Ep 290: Paige Roepers, CEO & Co-founder, Ocean Ledger

On this episode of FNO: InsureTech, host Rob Beller interviews Paige Roepers, CEO and co-founder of Ocean Ledger. Roepers discusses how Ocean Ledger leverages satellite imagery, historic shoreline data, and environmental analysis to provide objective, transparent analytics for coastal risk in the insurance sector. She details the company's approach to supporting underwriting and risk management, shares experiences from the Lloyd's Lab accelerator, including their May–July program in London, and addresses the challenges and opportunities in modeling evolving coastal exposures.

Key Highlights

• Ocean Ledger uses satellite data archives reaching back to 1985, such as the Landsat program, to capture and analyze long-term shoreline changes, erosion trends, and natural defenses, offering measurable context for coastal risk.
• Roepers explains how Ocean Ledger's analytics enable carriers to interrogate and validate existing vendor models—addressing discrepancies, clarifying over- and underestimation of risk, and informing decisions in highly exposed coastal areas.
• The company incorporates natural defense features, including mangroves and wetlands, into elevation and storm surge modeling—quantifying the protective roles these ecosystems play within insurance and government risk assessments.
• Roepers reflects on Ocean Ledger's experience in the Lloyd's Lab accelerator, highlighting the value of direct industry engagement and the two-month program's impact on product direction, insurance market fit, and relationships in the London market.
• The discussion emphasizes partnerships with governments and NGOs for ground-truth validation and credibility, strengthening the reliability of Ocean Ledger's analytics for both public and private stakeholders.
• Looking ahead, Roepers outlines plans to keep the Ocean Ledger team lean and London-based for the initial proof-of-concept phase with insurance customers, with plans to scale to the US contingent on results.