Ordnance Survey, the UK Govt agency on mapping, has released a new database of UK rooftops. That is highly useful for home insurance and commercial insurance brands. Here’s the word;
Ordnance Survey has just released data on over 40 million roofs in Great Britain into the OS National Geographic Database (OS NGD), which will enable valuable insights for the insurance sector. The new roof attributes introduce unprecedented insights into roof material including thatched roofs, green roofs, presence of solar panels plus roof shape and aspect.
OS NGD is already the definitive source of buildings intelligence in Great Britain, including insight on their use (e.g., commercial, retail, residential), construction material, age, number of floors (47 million in total), address count, and basement presence. All of these features are available in the OS NGD Buildings theme alongside the brand-new roof enhancement data. They can be cross-referenced with other OS NGD themes such as Address and Land Use to unlock valuable insights that can improve risk assessment, manage accumulation and understand exposure to climate change.
Roof material
OS now provides data on the predominant roof materials for 25 million addressable buildings, categorising them as thatch, waterproof membrane/concrete, fabric, glass/polycarbonate, green roof, metal or tile/stone/slate (on 92% of buildings).
This data will support insurers to help identify fire risks (e.g. listed buildings and thatched roofs). Interestingly, only 0.1% of British buildings have thatched roofs. The area with the highest total number is Sidmouth, East Devon.
Solar panel mapping
For the first time, OS has identified the presence of solar panels, revealing that 5% (nearly 1.3 million buildings) across Britain have them, and are mostly domestic. Scotland has the highest proportion of domestic solar panels. The top three districts in Britain are Stirling (15%), South Cambridgeshire (14%), and Peterborough (13%).
This data will revolutionise insurers risk assessment for solar panels, using with other OS data to:
- Identify the presence of solar panels on roofs for enhanced risk assessment and pricing optimisation
- Highlight the location and accessibility of roofs for understanding roof panels at higher risk of theft or vandalism
- Help identify fire and storm risks (eg hailstorms and windstorms)
Green roofs
A green roof is defined as at least partially covered with vegetation, usually specifically installed on a waterproof membrane. This new dataset will be invaluable for commercial property insurance, maximising underwriting performance.
Roof shape and aspect
OS’s new roof data includes:
- Roof shape: identifying whether a roof is flat or pitched, which helps assess water ingress risk for property.
- Roof aspect: determining the predominant orientation in eight directions (e.g. north, northeast, east), supporting wind and storm risk modelling for insurers.
The roof data was almost entirely captured using automated feature extraction, utilising Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning methodologies in some processes.
Sample data is available now from OS Partners to trial in an internal business use for up to 12 months.
John Kimmance, Chief Customer Officer for OS, said:
“This is the most significant collection of new and existing data for buildings in the OS National Geographic Database since it was created in 2022. With the addition of the new roof data, OS can support so many different sectors with achieving key insights and deliverables – from insurance and property to local authorities under pressure to meet biodiversity net gain targets. And we’re not stopping here—more building datasets are in the pipeline for future release.”
The new location data has been released as part of the Public Sector Geospatial Agreement (PSGA). The PSGA is a contract between Government Digital Service, managed on behalf of the UK Government, and OS for the provision of geospatial data and services to the emergency services and wider public sector organisations.
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