT devices, drones, and environmental sensors, making risk assessments even more dynamic and predictive.

“Disasters aren’t going away,” Holmes said. “But if we empower people to understand and mitigate their own risk, we can prevent many losses before they happen.”

Final Thoughts

The insurance industry is often criticized for being slow to innovate, but leaders like Valkyrie Holmes are demonstrating that meaningful change is already underway.

By combining data science, environmental insight, and homeowner engagement, Faura.us offers a new model for how insurance can work—with people, not just for them.

As Karl Susman noted, any tool that helps both insurers and consumers succeed at the same time is worth paying attention to. If technology can strengthen homes, stabilize insurance markets, and keep coverage available in high-risk regions, it may become one of the most powerful tools in the future of climate resilience.