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AI-Driven Drone Surveillance Is Leading to Home Insurance Cancellations

scnr.com

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Re: AI-Driven Drone Surveillance Is Leading to Home Insurance Cancellations

#41

Post by itishappy »

heyoni wrote: post #40
silisili wrote: post #17

Are these like military grade aerial drones or something? The one shown in the picture, and those many use to do prelim roof inspections, fly far too low - seems it would be encroachment of owner's property rights, no?

The article says they’re also using low flying planes and balloons to do the surveys.

My girlfriend worked for an aerial imaging company for a while, and most of their imaging came from general aviation (small planes).

A commercial pilot's license requires 1500 hours of flight time under one's belt. The company paid them a small sum to strap a camera to their planes and fly certain routes. New pilots make some extra cash and the company gets cheap shots.

Re: AI-Driven Drone Surveillance Is Leading to Home Insurance Cancellations

#42

Post by everybodyknows »

w10-1 wrote: post #28

We had such a notice, for moss and mold (in a hot, dry climate). The images were accurate enough. The insurance company relented after we remediated and sent photos. Image recognition is not really "AI-driven", and the low numbers make that replaceable with humans. It's the cost and legality of drone roof photos that make this possible. The risk represented in the photos was relatively small, but it's a risk easily a…

> ... creates an opportunity for the insurance company and roofers to share value extracted in various ways ...

This opportunity is naturally enlarged in jurisdictions that drive down the population of business competitors with aggressive misregulation -- California.

Re: AI-Driven Drone Surveillance Is Leading to Home Insurance Cancellations

#43

Post by euroderf »

jawns wrote: post #4

This story appears to be a sloppy, confusing summary of a Business Insider piece by Albert Cahn, the man mentioned in the article. The fact that SCNR makes no reference to this piece is telling: https://www.businessinsider.com/homeowners-insurance-nightma... Cahn is the founder and executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, or STOP, a New York-based civil-rights and privacy group, so he cert…

> to trigger a human to go out to the home and investigate?

But, how can this be outsourced overseas ?

Re: AI-Driven Drone Surveillance Is Leading to Home Insurance Cancellations

#44

Post by legitster »

jawns wrote: post #4

This story appears to be a sloppy, confusing summary of a Business Insider piece by Albert Cahn, the man mentioned in the article. The fact that SCNR makes no reference to this piece is telling: https://www.businessinsider.com/homeowners-insurance-nightma... Cahn is the founder and executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, or STOP, a New York-based civil-rights and privacy group, so he cert…

Cahn's article is really dumb.

The entire story: His insurance broker said his policy was cancelled because of AI. His policy was never actually cancelled.

Everything else is complete speculation.

The irony is that the most likely culprit in all of this was simple human error with his insurance broker.

Re: AI-Driven Drone Surveillance Is Leading to Home Insurance Cancellations

#45

Post by euroderf »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #32
renewiltord wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but that’s fine by me. Shareholders are your fellow policyholders in a mutual insurance company. The high risk people can go start their own mutual insurance.

[flagged]

> Once they've chewed up everyone who's easier than you, they're not going to spare you because you licked the boot up to that point.

First they came for the cheeseburger eaters and the cardboard box lifters...

Re: AI-Driven Drone Surveillance Is Leading to Home Insurance Cancellations

#46

Post by legitster »

w10-1 wrote: post #28

We had such a notice, for moss and mold (in a hot, dry climate). The images were accurate enough. The insurance company relented after we remediated and sent photos. Image recognition is not really "AI-driven", and the low numbers make that replaceable with humans. It's the cost and legality of drone roof photos that make this possible. The risk represented in the photos was relatively small, but it's a risk easily a…

Moss and mold is extremely damaging to roofs - even in dry climates. And roofs are expensive.

If the insurance company convinced you to go up and "remediate" the moss problem it sounds like the system worked and they spared you (and them) from an expensive roof replacement.

Re: AI-Driven Drone Surveillance Is Leading to Home Insurance Cancellations

#47

Post by exsomet »

euroderf wrote: post #43
jawns wrote: post #4

This story appears to be a sloppy, confusing summary of a Business Insider piece by Albert Cahn, the man mentioned in the article. The fact that SCNR makes no reference to this piece is telling: https://www.businessinsider.com/homeowners-insurance-nightma... Cahn is the founder and executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, or STOP, a New York-based civil-rights and privacy group, so he cert…

> to trigger a human to go out to the home and investigate? But, how can this be outsourced overseas ?

Not to worry, we have the technology

https://youtu.be/nHrh5E-zZ3U

Re: AI-Driven Drone Surveillance Is Leading to Home Insurance Cancellations

#48

Post by legitster »

josefresco wrote: post #7

Expanding on this idea - can health insurance companies fly a drone over my house and see me in my hard eating a cheeseburger and cancel my coverage? Can an auto insurer do the same and cancel my coverage because they see me doing burnouts in my driveway? Seems like a giant privacy violation but I'm no legal expert.

It depends on the policy you signed. For most insurance, you are entering into a private contract with someone to pay for your stuff if it breaks. How they enforce their policy is mostly between them, you, and how much you want to pay a month.

For the most part though, insurers don't actually have too much incentive to create false positives. Increasing your rates for life insurance or cancelling your policy because you ate a burger when they already have your cholesterol information is really dumb and bad for business.

Re: AI-Driven Drone Surveillance Is Leading to Home Insurance Cancellations

#49

Post by yodon »

itishappy wrote: post #41
heyoni wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article says they’re also using low flying planes and balloons to do the surveys.

My girlfriend worked for an aerial imaging company for a while, and most of their imaging came from general aviation (small planes). A commercial pilot's license requires 1500 hours of flight time under one's belt. The company paid them a small sum to strap a camera to their planes and fly certain routes. New pilots make some extra cash and the company gets cheap shots.

Pretty sure the pilot can't get paid until after they get their commercial license.

It's possible the company can however rent hours in the plane at below market costs (a friend did something like this years ago while getting his helicopter license)

Re: AI-Driven Drone Surveillance Is Leading to Home Insurance Cancellations

#50

Post by arnsholt »

tonypace wrote: post #37
arnsholt wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the details around this vary a lot from country to country. I work for a Norwegian insurer, and I’m pretty sure that we couldn’t cancel a contract like this short of something like fraud. OTOH, contracts are renewed annually, and I think declining to renew would be an option. But damages due to lack of maintenance are not covered anyways, so I’m not sure if there’s much incentive for this kind of thing in our…

Damages due to lack of maintenance are not covered and you don't see the local application?

I’m not convinced it’s cheaper to surveil the entire country than to simply assess claims when they are reported and dismiss those that are due to lack of maintenance.
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