(Image credit: Jessie Eastland.)
Understory Inc., a Madison, Wisc.-based weather network and analytics vendor, has launched a message platform designed to help insurance carriers better engage with their policyholders regarding weather related insurance claims. The platform allows insurers to personalize communications with their policyholders with real-time, ground-level weather data, ensuring that claims are accurate and thus, decreasing the turnaround time on claims resolution.
Alex Kubicek, CEO, Understory.
Understory provides address-specific date in cities where their RTi sensors are currently deployed. The vendor asserts that no other weather data platform can provide comparable geographic specificity of data is not available from any other weather data platform. Understory’s sensors are currently deployed in Madison, Kansas City, Boston and Dallas. P&C insurer Amica has installed an Understory sensor at its headquarters in Lincoln, R.I. for a pilot aimed at improving its response to hail claims. Understory says that it continues to aggressively roll out additional cities, prioritizing those prone to severe weather.
Understory touts its platform as answering insurers’ appetite for seeking out innovative ways to provide high value communications to policyholders as part of their digital outreach. The vendor says that its data-driven messaging platform can be integrated within insurers’ existing digital strategies via an easy-to-use API or deployed as a standalone app.
Accurate Account of Conditions Affecting Policyholders
Understory asserts that its data provides an accurate account of how conditions are affecting policyholders’ property as weather events unfold, making it easy for insurers to engage in higher-value interactions with policyholders in a way that is tailored to their unique needs and situations. Understory says its app aims to more closely connect insurers with a new generation of policyholders accustomed to having personalized information at their fingertips. The vendor notes that only 33.9 percent of Gen Y customers report positive experiences with insurance companies, according to CapGemini’s World Insurance Report 2016.
Screenshot of Understory’s RTi sensors tracking hail activity in the greater Kansas City area. Click to enlarge.
“Billions of dollars are spent in the United States each year on insured losses caused by severe weather and it is well documented that severe weather is on the rise,” comments said Alex Kubicek, CEO of Understory. “Policyholders and insurers alike are looking to mitigate the risk that property owners encounter in the face of these events. Our mission when developing this new messaging platform was to enable companies to have an open dialogue with their customers backed by proven data that can help anticipate future events and immediately assess and report on potential weather-related property damage.”
Amica Experiments With Understory’s Weather Detection Platform for Claims Innovation