6 Unique, Tech-Forward Tools to Aid in Loss Prevention in the Event of a Natural Disaster

This post is part of a series sponsored by AgentSync.

As catastrophic natural disasters continue to wreak havoc on the property and casualty (P&C) insurance sector, loss prevention remains a high priority for insurers and property owners alike. Luckily, researchers and innovators are constantly thinking up new technologies, gadgets, and tools to aid in loss mitigation and consumer protection when disaster strikes.

With the P&C sector in a precarious position, balancing escalating losses and an ever-changing risk environment, technology will play an important role in the industry’s success, and even its survival. Let’s explore some of the most unique, helpful, and tech-forward loss prevention tools on the market for three common types of natural disasters.

Wildfires

Each year, uncontrolled wildfires destroy millions of acres of land along with the homes and businesses that stand in the way of their path. The long-term economic and environmental impacts of wildfires are devestating and can take decades to recover from.

Because wildfires often come on quickly and without much warning, early detection of these types of disasters is of the utmost importance when it comes to reducing property damage and saving lives. However, current wildfire prevention solutions, including manual watch towers, satellite systems, and cameras aren’t nearly as precise or up-to-date as needed to detect unauthorized burns before they’ve done a significant amount of damage.

1. Early-detection wildfire sensors

The latest in wildfire loss prevention technology aims to fix these shortcomings by providing ultra-early wildfire detection. Dryad Networks, an environmental IoT startup headquartered in Berlin, Germany, developed Silvanet, a network of wireless environmental sensors that leverage solar power and mesh gateways to aid in low-cost early detection of wildfires. The sensors pick up early-stage wildfire signs like increased carbon monoxide and hydrogen gas particles in the air, giving firefighters a head start on extinguishing burns before they spread.

What makes it cool?

One of the biggest challenges of traditional wildfire detection sensors is their power consumption. Using solar panels alone to power sensors isn’t a great option in a forest where large groups of trees block a significant amount of the daty’s sun. By leveraging an STM32WL (We’re not too proud to admit that this technology goes beyond our level of comprehension. If you’re interested, here’s an explanation), Dryad’s developers found a way to get past the power consumption challenge and create a system that’ll run for up to 15 years in the forest.

2. Firefighting robots

Yeah, you read that right. Fighting wildfires is a dangerous job, but with the help of robotics, humans can fight burns without putting their own lives at risk. Many of the firefighting robots currently in use are machines that firefighters remotely control. This enables the robots to navigate steep terrain or enter burning buildings without putting human lives in danger.

However, buildings are designed for humans, so while many firefighting robots look more like cars than people, researchers have also developed more human-looking models to aid firefighters in emergency indoor situations. These humanoid robots can perform tasks like opening doors, walking up and down stairs, and operating fire hoses.

What makes it cool?

You mean besides the fact that we’re talking about firefighting robots? At AgentSync, we’re big proponents of using technology to automate the manual tasks that suck up your people’s time and take them away from more high-value work. By offloading work, like carrying heavy equipment or evacuating people from an affected area, onto robots, firefighters can focus their time and energy on their top priority: stopping the spread of a fire.

It’s similar to how our products take manual producer licensing and compliance tasks off insurance agencies’, carriers’, and MGA’s plates, allowing their people to get back to their main priority: selling and servicing insurance products.

Floods

We can’t talk about natural disasters without mentioning flooding. Floods are the most common and most costly natural disaster in the U.S. The National Weather Service estimates approximately 122 million people are at risk of flooding in the spring of 2024 alone. In the five-year period between 2018-2022, floods racked up roughly $45 billion in insured losses around the globe.

More frequent and heavy rainfall means flash floods are becoming a larger issue in major cities and towns, but overall risk awareness for flooding of all types remains low. This lack of awareness means many home and business owners underestimate the amount of insurance coverage they need.

1. Publicly available, accurate water data

To help the public make more informed decisions when it comes to water safety and flood management, the National Weather Service launched the National Water Prediction Service website in March of 2024. The platform, which leverages modern software including cloud infrastructure and geospatial technology, offers more accurate, and user-friendly water data to help better analyze and predict flood risk.

What makes it cool?

While a website may not sound as cool as firefighting robots, public access to real-time flood data can be just as life-saving. The National Water Prediction Service website gives users insights into the current water conditions anywhere in the U.S. Plus, with the help of API technology, users can access real-time water flow information directly from their own devices.

Whether we’re talking about insurance producer licensing or flood preparation, access to up-to-date data is crucial to your decision-making. Accurate flood prediction data gives home and business owners ample time to secure their property and valuables and evacuate if necessary.

2. Water-Gate

When you hear the word Water-Gate, you probably think about illicit political activities, but in this case we’re talking about something a little more on the nose. MegaSecu’s Water-Gate water barrier is a literal “gate” used to block water from flooding a structure or area. Made from heavy-duty PVC, the Water-Gate barrier unfolds as the water level rises to prevent flooding.

What makes it cool?

Traditionally, home and business owners use sandbags to dam up the area surrounding their property and prevent flooding. However, sandbag barriers can take multiple people hours of manual work to fill and deploy and they often leak, rendering them useless after one or two uses. The Water-Gate barrier has a 20-year lifespan and can be deployed in only five minutes using two people and no other resources.

Helping people get more done with less is a goal the Water-Gate system and AgentSync share. Just look at how one forward-thinking MGA reduced their producer licensing workload from that of 1.5 full-time employees to just 30 minutes a day with AgentSync’s help.

Earthquakes

Not even one day into 2024, a 7.6 magnitude earthquake rocked Japan, shifting the coastline by over 800 feet and costing about $6.5 billion in total insured losses. Earthquakes and their aftershocks can damage homes and businesses, destroy infrastructure, and bring transportation to a screeching halt. They cause nearly $15 billion in damage each year in the U.S. alone, ranging from a few broken windows to total building collapse. Yet, as Taiwan’s most recent major earthquake shows, resilient infrastructure and loss prevention matters.

1. The Seismic-Cloaking Protection of Critical Infrastructure

The Seismic-Cloacking Protection of Critical Infrastructure, or the SCPCI, involves boring a series of tilted holes into the ground surrounding whatever structure needs to be protected to make it essentially “invisible” to shock waves, sort of like how a muffler dampens sound waves.

The boreholes range from a foot to a meter in diameter and are around 150 meters deep. Once drilled, they turn the ground around them into a medium to reflect and divert dangerous seismic waves away from the structure they surround. The technology is still in the early stages of development but has the potential to protect billions of dollars of infrastructure and save thousands of lives.

What makes it cool?

In practice, the SCPCI reduced the seismic energy of a magnitude 7 earthquake to that of a magnitude 5 earthquake. This has the potential to reduce the damage of an earthquake from major structural, environmental, and economic losses to just a couple of broken dishes. Even cooler, this kind of infrastructure could protect a wide range of areas, from a single building to an entire city.

2. Backpack rats

Besides property damage and loss, earthquakes can also cause significant loss of human lives. When disaster strikes, time is of the essence as rescuers search through the rubble of collapsed buildings for trapped survivors. Humans are at a significant disadvantage when it comes to finding and rescuing people in the aftermath of an earthquake. Mainly, we’re just too big to safely navigate the fallen debris. Researchers at the nonprofit APOPO have a better solution: rats. More specifically, rats wearing tiny backpacks equipped with a camera, two-way microphone, and GPS signal.

What makes it cool?

Two words: Backpack rats. That aside, it’s pretty incredible that developers were able to create technology small enough to fit inside a backpack sized for a rat and strong enough to send and receive frequencies under the heavy debris of an earthquake. Coupled with a rat’s own skills, like their superb sense of smell and their ability to learn and adapt quickly, the entire concept is a true testament to the power of combining human (or rat) skills with modern technology for increased efficiency and overall success.

Technology plays several key roles in the insurance industry

While the main goal of this article is simply to highlight a few of the most interesting high-tech natural disaster loss prevention tools out there, the bigger lesson comes down to the role technology plays in the insurance sector. Whether it’s on a macro level (reducing insured losses from natural disasters enough to have a positive impact on the overall affordability and availability of P&C insurance) or a micro level (enabling a single producer to onboard with an agency faster and more efficiently), it’s clear technology is crucial to the future success of our industry.

If all this talk about firefighting robots and tiny rodent heroes has you feeling amped up and ready to swap out your legacy insurance technology for more modern, efficient solutions, AgentSync can help. Watch a demo to learn more.

Topics
Natural Disasters
InsurTech
Tech