Tech execs urge crop insurers to adopt AI, other technologies
AI-RFP-022425
BONITA SPRINGS, Fla. — Three technology executives last week urged the nation’s crop insurance and reinsurance executives to adopt artificial intelligence and other new technologies or be left behind.
“The value is future-proofing your business,” said James Brown, CEO and founder of CropGuard, a provider of AI-powered crop insurance solutions for agencies and insurance providers approved by the Agriculture Department’s Risk Management Agency.
Just as the farmers who used tractors replaced those who didn’t, crop insurers that use AI will succeed while others won’t, Brown said at the Crop Insurance Industry Convention.
Berend De Jong, the global insurance and finance lead at Planet Labs, which provides new satellite data services for the insurance and finance industry, said that only governments used to be able to afford the technology but “the costs have gone down tremendously.” De Jong noted that the day after the fires in Los Angeles there were satellite images available.
In the future, De Jong said, it’s possible companies can rely on satellite images of fields rather than crop insurance adjusters to settle claims for losses from bad weather.
The satellite images “could increase trust between the farmer and the insurance company,” he added.
Dominic Edmunds, CEO of PlanetWatchers, a company that uses satellite data and AI to improve data collection and drive efficiency across underwriting, claims, compliance and crop agencies, said that “automated tasks could lift 50% of the work off agents’ shoulders.”
De Jong said, “Companies that use our data say the claims process is 25% more efficient.”
Edmunds said the crop insurance industry is “recession-proof” because it is government subsidized, and that slows down the adoption of new technology.
But Brown noted that data needs to be “really clean” for AI to use it.
There are also issues of privacy and liability, the tech executives acknowledged.
The technology has to be easy to use, De Jong added.
Approved insurance providers and agents need to help farmers understand the technology, Brown said.
But members of the audience noted that there are so many new technology products it is hard to see which ones will last and that crop insurance executives worry that the new technologies will become competitors.