Preparing and responding to natural disasters with image provenance
Here's how authenticated provenance-based images can empower the insurance industry to deliver greater benefits to insureds.
We have long held the belief that image provenance — the point of capture of authenticated pictures and videos — can deliver significant benefits and propel the financial services industry, specifically insurance and lending, to new heights. Companies in both mortgage lending and insurance have identified innovative ways to deploy this technology in response to and in preparation for a natural disaster.
Why is image provenance helpful to insurers?
The insurance and financial services industries are regularly innovating and digitizing their processes but have also had to address growing trust gaps and bad actors leveraging technology for fraud. This is a dizzying challenge for any industry but particularly sensitive for financial services that are responding to disaster scenarios where families are in acute situations and need rapid assistance.
Authenticated provenance-based images will become one of the most important breakthroughs for rapid response and relief to victims of natural disasters. In short, the technology empowers a victim to self-report and attest damage to an insurer with immutable trust embedded directly into the media file, dramatically accelerating the speed at which insurers can respond.
We have had the opportunity to work with partners and allow insurers to deliver this trusted technology to any smartphone in the world in a matter of seconds through a text message or email. Not only is the speed of documentation important but so is the convenience — customers no longer have to miss work, adjust schedules or be home to meet an adjuster which greatly increases customer satisfaction.
Further, in terms of fraud mitigation, authenticating images and videos while they are captured with cutting-edge fraud prevention, computer vision tests, and cryptography ensures that the insurer has the highest confidence in the veracity of the media delivered. Imagine receiving real-time images and videos of a customer’s damage with full confidence in the date, time, location, orientation (direction), customer context (explanation/attestation), and that the pixels were authentic and not fabricated, i.e. taken from an old picture or synthetic (deepfake).
Provenance in digital content is a game-changing breakthrough, and that is why it is a growing industry being examined by some of the world’s largest technology companies.
Victims of hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires and other dramatic disaster events need support fast but are often left waiting in line because of the scale of damage. Assuming there is physical accessibility to the devastated location, there are simply not enough human resources or adjusters who can inspect the scale of damage in a reasonable time frame. Delays caused by inspection backlogs to assess damage claims leave victims struggling with no means to rebuild. Insurance customers generally wait one week for insurers to respond to initial calls and send an adjuster to assess the damage. The wait time is significantly longer (several weeks, even months) in dire situations like post-federally declared disaster situations where the magnitude of damage overwhelms the private industry’s ability to respond.
Response revolutionized: Texas 2021 natural disaster
In mid-February 2021, a dramatic winter storm devastated much of the United States and even parts of Canada and Mexico. The storm, unofficially known as “Uri,” led to a sweeping energy generation failure across Texas, leaving millions without power and resulted in the death of over 150 people. Both federal and state officials declared the crisis a disaster and private industry struggled to begin providing services. Our partners and clients equipped with the provenance-based inspection platform kicked into action, and we had one of our highest volume months of authenticated inspections ever — over 60% increase from the same period the prior year, and roughly 20% more than the month prior. We attribute a significant portion of this jump in inspection volume to our clients’ work to quickly respond to the Texas disaster declaration with remote authenticated inspections.
One of our partners, Royal United Mortgage, shared its experience and success with this technology in response to the crisis. Though not an insurer, mortgage lenders face very similar constraints and challenges in a post-disaster scenario, mainly the need to inspect damages and ensure accurate value assessments. In fact, because a disaster declaration was made, it forced lenders to perform property inspections for any pending government-backed loan. At the time, Royal United Mortgage had over 170 USG-backed pending loans, totaling nearly 4 million dollars, that needed immediate damage inspection. As we learned, this is one of the most precarious situations for mortgage lenders because the delay in inspections in post-disaster scenarios leads to loan attrition and significant losses.
Royal United Mortgage was able to empower its clients to start self-inspection and attestation to damage (or lack thereof) on average in ten seconds or less. Over the next 10 days, Royal United Mortgage conducted all 170+ inspections throughout the entire state of Texas with notable efficiency. Nearly 60% of inspections were initiated by Royal United Mortgage, completed and submitted by the insured in 10 hours or less, with an average of 30 authenticated images and/or videos associated with each inspection. As a result, Royal United Mortgage managed to preserve nearly all of its loans with very little borrower attrition — a remarkable achievement. “Following the [Texas] disaster declaration, we were able to get our loans moving within hours with Truepic Vision. Normally, we would have to wait 2-4 weeks for inspections to take place following a disaster declaration,” said Jay Parrott, vice president of operations. This is a notable case study that offers many parallels to insurance services in a post-disaster scenario.
A proactive tool
Royal United Mortgage and many others have proven how critical image provenance is when responding to a crisis. However, we are also learning just how useful authenticated images and videos are prior to a natural disaster. Palomar Specialty Insurance, which offers customized and specialized insurance for natural disasters, will now empower its insured population with this technology before disaster strikes. Though most insurance companies advise that insureds document and label possessions annually, the inability to fully authenticate the date, time, location and veracity of the documentation is challenging. For example, how would an insurer verify the possession, condition, and location of items claimed following a storm? It is a risky position that is ripe for fraud, but also frustrating to the insured.
However, with this technology, Palomar will now allow its clients to pre-document possessions at their own convenience directly from their smartphones. By tracking the hurricane’s cone and likely landfall, Palomar can push out notifications for those clients in its path who may want to use the technology to document property and possessions before the storm hits. Following the storm, any damage claim can be submitted to Palomar with similar technology, and the authenticated “before and after” images can be compared and reimbursed quickly.
“Image provenance technology is a powerful customer service tool — it enables Palomar to work with our insured population to easily document and protect their possessions before a storm hits and facilitates efficient processing of claims after the event has ended. We look forward to exploring the application of the technology in other product lines and market segments,” said Jon Christianson, chief underwriting officer, Palomar Specialty Insurance.
Natural disasters create complexity for insurers and all financial service providers because it creates a level of urgency with significant information asymmetries. Until now, technology was not able to truly bridge the trust gap to allow rapid response and empower the insured to demonstrate trust in real-time. We are proud that our clients are leveraging our provenance authentication platform innovatively and, most importantly, to deliver better and faster service to the many families affected by extreme events annually. This is the future of online trust, transparency, and transaction and will have a tremendously positive impact on the insurance industry.
Craig Stack (craig@truepic.com) is the president and co-founder of Truepic. The opinions expressed here are the author’s own.
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