Leveraging AI to manage claims during hurricane season

Catastrophe modelers expect insured losses from Hurricane Ida to reach between $18 to $29.5 billion. (Photo: ssguy/Shutterstock)

The North American hurricane season is well underway, which means insurers are hard at work managing customer policies and processing claims. After last year’s record-breaking season, insurance companies must be prepared for the impending tsunami of claims and the corresponding deluge of paperwork. And this year, there’s been no shortage of damage and devastation. Hurricane Ida recently left more than 1 million homes and businesses throughout Louisiana and Mississippi without power for weeks. For insurers, this is a different type of calamity, especially with homeowners and businesses needing to cash in on multiple policies related to tropical storms.

Though it will take months to actually calculate the total losses related to this storm, insured losses are forecast to reach between $18 to $29.5 billion, according to catastrophe modelers. All of which accounts for insured losses across Ida’s entire track for onshore wind and private flood losses as well as adjustments for increased materials and repair costs. And the cost for insurance carriers is exponential as well. Outside of the obvious cost of claim payouts, processing losses has historically equated to an uptick in human resources. This causes more complexity, cost, time and manual effort to review each claim, enter line-by-line and process all other related documents.