This publish is a part of a collection sponsored by AgentSync.
As catastrophic pure disasters proceed to wreak havoc on the property and casualty (P&C) insurance coverage sector, loss prevention stays a excessive precedence for insurers and property house owners alike. Fortunately, researchers and innovators are continuously considering up new applied sciences, devices, and instruments to help in loss mitigation and client safety when catastrophe strikes.
With the P&C sector in a precarious place, balancing escalating losses and an ever-changing threat setting, expertise will play an vital position within the business’s success, and even its survival. Let’s discover among the most unusual, useful, and tech-forward loss prevention instruments in the marketplace for 3 widespread varieties of pure disasters.
Wildfires
Annually, uncontrolled wildfires destroy tens of millions of acres of land together with the houses and companies that stand in the best way of their path. The long-term financial and environmental impacts of wildfires are devestating and may take many years to get well from.
As a result of wildfires usually come on rapidly and with out a lot warning, early detection of these kinds of disasters is of the utmost significance with regards to lowering property harm and saving lives. Nevertheless, present wildfire prevention options, together with guide watch towers, satellite tv for pc programs, and cameras aren’t almost as exact or up-to-date as wanted to detect unauthorized burns earlier than they’ve carried out a big quantity of harm.
1. Early-detection wildfire sensors
The most recent in wildfire loss prevention expertise goals to repair these shortcomings by offering ultra-early wildfire detection. Dryad Networks, an environmental IoT startup headquartered in Berlin, Germany, developed Silvanet, a community of wi-fi environmental sensors that leverage solar energy and mesh gateways to help in low-cost early detection of wildfires. The sensors choose up early-stage wildfire indicators like elevated carbon monoxide and hydrogen gasoline particles within the air, giving firefighters a head begin on extinguishing burns earlier than they unfold.
What makes it cool?
One of many greatest challenges of conventional wildfire detection sensors is their energy consumption. Utilizing photo voltaic panels alone to energy sensors isn’t an ideal possibility in a forest the place massive teams of timber block a big quantity of the daty’s solar. By leveraging an STM32WL (We’re not too proud to confess that this expertise goes past our stage of comprehension. In the event you’re , right here’s an evidence), Dryad’s builders discovered a option to get previous the ability consumption problem and create a system that’ll run for as much as 15 years within the forest.
2. Firefighting robots
Yeah, you learn that proper. Combating wildfires is a harmful job, however with the assistance of robotics, people can struggle burns with out placing their very own lives in danger. Most of the firefighting robots presently in use are machines that firefighters remotely management. This allows the robots to navigate steep terrain or enter burning buildings with out placing human lives at risk.
Nevertheless, buildings are designed for people, so whereas many firefighting robots look extra like vehicles than individuals, researchers have additionally developed extra human-looking fashions to help firefighters in emergency indoor conditions. These humanoid robots can carry out duties like opening doorways, strolling up and down stairs, and working fireplace hoses.
What makes it cool?
You imply apart from the truth that we’re speaking about firefighting robots? At AgentSync, we’re huge proponents of utilizing expertise to automate the guide duties that suck up your individuals’s time and take them away from extra high-value work. By offloading work, like carrying heavy tools or evacuating individuals from an affected space, onto robots, firefighters can focus their time and vitality on their high precedence: stopping the unfold of a hearth.
It’s just like how our merchandise take guide producer licensing and compliance duties off insurance coverage businesses’, carriers’, and MGA’s plates, permitting their individuals to get again to their essential precedence: promoting and servicing insurance coverage merchandise.
Floods
We will’t discuss pure disasters with out mentioning flooding. Floods are the commonest and costliest pure catastrophe within the U.S. The Nationwide Climate Service estimates roughly 122 million individuals are liable to flooding within the spring of 2024 alone. Within the five-year interval between 2018-2022, floods racked up roughly $45 billion in insured losses across the globe.
Extra frequent and heavy rainfall means flash floods have gotten a bigger subject in main cities and cities, however general threat consciousness for flooding of every type stays low. This lack of expertise means many residence and enterprise house owners underestimate the quantity of insurance coverage protection they want.
1. Publicly accessible, correct water information
To assist the general public make extra knowledgeable selections with regards to water security and flood administration, the Nationwide Climate Service launched the Nationwide Water Prediction Service web site in March of 2024. The platform, which leverages trendy software program together with cloud infrastructure and geospatial expertise, gives extra correct, and user-friendly water information to assist higher analyze and predict flood threat.
What makes it cool?
Whereas an internet site might not sound as cool as firefighting robots, public entry to real-time flood information may be simply as life-saving. The Nationwide Water Prediction Service web site provides customers insights into the present water circumstances wherever within the U.S. Plus, with the assistance of API expertise, customers can entry real-time water movement data straight from their very own gadgets.
Whether or not we’re speaking about insurance coverage producer licensing or flood preparation, entry to up-to-date information is essential to your decision-making. Correct flood prediction information provides residence and enterprise house owners ample time to safe their property and valuables and evacuate if essential.
2. Water-Gate
Once you hear the phrase Water-Gate, you in all probability take into consideration illicit political actions, however on this case we’re speaking about one thing a bit extra on the nostril. MegaSecu’s Water-Gate water barrier is a literal “gate” used to dam water from flooding a construction or space. Produced from heavy-duty PVC, the Water-Gate barrier unfolds because the water stage rises to forestall flooding.
What makes it cool?
Historically, residence and enterprise house owners use sandbags to dam up the realm surrounding their property and forestall flooding. Nevertheless, sandbag limitations can take a number of individuals hours of guide work to fill and deploy and so they usually leak, rendering them ineffective after one or two makes use of. The Water-Gate barrier has a 20-year lifespan and may be deployed in solely 5 minutes utilizing two individuals and no different sources.
Serving to individuals get extra carried out with much less is a purpose the Water-Gate system and AgentSync share. Simply take a look at how one forward-thinking MGA lowered their producer licensing workload from that of 1.5 full-time staff to only half-hour a day with AgentSync’s assist.
Earthquakes
Not even at some point into 2024, a 7.6 magnitude earthquake rocked Japan, shifting the shoreline by over 800 toes and costing about $6.5 billion in whole insured losses. Earthquakes and their aftershocks can harm houses and companies, destroy infrastructure, and produce transportation to a screeching halt. They trigger almost $15 billion in harm every year within the U.S. alone, starting from a number of damaged home windows to whole constructing collapse. But, as Taiwan’s most up-to-date main earthquake exhibits, resilient infrastructure and loss prevention issues.
1. The Seismic-Cloaking Safety of Vital Infrastructure
The Seismic-Cloacking Safety of Vital Infrastructure, or the SCPCI, includes boring a collection of tilted holes into the bottom surrounding no matter construction must be protected to make it basically “invisible” to shock waves, form of like how a muffler dampens sound waves.
The boreholes vary from a foot to a meter in diameter and are round 150 meters deep. As soon as drilled, they flip the bottom round them right into a medium to replicate and divert harmful seismic waves away from the construction they encompass. The expertise continues to be within the early phases of improvement however has the potential to guard billions of {dollars} of infrastructure and save hundreds of lives.
What makes it cool?
In observe, the SCPCI lowered the seismic vitality of a magnitude 7 earthquake to that of a magnitude 5 earthquake. This has the potential to cut back the harm of an earthquake from main structural, environmental, and financial losses to only a few damaged dishes. Even cooler, this type of infrastructure might defend a variety of areas, from a single constructing to a whole metropolis.
2. Backpack rats
Apart from property harm and loss, earthquakes also can trigger important lack of human lives. When catastrophe strikes, time is of the essence as rescuers search by way of the rubble of collapsed buildings for trapped survivors. People are at a big drawback with regards to discovering and rescuing individuals within the aftermath of an earthquake. Primarily, we’re simply too huge to securely navigate the fallen particles. Researchers on the nonprofit APOPO have a greater resolution: rats. Extra particularly, rats carrying tiny backpacks outfitted with a digicam, two-way microphone, and GPS sign.
What makes it cool?
Two phrases: Backpack rats. That apart, it’s fairly unimaginable that builders have been capable of create expertise sufficiently small to suit inside a backpack sized for a rat and powerful sufficient to ship and obtain frequencies below the heavy particles of an earthquake. Coupled with a rat’s personal expertise, like their excellent sense of odor and their capacity to be taught and adapt rapidly, the whole idea is a real testomony to the ability of mixing human (or rat) expertise with trendy expertise for elevated effectivity and general success.
Expertise performs a number of key roles within the insurance coverage business
Whereas the principle purpose of this text is just to focus on a number of of probably the most attention-grabbing high-tech pure catastrophe loss prevention instruments on the market, the larger lesson comes right down to the position expertise performs within the insurance coverage sector. Whether or not it’s on a macro stage (lowering insured losses from pure disasters sufficient to have a constructive influence on the general affordability and availability of P&C insurance coverage) or a micro stage (enabling a single producer to onboard with an company sooner and extra effectively), it’s clear expertise is essential to the long run success of our business.
If all this discuss firefighting robots and tiny rodent heroes has you feeling amped up and able to swap out your legacy insurance coverage expertise for extra trendy, environment friendly options, AgentSync may also help. Watch a demo to be taught extra.
Subjects
Pure Disasters
InsurTech
Tech