Balloons Could Determine Your Disaster Insurance Payout

With the hurricane season approaching in the U.S., many are preparing for the complex process of filing insurance claims for property damage and the potential physical impacts of disasters. A U.S. startup, Near Space Labs, is accelerating the post-disaster claims process by using weather balloons and artificial intelligence.

Near Space Labs: Optimizing Insurance Claims with Balloons and AI

Near Space Labs is a startup that focuses on using stratospheric balloons and autonomous robots to gather highly precise data from disaster areas, helping insurance companies more efficiently assess risks and process claims. Its robot, called Swift, is equipped with proprietary cameras and sensors, allowing it to fly higher than planes, avoiding the limitations and costs of traditional aerial methods.

These robots are launched via weather balloons, enabling them to cover vast areas without entering unsafe regions. Near Space Labs says that insurance companies can leverage this data to accurately price risks and speed up the claims process, ensuring that affected communities remain insurable.

How It Works

The robot is deployed via a balloon and collects data in the stratosphere, allowing it to map large areas with higher efficiency than drones or airplanes. This data, captured at high altitudes, offers more precise and timely images of affected areas, helping insurance companies assess the damage quickly.

With these data, insurers can make better pricing decisions and process claims more swiftly, reducing the financial strain on disaster-stricken communities. The Swift robot provides real-time, high-resolution images that are more accurate than outdated or low-resolution satellite images, which often lead to errors in damage assessments.

Climate Crisis and the Insurance Crisis

The growing impacts of climate change have posed significant challenges to the insurance industry. In high-risk states like California and Florida, insurance companies have been withdrawing or increasing premiums, leaving many homeowners vulnerable to being underinsured or denied claims. Additionally, outdated or low-resolution images used by insurers often lead to miscalculations in claims.

By contrast, Near Space’s technology provides clearer images of properties, showing roof replacements and other post-disaster upgrades. This allows both homeowners and insurers to better evaluate the damage and make more accurate claims assessments.

Near Space Labs’ Progress

Founded in 2017, Near Space Labs has raised over $40 million in funding, including a recent $20 million in Series B investment. According to the company’s CEO and co-founder, Rema Matevosyan, one Swift robot can gather more data in a fraction of the time than 800,000 drones could. The Swift robot can be deployed in just 10 minutes, with the rest of the process being fully automated.

Currently, Near Space covers 80% of the U.S. population, making it one of the largest providers of aerial disaster data in the country.

Industry Background

In addition to Near Space Labs, several other startups are using AI and advanced imaging technologies to streamline the insurance process. For example, Zesty.ai is an AI-driven property and climate risk analytics company that works with California’s last-resort insurance provider, FAIR Plan. Another company, Arturo, combines aerial and satellite imagery with AI to help insurers reduce costs. While Sceye isn’t directly involved in the insurance industry, it tracks extreme weather and climate disasters, such as wildfires, using stratospheric balloons.

These companies are revolutionizing the insurance industry, making it more efficient and adaptable to the realities of a changing climate.

Next Steps: Developing AI Assistants

Near Space is also working on developing generative AI (genAI) assistants designed to help insurance companies query the company’s image library. In the future, insurers may use these AI assistants to automatically detect tarps placed on roofs after a hurricane, for example, helping them process claims more quickly and efficiently.

This AI-driven technology will allow insurers to access and analyze disaster data in real-time, enhancing the speed and accuracy of claims processing and improving overall operational efficiency.

Not a Panacea

While high-resolution data can certainly assist insurance companies with more accurate pricing and claims processing, it doesn’t solve the industry’s fundamental issues. If climate risks become uninsurable, even perfect images won’t be able to protect homes from being excluded from coverage.

Additionally, while the data is precise, high-resolution imagery of residential properties raises privacy concerns. Near Space has assured that its technology does not penetrate walls or the interiors of buildings, adhering to privacy standards that have been in place for decades with other aerial imaging companies. The company has committed to rigorous data governance practices and works with partners who comply with privacy and security protocols.

Conclusion

Rema Matevosyan emphasized that her goal is to use technology to provide more equitable and accessible insurance solutions, particularly for underserved, remote communities that are often overlooked by satellite or aerial surveillance. “Without financial resilience, there is no climate resilience,” she stated. “Financial resilience is the safeguard against disaster.”

She added, “Frequent data helps us understand the planet and its evolving risks. We can apply effective methods we’ve learned to help everyone adapt to the new reality that our environment will continue to change.”