Adjusters will find new ways to capturedetails for auto and property claims in the wake of the COVID-19distancing recommendations, that still allow them to provide timelyservice without increasing exposure risks. (Photo:Shutterstock)

With travel restrictions, social distancing and potentialquarantine areas due to COVID-19, businesses and homeowners mustconsider how their insurance company would respond if a coveredproperty damage claim would normally require an on-siteinspection.

It's an important question to ask because bad weather is noteasing up for the pandemic. Tornadoes and other severe weatherevents have already caused much loss of life and damage in statesthroughout the South, Midwest and East. Meanwhile, we must preparefor the Atlantic hurricane season, which expertspredict will be above average.

Thankfully, innovative insurers now have an answer — virtualadjusting, also known as desktop adjusting. By taking advantage ofrecent improvements in technology, virtual adjusting has reducedthe need for field adjusters and vendor partners to travel todamaged sites. Instead, insurers can rapidly deliver the helpcustomers need by assessing the damage virtually from theirdesktop.

Besides coming into maturity just in time for COVID-19, thistechnology is improving claims service overall through fasterprocessing. Compared to the time it takes from claim assignment toestimate completion for traditionally inspected claims, virtuallyinspected claims can be more than twice as fast. It gets the checkinto the customer's hands quicker. It eliminates the hassle ofagreeing on an inspection time, and it gives the customer anenhanced sense of control.

Seeing a claim virtually

In QBE's case, experimenting with virtual adjusting began in2017. That was the year Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria severelytested the insurance industry's field adjuster capacity. Byleveraging its robust vendor relationships and reaching out toinnovative technology startups, QBE first applied virtual adjustingto high-frequency/low-severity losses.

The new technology at that time involved specialized smartphoneapps that allowed a claims professional to remotely direct thecustomer in real-time through a FaceTime-like app to inspect anddocument the damaged areas of the property as the basis for anestimate. Later, QBE added other high-tech tools. For example, oneapp helps guide the customer through photographing exterior damageto a building from different angles. Then, the app stitches thepictures together using an algorithm to generate an accurate 3-Dmodel of the building. The model includes detailed measurementssuch as roofing information on slopes and pitches.

Thanks to these improvements, the repair estimating process hascontinued to accelerate. Moreover, the range of virtually adjustedclaims has expanded to higher severity, more complex losses such ashail, roof damage claims and more complex wind losses. QBE has usedvirtual adjusting on covered claims as high as $100,000. SinceCOVID-19 travel restrictions went into effect, QBE has beenvirtually adjusting claims such as significant damage from pipeleaks and wind damage to the exterior of buildings.

In one case, a customer's building exterior suffered damage dueto a severe storm. When the customer reported the claim, we sentinstructions the same day on how to self-inspect the damage usingthe specialized 3-D modeling app. The next day, the customerfinished the inspection and told us how easy it was. If we had sentan independent vendor to the building, the inspection could havetaken a week to complete. The virtual process was faster, and thecustomer avoided the hassle of agreeing to an inspection time.Furthermore, the customer did not have to worry about the COVID-19risk of someone visiting their property.

Virtual adjusting has indeed matured just in time for theCOVID-19 crisis.

Eric Sanders is head of claims for QBE North America and isresponsible for driving the experience of excellence for customersby deepening integration and improving performance across thecompany's claims operations supporting QBE's alternative marketsand specialty & commercial businesses.

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