The future of home inspections is here and it’s in the hands of…the homeowner, according to leaders of two firms that have developed DIY systems now being used by prospective insureds across the country for pre-policy property surveys.
“Do-it-yourself inspections are here!” said Craig Locante, head of survey business for EXL Survey and Business Control, who spoke at the Insurance Innovators USA conference in Nashville last week. “It’s not a matter of ‘if,’ but ‘How can I implement it?'”
EXL is one of the largest of several companies that now offer apps to facilitate computer or smartphone-based inspections. EXL has teamed up with TruePic to produce software that is used by three of the top five personal lines insurance companies in the United States to get homeowners involved, Locante said.
It works like this: The insurance carrier emails or text-messages the policyholder with a link to the app. The property owner answers several questions in a survey, then shoots photographs of the property, inside and out.
The photos are verified by TruePic’s artificial intelligence software, which can quickly determine if the images are genuine or have been cribbed from the internet or include the neighbor’s house (which may have a newer roof, for example), explained Craig Stack, co-founder and president of TruePic.
“If it’s a picture of a picture, that can be detected,” Stack told the audience. And AI can find location metadata to ensure the images were shot at the policyholder’s address.
And while some insureds may initially be reluctant to share photos of an existing water stain on a ceiling or a tree limb hanging over the house, Locante said most are happy to participate in the process – especially when they hear that the DIY approach avoids some of the cost and all of the intrusion of a physical inspection by a home inspector.
