In light of the recent Texas winter storms and Lemonade's response, it is helpful to look into some of the tech that Lemonade uses to assist their customers.
In November 2018, Lemonade launched their Project Watchtower. Shai Wininger, Lemonade's Chief Operating Officer (COO), describes it as, “our new eye in the sky. Watchtower uses machine learning to analyze signals coming from orbiting satellites to detect catastrophic events around the globe. We hooked our in-house bot, [AI] Cooper, to a raw data feed coming from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer. Cooper analyzes each pixel, looking for fire outbursts, based on colors and heat signatures.”
Project Watchtower detected the California Wildfires in 2018 and alerted Lemonade’s claims team, who were able to help 71 families relocate to safety.
In 2019, Project Watchtower was upgraded to track severe weather events, such as storms. Shai Wininger explains that, “AI Maya uses Watchtower to respond to developing catastrophes in real time, automatically blocking areas and alerting our human claims team of potential emergency situations. Watchtower also helps us notify users of nearby fires and severe weather events as they develop.”
We don't know how exactly Lemonade used Project Watchtower during the recent Texas winter storms, but it is reassuring to know that your insurer is keeping their eye on you from up in the sky.
And instead of hiring a team of human employees to track fires and bad weather (as traditional insurance companies might do), Lemonade teaches its AI to use satellite data to do the same. This reduces costs, automates an important task, and is one way that Lemonade stands out from traditional insurance companies.
Takeaway: Traditional insurance companies wait to help you after catastrophe strikes and you have to file a claim. But Lemonade is proactive and alerts you before catastrophe strikes, so that you’re safe and you don’t have to file a claim in the first place!
