Capability Dimension 1:
Inspection Type Used
A carrier operating at Level 1 using just physical inspections and performing manual underwriting reviews will not do well compared to a carrier operating at Level 4, that is using a combination of physical, virtual, and DIY surveys. Carriers operating at Level 4 have an intelligent cascade of inspections flowing from aerial imagery-based virtual surveys to policyholder-driven DIY surveys to physical or field inspections. This approach maximizes the risk insights gained and helps optimize their inspection spend.
Physical Inspections: Physical or field inspections offer carriers tremendous value in providing ground truth risk assessment, and we foresee them continuing to remain a staple. However, since the global pandemic, we have also seen a significant demand from carriers for aerial imagery-based virtual inspections and policyholder-driven DIY surveys that can deliver faster turnaround, non-intrusive policyholder experiences, and more insights on the interior risk profiles of homes.
Aerial Imagery-based Virtual Surveys and AI: The maturity of aerial imagery data in terms of resolution, coverage, and currency has significantly improved over the last four years, making virtual inspections an important survey tool for determining the exterior risk profile of a home. A virtual survey is totally non-intrusive to the policyholder can be generated in 15 minutes and at half the cost of a physical inspection.
An AI-enabled virtual survey can further supercharge this capability and take it to the next level by autodetecting condition hazard issues like missing shingles, yard debris, tree overhang, and various other hazards. The AI and Automation capabilities also prefill the risk information in the loss control workflow platform to significantly improve underwriting productivity, helping underwriters save 20 minutes per survey in review time. The AI capability also ensures that the carrier gets consistent risk reviews across the board to make better underwriting decisions. An AI-enabled virtual survey and an automated loss control workflow will help free up underwriters to focus on high-value tasks. A key goal for a loss control workflow platform should be to help carriers to straight-through process most of the virtual surveys and prioritize the ones with higher risk for underwriter review.
We urge carriers to thoughtfully add virtual surveys and AI virtual surveys to their inspection arsenals to help optimize inspection spend and drive up underwriting efficiency.
Policyholder-driven DIY surveys: More than 40% of claims occur on the interior of the home, so it is imperative to get the interior risk data right. This is where a DIY/Self-Inspection can really help. A DIY survey completed by the policyholder can provide a good assessment of a home's interior risk profile without having to spend $150 on an interior-exterior physical inspection.
CoreLogic, offers an Open AI Innovation Ecosystem that allows carriers to get access to the best-of-breed pre-integrated DIY Survey solutions from UnderwritingCenter. Each of these DIY survey applications offers a unique value proposition, and the carrier should consider the following when deciding on the DIY survey app/s they want to use in their loss control workflow:
Underwriting Objectives:
Is the primary focus of your program to detect more condition hazards or to get your insurance to value right? Usually it is both, but some of the DIY apps specialize in one area more than others, and you want the best app(s) that is aligned with your business objectives.
Autodetection:
You must determine the level of automated detection you want to drive using AI-heavy approaches vs. maximizing the risk data collection on a big percentage of the book using a more cost-effective AI-light DIY app.
Performance Metrics:
Historical completion rates of the DIY survey app, historical policyholder satisfaction scores, the ability to adjust survey length, the questions asked, and the capture sequence based on individual carrier needs are critical metrics you want to focus on.