How to choose a climate risk analytics platform

A physical climate risk score answers a narrower question than it sounds like it does: how exposed is this specific asset, at this specific location, to a specific hazard, under a specific future scenario? Every vendor in this category answers a version of that question, but they differ enough in geography, peril list, output format and audience that the wrong choice is common — usually a US-only tool bought for a global portfolio, or a hazard score bought when the actual requirement was a dollar figure for a balance sheet.

Start with geography

This is the fastest way to cut the list. First Street covers only the United States, at parcel-level resolution, with a free public lookup tool (Risk Factor) alongside its commercial API and bulk licensing. If your portfolio is entirely US real estate, that resolution is hard to beat and the free tool is worth using before you evaluate anything paid. Climate X, Jupiter Intelligence and Moody's Climate on Demand all score assets globally rather than in one country, which matters immediately if your book spans multiple regions and you do not want to stitch together country-specific data sources yourself.

Decide whether you need physical risk, transition risk, or both

Most of this category models physical hazards only — flood, wildfire, heat, wind, drought, subsidence, sea level rise — under different emissions pathways and time horizons. riskthinking.AI is the outlier: it models transition risk (the financial impact of policy, market and technology shifts away from carbon-intensive activity) alongside physical hazards, and reports both as an asset-value or climate-value-at-risk-style financial impact rather than a hazard score alone. If your mandate covers only physical exposure — flood maps for underwriting, say — a physical-only provider is simpler to onboard. If you need to show a regulator or investor a single risk-adjusted number that accounts for both physical and transition exposure, riskthinking.AI is the more direct fit.

Check how many perils, and how they are modelled

A single-peril tool that models flood exceptionally well is not automatically worse than a multi-peril generalist — it depends what you are underwriting. Jupiter Intelligence's ClimateScore Global covers flood, wind, heat and wildfire with add-on modules for adaptation ROI and regulatory disclosure; Moody's Climate on Demand adds hurricane, sea level rise and water stress and draws on catastrophe-modelling capability from Moody's RMS business; Climate X's Spectra platform covers flood, subsidence, heat, wildfire, wind and drought with published methodology documentation aimed specifically at withstanding regulatory scrutiny. If your compliance team will need to defend the model to a regulator, ask each vendor directly how much of their methodology is published versus proprietary — this varies more between these five than the peril list does.

Consider what ecosystem you are already in

Moody's Climate on Demand has one advantage none of the others can claim: distribution. If your institution already licenses other Moody's data or credit-ratings products, adding Climate on Demand extends an existing vendor relationship rather than onboarding an unfamiliar one, which can matter as much as model quality for how quickly a large financial institution can actually deploy a new data source. The other four are independent specialists without that built-in ecosystem advantage, which can mean more attention from their own teams during onboarding but a separate vendor-risk review.

How the output will actually be used

Ask what downstream system consumes the score before you evaluate the model. A hazard score feeding a real estate listing or a simple underwriting flag needs less than a score feeding model risk management processes at a regulated bank, where you will need documented methodology, scenario analysis across multiple emissions pathways, and — per Jupiter's MetricEngine or riskthinking.AI's financial-impact modelling — a translation from hazard exposure into a balance-sheet-relevant number, not just a 1-to-10 risk rating.

A shortlist by situation

• You hold only US real estate and want parcel-level detail, with a free option to start. First Street's Risk Factor tool and commercial API.
• You need global asset-level coverage and a transparent methodology you can defend to a regulator. Climate X's Spectra platform.
• You need multi-peril global coverage with modules that translate hazard scores into financial and adaptation metrics. Jupiter Intelligence.
• You already run on Moody's data infrastructure and want physical risk screening without a new vendor relationship. Moody's Climate on Demand.
• You need combined physical and transition risk reported as a single financial-impact number, including for sovereign or municipal exposure. riskthinking.AI.

Questions to ask a vendor

1. Is coverage limited to one country or region, or genuinely global — and at what resolution in the regions you actually hold assets?
2. Which emissions scenarios and time horizons are supported, and can you choose the ones your regulator requires?
3. Is the underlying methodology published, or is it a black box you would have to take on faith in a model-risk review?
4. Does the output stop at a hazard score, or does it translate into a financial or asset-value impact you can put in a report?
5. How is the model recalibrated as climate science and historical loss data update, and how often?

Common mistakes

Buying a US-only tool for a global book because it was the most familiar name, then discovering the coverage gap during a regulatory review rather than during procurement. Treating a hazard score as if it were a loss estimate — a "high flood risk" rating is not the same thing as an expected annual loss, and conflating the two in a disclosure invites exactly the scrutiny these tools are meant to survive. And picking a provider purely on peril count without checking whether your compliance function can actually defend a proprietary, unpublished methodology if challenged.

Natural catastrophe insurance-linked losses are a related but distinct market: see how to choose a catastrophe modelling platform if you are pricing insurance risk rather than screening a corporate or investment portfolio. For two direct match-ups, read First Street vs Jupiter Intelligence and Jupiter Intelligence vs Moody's Climate on Demand. See every tool in this category at every tool in this category.