The rise of red zones of risk by Australian Broadcasting Corporation

This story opened up the world of climate risk and insurance to an entirely new audience through stunning, easy-to-follow visualisations and an interactive search tool that put proprietary data directly in the hands of a general audience.
At the heart of the story is an exclusive dataset intended for technical users in the insurance, banking and risk analysis industries. The story distilled this vast, technical dataset into a compelling narrative for a general audience, giving them the tools for users to “drill down” into the data and find insights for their specific location.
The impact has included:
● Enabling a lay audience to understand and explore the numbers and calculations that drive wider business decisions about their homes and neighbourhoods
● Injecting a level of transparency and accountability into questions about rising insurance premiums
● Empowering “ordinary Australians” to participate in a debate that directly affects them, but has so far been dominated by a handful of powerful insurance companies and big banks.
As an outstanding example of data-driven storytelling and explanatory business reporting, it showcases skills such as:
● Making large amounts of complex data digestible and explorable, by providing the tools for readers to find “personalised” insights
● Re-framing dry, unappealing calculations and analyses to immediately convey their importance to a lay audience
● Data visualisation that is powerful, accurate and legible
● Creative approaches to handling vast amounts of data, especially readers on mobile phones

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