Flying high

Flying high

Insurers see drones as a way to revolutionise claims processes through safer, more efficient inspections

By John Deex

Technological developments are often talked about but most never seem to quite make it in practice. That’s not the case with drones.

The potential of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) to assist with insurance claims – especially rooftop surveys – was flagged years ago, and now it’s being realised with thousands of inspections carried out every year.

Leading drone network AirAssess, which has partnered extensively with IAG, tells Insurance News its work with insurers has spiralled over the past five years.

It has now carried out more than 45,000 inspections, and co-founder Anthony Marsh says he’s looking at ways to expand the service further.

The format is simple enough. AirAssess provides a network of 250 vetted drone pilots across the country, and liaises with insurers or their builders via a specialised web platform to get inspections completed quickly and efficiently.

It’s great extra work for drone pilots, many of whom might have tried to launch their own businesses before discovering it isn’t quite that simple.

But it doesn’t end with the inspection photos. AirAssess then prepares a report based on the images secured by the drone.

“At the end of the day most insurers want a PDF that says whether a claim should be paid,” Mr Marsh says.

“We found they didn’t want to sit there scrolling through 100 photos.

“When a job comes into our platform we can see all the pilots nearby, when they’re available and then we can allocate them a job with one click. They do the inspection and upload the photos to our platform. Then our plumbing and reporting team pull it through and write a report.”

Mr Marsh says the benefits of a drone inspection are clear to most insurers. And because his company doesn’t venture into the repair side, there’s no real concern from tradesmen about losing work.

Independence, safety and thorough objectivity are key, he says.

Easy access: AirAssess co-founder Anthony Marsh carries out a rooftop inspection using a drone concern from tradesmen about losing work.

“If the builder sends a plumber and they write the report, and do the scope of repair and then the repair, there’s a lack of independence. We provide that.

“The imperative for IAG was safety. A couple of people in the industry have fallen off roofs and didn’t do too well.

“IAG had a huge desire to eliminate risk, and the drones are very small and incredibly low risk. The risk compared to climbing on a roof is tiny.

“And it’s objective. A plumber is really only looking at what is in the claim details. Someone will say ‘I’ve got a leak above my kitchen, I think it’s my skylight’. The plumber goes and looks at the skylight, takes a photo and writes a report.

“Every inspection we do we inspect the entire roof. And the good thing is if we ever need to go back, we always have the image of the roof at that point in time.”

Mr Marsh says privacy concerns about drones are misplaced. Any neighbours seen on imagery during a rooftop inspection are pixelated, and he says it’s not much different to a plumber being on the roof with a smartphone.

But AirAssess still wants to do more. It’s working with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) to iron out some concerns that are preventing larger scale studies of towns or regions being completed.

This could be very useful to insurers following a large-scale catastrophe, Mr Marsh says, because the resolution from drone imagery is better than that from satellite or planes.

But there are certain rules in place that currently make it tricky.

“You’re not allowed to fly within 30 metres of a person, and you can’t fly near a controlled airport,” Mr Marsh says. “Now that we are well established we are looking at how we can fly in some of those trickier parts.

“But we are working with CASA towards getting regular regulatory approvals so we can fly near some of the busier airports.

“We’re trying to get an exemption to fly in ‘populous’ areas. Google is one of the few companies to have an exemption, for delivering coffees and other goods. We are trying to go down the same path.”

AirAssess has also developed AirPass, a CASAcertified drone safety app that tells pilots where they can’t fly and why.

Mr Marsh says AirAssess already goes beyond just rooftop inspections, and thinks there’s still “huge untapped potential” for drones.

That could include maintenance or audit inspections, and the company already does fire work.

“In one chemical plant fire we actually flew the drone inside the building while it was still smouldering.

“The fire service sent a robot in and the robot got stuck. We just flew in slowly and we were able to see what the internal damage looked like.

“Sending a human into a live fire is pretty dangerous. Sending a drone, if you lose it, it’s not a big deal.

“Drones aren’t the silver bullet to every problem. But it’s about finding the areas where they give the most value.”

IAG says it’s always looking at the latest technology for new ways to provide the best possible claims experience. Keeping assessors safe following fires, floods or storms is also a top priority.

“There’s a range of safety issues that we have front of mind while also completing property assessments as quickly as possible,” Executive General Manager Direct Claims Luke Gallagher tells Insurance News.

“That’s why when the opportunity came to look at how we could use drone technology to provide a safer, more efficient claims assessment process, we jumped at it.”

IAG says it was the first insurer in Australia to use drones to capture damage caused by the devastating Christmas 2015 Wye River and Separation Creek bushfire in the Great Ocean Road area of Victoria, where more than 100 homes were lost.

“As news of the severity of the bushfire started to come through, we immediately arranged for our teams to be sent to the area to support our customers,” Mr Gallagher said.

“We knew the steep terrain would make access very difficult, on top of the other safety issues on the fireground, so through a property repair partner we used drones to inspect our customers’ properties before physical on-the-ground access to the area was granted by the emergency authorities.

“We conducted 87 drone assessments and we worked with the Country Fire Authority throughout the process to ensure the use of drones would not impact firefighting efforts.

“Aerial imagery shot by the drones allowed our assessors and customers to review the damage from a safe location, removing the risks associated with a physical site visit.

“That meant we were also able to lodge our customers’ claims immediately and start working through the next steps around planning repairs and rebuilds, which is also a crucial step in helping people and communities recover from what is an incredibly stressful and distressing experience.

“We had really positive feedback from our customers, while also ensuring the safety of our assessors and partner builders.

“Since then, drone technology has advanced very quickly and over the past few years, drones have become easy to buy and affordable, with high-quality imagery.”

IAG says in Financial Year 2020 it arranged 15,293 drone assessments of properties across the country. The following year that fell to 9621, due to more builders buying drones as part of their own for assessing roof and property damage.

“Understanding the benefits of using drones for property assessments also meant we had confidence in quickly adopting virtual assessments for property claims,” Mr Gallagher says.

“These tools have complemented each other and have been particularly important given the impacts of Covid-19. We were able to move quickly to reduce the need to visit our customers’ homes while also ensuring their claim progressed as quickly as possible.

“The additional benefit is we’re able to share the insights from the drone assessments with our customers to help them understand the condition of the roof and where maintenance may be required, which helps them to be better prepared before the next wild weather hits.”

Suncorp says it’s working with insurtech provider Arturo to apply artificial intelligence models to aerial imagery to see damage and distribute critical data insights following a severe event.

The technology – which uses drones and other image sources – is fed back to Suncorp’s new Event Control Centre where it’s layered over pre-captured imagery of the area to generate a detailed report on damage exposure.

“It means that teams in Suncorp’s Event Control Centre can identify damage to property before a customer has even realised there’s a problem,” the insurer says.

It says it created the market-leading technology in November 2020 following the Halloween hailstorm in Springfield Lakes, Queensland.

The machine’s custom-built damage detection model gives each damaged property a severity rating and allows Suncorp to see who has and hasn’t yet made a claim. It also allows the Disaster Response Team to plan their response and prioritise customers who require urgent assistance or accommodation.

Previously, Suncorp would gather much of its damage data insights from the ground and rely on information gathered by assessors, customers and builders.

“Suncorp is using industry-leading technology to take its customer response to the next level following devastating weather events,” Head of Disaster Response & Event Claims Cath Stewart said.

“The AI technology is trained to detect severe damages including smashed solar panels and extensive broken roof tiles. By quickly identifying the extent of the damage, our teams can make calls to customers to see what support they need – whether it’s a make safe, lodging a claim or providing an assessment.

“This proactive approach and ability to quickly scale up and get boots on the ground is part of our best in claims ambition for Suncorp.”

As the technology continues to improve, so will the take-up across the industry. Drones reduce the risk to insurance staff and contractors, and speed up claims handling following major events.

“Anyone who thought drones were a fad has hopefully learned that that’s not the case, they’re here to stay,” Mr Marsh says.

The evidence suggests he’s right.