{"id":700272,"date":"2024-09-10T09:34:50","date_gmt":"2024-09-10T16:34:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/?post_type=wherenext&#038;p=700272"},"modified":"2024-09-11T05:40:51","modified_gmt":"2024-09-11T12:40:51","slug":"the-insurance-industry-finds-hope-in-innovation","status":"publish","type":"wherenext","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/publications\/wherenext\/the-insurance-industry-finds-hope-in-innovation","title":{"rendered":"The Insurance Industry Finds Hope in Innovation"},"author":501,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","castos_file_data":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[],"tags":[476572,165252,1641],"department":[488822],"wherenext-category":[],"industry":[],"class_list":["post-700272","wherenext","type-wherenext","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-climate-resilience","tag-geography","tag-insurance","department-sustainability-risk"],"acf":{"short_description":"Inside a GIS revolution in the insurance industry.  ","pdf":{"host_remotely":false,"file":"","file_url":""},"flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"Despite a reliance on actuarial tables and statistical sureties, the insurance industry has always nursed a hopeful streak."},{"acf_fc_layout":"sidebar","layout":"standard","image_reference":null,"image_reference_figure":"","spotlight_image":null,"section_title":"","spotlight_name":"","position":"Left","content":"<strong>Snapshot:<\/strong> In a new book, <em>The Geography of Hope<\/em>, the former editor of the San Jose <em>Mercury News <\/em>shares uplifting stories of African conservation groups, water stewards in Prague, and the hopeful innovators in one of the world\u2019s oldest industries.","snippet":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"Those who work in the sector know that at some point, things will go wrong\u2014a roof will leak, a car will crash. They take solace in the belief that an insurance company can set things right. <em>Making a customer whole<\/em>, after all, is more than a financial concept; it\u2019s the assertion that well-timed assistance can put a person back on solid ground.\r\n\r\nAs climate hazards and other risks increasingly intrude on our lives, hope can seem like a quaint notion. Yet, insurance insiders have found reason to be optimistic. The source is a technology that takes guesswork out of damage assessments and speeds up the process of making customers whole again.\r\n\r\nAuthor David Yarnold flew shotgun\u2014sometimes literally\u2014with the professionals behind those innovations, and shares their stories in <em>The Geography of Hope<\/em>, published this fall. In addition to a chapter on insurance, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/esri-press\/browse\/the-geography-of-hope\"><em>The Geography of Hope<\/em><\/a> ranges across the economy, celebrating the water-saving work of Prague municipal officials, collaborations between African conservation and development groups, and the indefatigable stewards who clear land mines left over from war.\r\n\r\nIn this exclusive excerpt for <em>WhereNext<\/em>, Yarnold chronicles a place in the insurance business where hope and technology intertwine:\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<em>When Ryan Bank told Sheel Sawhney at Brit Insurance that he could reduce the cost of settling a post-hurricane claim from $12,000 to $8, he had Sawhney\u2019s full attention.<\/em>\r\n\r\n<em>Sawhney has been in the insurance business since the early 2000s. Today, he\u2019s the chief operations officer for Brit, one of the largest players in one of the most recognizable names in insurance, Lloyd\u2019s of London. Lloyd\u2019s is an umbrella organization for more than 50 companies. As Lloyd\u2019s second-largest syndicate, Brit writes most of its policies in the US.<\/em>\r\n\r\n<em>More than 300 years old, Lloyd\u2019s has insured everything from the ships that carried enslaved people during the 1800s to oil freighters, buildings, and satellites.<\/em>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"sidebar","layout":"standard","image_reference":null,"image_reference_figure":"","spotlight_image":null,"section_title":"","spotlight_name":"","position":"Right","content":"<strong>Related Read<\/strong>\r\n\r\n\/\/ How organizations <a href=\"https:\/\/mediaspace.esri.com\/media\/t\/1_dt3q2y8i\/245753322\">face risk, build resilience<\/a>","snippet":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"<em>It also famously insured the legs of footballer David Beckham and actor Betty Grable, the hands of Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, Bruce Springsteen\u2019s voice, and the <\/em>Titanic<em>. Lloyd\u2019s drew a line at film director Stanley Kubrick\u2019s request to insure against the invasion of aliens before the release of <\/em>2001: A Space Odyssey<em>.<\/em>\r\n\r\n<em>Sawhney arrived in London in 2016, just in time for what he calls, unironically, the perfect storm. In 2017, Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria crushed parts of Florida and Texas. Also in 2017, California burned\u2014from Santa Barbara to Sonoma\u2014and in 2018, the Camp Fire became the deadliest in the state\u2019s history. Atmospheric rivers had unleashed unprecedented rainfall and flooding in Colorado and Tennessee and now California. These were climate change-driven disasters for countless families and for insurers.<\/em>\r\n\r\n<em>Meeting Ryan Bank and GIC [the Geospatial Insurance Consortium] was a revelation, Sawhney said. Internally, Brit\u2019s team called GIC \u201cGoldeneye\u201d after the James Bond film [for the high-resolution imagery the organization delivers <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/publications\/wherenext\/the-unseen-after-a-disaster-imagery-gives-insurance-companies-a-clear-picture\/\"><em>when disaster strikes<\/em><\/a><em>]. Brit became a GIC member in 2019: \u201cThings started to converge, the idea that we would have virtual claims-adjusting capability out of London,\u201d Sawhney said.<\/em>\r\n\r\n<em>About three-quarters of Brit\u2019s claims come from high-risk areas in the US. When a hurricane hits, Brit knows GIC data will soon follow. Brit\u2019s systems first interpret the <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/what-is-gis\/overview\"><em>GIS<\/em><\/a><em> data in the form of shapefiles, polygons based on latitude and longitude that are the jigsaw puzzle pieces of geospatial data.<\/em>\r\n\r\n<em>In the wake of Hurricane Ian in 2022, that first step allowed Brit to narrow the computer search from 5 million customers to 50,000 policyholders around Fort Myers, Florida.<\/em>\r\n\r\n<em>Then the imagery met Brit\u2019s AI software, which a Brit technology leader describes as \u201ccustomers of the GIS data.\u201d First, an algorithm scanned GIC\u2019s images for the addresses of Brit\u2019s policyholders. Another algorithm stepped in to assess and categorize damage. All of that was sent to insurance companies or brokers who had the data to reach out to policyholders.<\/em>\r\n\r\n<em>Speed matters. Insurance companies that pay promptly make everyone happy. That includes the independent brokers who sell policies and help customers pick insurance companies. The brokers don\u2019t want to deal with nitpicking insurance companies any more than customers do.<\/em>\r\n\r\n<em>After the devastating fires on the island of Maui in 2023, Sawhney says GIC\u2019s data plus Brit\u2019s tools enabled Brit to pay 80 percent of initial claims in just a few days. \u201cThe rest of our competitors in the London market weren\u2019t even able to understand if they had losses and they were still unfortunately looking for people.\u201d<\/em>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/esri-press\/browse\/the-geography-of-hope\">Learn more<\/a> or order<em> The Geography of Hope<\/em>."}],"references":null},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.9 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Insurance Industry Insiders Reveal Hopeful Innovations<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Geography of Hope explores the uplifting impact of GIS technology on the 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