Advances in artificial intelligence (A.I.) continue to transform industries and enable companies to execute complex tasks at a low cost while significantly reducing errors and increasing accuracy. The property insurance market is one such industry undergoing a digital transformation to improve services and provide better customer experiences with artificial intelligence. Property insurance contains numerous use cases that can benefit from artificial intelligence for claims, underwriting, renewals, and much more.
All of these use cases carry their own set of challenges with respect to driving efficiencies between the insurance carrier and policyholders because of the traditional, or manual, ways of working. Specifically, on-site interior property assessments, which is time-consuming, costly, and error-prone.
Property Assessments: The Traditional Way
A property undergoes a building lifecycle from procurement, construction operation, and decommissioning. In its operation stage, a building is insured, rented, sold, remodeled, maintained, or repaired. In the event of property damage to a residential structure, for example, a homeowner can file a claim to their insurance carrier and a claims adjuster visits the home to inspect the property and help settle the claim. In order to do so, the adjuster must perform extensive work that includes manually collecting measurements, assessing materials and structures, documenting existing conditions, citing any risks involved, and determining the repairs, restoration, or replacement costs plus labor activities involved for fixing or replacing damaged content and structures.
This is currently a tedious and manual process that costs the insurance industry billions of dollars per year, Hosta's artificial intelligence property solution allows professionals to assess spaces without ever going onsite to obtain all the measurements, floorplans, and detailed information instantly. This is made possible by the Hosta a.i. team along with the contributions of Senior Computer Vision Engineer Sathish Kumar Katakuri who spearheads Hosta's artificial intelligence research and development. Sathish, together with the Hosta a.i. team, are on track to making this challenge a thing of the past by contributing to Hosta's patented technologies to automatically and accurately assess residential buildings in the U.S. with only a few simple photos, without a mobile app or special sensors, thereby enabling people and businesses an accessible and efficient way to derive objective information about a property without special skills or equipment.
Sathish Kumar Katakuri's inventions and his journey with Hosta a.i.
Sathish Kumar Katukuri is a Senior Computer Vision Engineer at Hosta a.i. who works on developing Computer Vision and Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) algorithms for interior property assessments. His engineering contributions have helped Hosta a.i. automate the manual property assessment process that is changing how property assessments are done today in the U.S.
A graduate of Arizona State University (ASU) with a Masters in Computer Engineering specializing in Computer Vision and Machine Learning, Sathish has been inclined toward A.I. and visual computing before his University days. Before his journey with Hosta a.i., he had developed a novel A.I.-based algorithm that helps anybody capture visually pleasing photographs just like a professional photographer. Earlier, he also developed a low-cost DIY AR headset to help researchers validate their research work.
Sathish's work with Hosta a.i.
Since Sathish joined MIT startup Hosta a.i., he has led numerous scientific explorations in A.I. and visual computing, working to solve the biggest challenges in perception and deep learning applied to the built environment with a profound impact on the property insurance industry.
His contributions include driving research and development at Hosta a.i. to increase Hosta's competitiveness. These contributions are a significant force in helping Hosta a.i. redefine the processes and methods for interior property assessments that reduce turnaround times and costs, increase accuracy, and provide better customer experiences.
How is Hosta a.i. benefiting the industry?
Hosta a.i. enables contractors, insurance carriers, home improvement platforms, and other professionals to accelerate the manual property assessment process with an automatic solution that requires only a few pictures that anyone can take with their smartphone camera. Hosta's artificial intelligence solution automatically converts simple images into floor plans, bill of materials, measurements, 3D models, risk assessments, and more, and can easily integrate into existing workflows and applications.
Key applications of this solution include residential property insurance and other use cases, for example, the creation of automatic assessments for insurers looking to underwrite a new policy or approve a claim above a certain threshold; extracting automatic property value assessments in mortgage and lending; creating 3D models and floor plans for home improvement platforms; property risk assessments, and much more.
Wondering what this means in terms of numbers?
Hosta a.i. accelerates turn-around times by 80% and helps businesses save 80% with lower property estimation costs all while achieving 100% objective information.
The future ahead
Solutions like Hosta and engineers like Sathish are changing the insurance industry with advanced technology. A.I. and visual computing has the potential to solve significant problems for insurers, mortgage lenders, contractors, architects, home improvement platforms, and other professionals.
As per the current trends, the next few years will be marked by the penetration of these technologies in the industry and the opportunities that would arise out of them.
