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Best’s Review: Cognizant’s Insurance Consulting Director Says Drones Could Have a Significant Impact on Insurance Claims Operations
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“We believe drones hold potential for commercial and personal lines carriers by being an extra set of eyes in the sky,” says Agil Francis. “Equipped with new capabilities such as integrated audio and text with real-time video feeds and the ability to overlay images over existing footage through augmented reality, next-generation drones could have significant commercial value for businesses across industry segments.”
“At Cognizant,” Francis adds, “we are seeing a lot of interest from P/C insurance carriers to develop prototype solutions using drones, as they clearly understand the benefits. Once regulations are firmed up and carriers start getting FAA approvals, we believe insurance adjusters will start using drone technology in the not-too-distant future.”
“In most scenarios, catastrophe claims adjusters encounter a variety of safety hazards they must navigate to visually examine and evaluate losses,” Francis notes. “Drones can help reduce claims settlement time, thereby improving customer claims experience.”
“Property claims adjusters typically encounter hazardous situations like climbing ladders and scaffoldings to access roof lines, ice dams and chimneys,” he says. “Drones have the potential to significantly change the way property adjusting is performed. Easy portability, navigation and the ability to take high-resolution videos and photos make drones the ideal solution for supplementing claims adjudication, since adjusters would no longer need to climb dangerous ladders with a point-and-shoot camera in one hand. Drones could also enable adjusters to get very close to a roof, zoom in to questionable areas and analyze details to understand the cause of loss, all without disturbing the scene.”
Francis also sees potential benefits for crop lines. “Drones can cover these distances quickly, provide high-precision images and transmit information in real time to adjusters,” he says. “Also, instead of having specialist adjusters travel, certified local drone operators could operate drones on-site, while the adjusters can view damages in real time remotely, thus improving productivity, reducing fraud, and reducing operational expenses.”
“Safety and privacy are the two key concerns which need to be addressed,” he points out. “These can be addressed with customer education, developing standard procedures to obtain customer consent and limiting the fly zone of the drones to property and roof limits. Liability can be addressed with good training and limiting fly zones. The benefits of using drones for claims adjudication and risk engineering can far outweigh any potential drawbacks.”
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