McKenzie Intelligence Services CEO calls for NOAA dataset paywall amid industry concern at Trump cuts

By Henry Gale

April 2 - (The Insurer) - Weather data from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) should go behind a paywall for commercial use, the CEO of geospatial intelligence provider McKenzie Intelligence Services (MIS) told The Insurer.

Since the start of the second Trump administration, NOAA has cut 1,300 employees and is planning another 1,029 layoffs as part of an efficiency drive, Reuters reported on April 1. Some climate scientists have said the quality or timeliness of NOAA's data will suffer as a result of the cuts and the Reinsurance Association of America raised concerns about the sector's reliance on the agency in March.

Speaking to The Insurer at the Insurtech Insights Europe conference last month, MIS CEO Forbes McKenzie discussed the dependence on NOAA data of some vendors that service the insurance sector.

"A lot of companies out there use the NOAA datasets in particular," McKenzie said.

"I'll be really surprised if they're there in 12 months' time, certainly the way the U.S. administration is currently going. I think they'll resurface in three to four years' time, but I think there's going to be significant disruption, which we're already starting to see now from those datasets."

McKenzie said he thought NOAA should charge organisations that make money from its data. "There's an industry based upon free data from the States... I think quite rightly they should be charging for it."

"I'm delighted to pay and I can't say that enough, I think that is appropriate," McKenzie said. "If you're paying for it, you can hold them to account for what they're providing too. So I actually want to pay for it as it happens." He added, "As long as it's free, it runs the risk of not being there."

Lloyd's Lab alumnus MIS provides a portfolio management system that incorporates information on natural and manmade perils from a range of sources. It worked with Lloyd's to provide its services to the whole Lloyd's market between 2021 and 2023 and now works directly with 37 Lloyd's insurers, McKenzie said.