PrecisionHawk’s drones to improve post-catastrophe assessment for Munich Re
Munich Re has selected PrecisionHawk to improve the efficiency of its claims management. PrecisionHawk's global drone-data platform is an end-to-end solution which provides terrestrial data acquisition and analysis. Initially, the reinsurer plans to use these capabilities to more effectively assess the extent of damages in the aftermath of natural disasters and respond to claims more quickly initially in North America and Latin America. It recently trialled the technology in Ecuador, where PrecisionHawk collected drone imagery of the earthquake site within days of its occurrence. 

Munich Re, one of the world’s largest reinsurers, has partnered with PrecisionHawk to enhance insurance assessments by providing faster response times and increased reporting accuracy in the aftermath of a natural disaster.

PrecisionHawk’s service team uses a fleet of drones, including its own fixed-wing Lancaster 5 platform, to collect aerial imagery. The company, which is based in both Raleigh, N.C., and Toronto, Ontario, then analyzes the data in its DataMapper platform.

For its first deployments, the reinsurer plans to contract teams that cover North America and Latin America. The partnership was recently exercised following an April earthquake in Ecuador, where PrecisionHawk collected drone imagery of the entire disaster site within days of its occurrence. The images then were processed and analyzed in DataMapper and delivered to Munich Re.

“The cooperation with PrecisionHawk will speed up loss assessment and estimation of losses in the aftermath of a natural disaster significantly,” comments Tobias Büttner, head of corporate claims within Munich Re. “Our clients will benefit not only from the high resolution of spatial data, but also from processing the data with algorithms.”

Christopher Dean, PrecisionHawk’s co-founder and president, says, “The addition of this platform to the insurance workflow will play a key role not only in post-catastrophe environments but also in enhancing pre-catastrophe databases that predict risk factors.”