Blog
Insurtech In Focus – Aerial Agri Tech
19th May 2020
Welcome to the first edition of our ‘Insurtech in Focus’. The purpose of this series is to illustrate the cutting edge, problem focused and transformative offerings of our Insurtech startups and how Insurtechs and the wider industry are collaborating to deliver innovation for the sector. In the first of our series we are looking at Aerial Agri Tech.
Founded in 2015 by Cian Gallagher, Aerial Agri Tech (AAT) are much more than just a vendor of aerial imagery, they analyse and interpret the environment providing clients with transparent objective data. AAT were amongst the first to commercially use fixed wing drones with multispectral sensors for the purposes of analysing agriculture and forestry. They have continued to secure and apply the latest technology across their work. This coupled with Cian’s unique skill set who is extensively qualified in Agriculture, Forestry, Remote Sensing and Risk Modelling represent a compelling offering for insurers, brokers and industry generally.
In early 2020 Aerial Agri Tech (AAT) successfully secured funding from the European Space Agency (ESA) Business Incubation initiative in recognition of their high potential start up status. As a result AAT are now in a unique position whereby they can leverage technical support and guidance from the ESA. Collaboration with ESA in 2020 and beyond will ensure that AAT’s solutions and methodologies are up to their highest standards going forward.
The detail and quality of the imagery and analysis delivered by AAT has a range of applications in an insurance context both pre and post loss, which include but are not limited to:
Agriculture: Monitor seasonal progress of crops i.e health status and damage prior to significant event such as fire or wind. Confirm presence of specific crop type and area planted.
Property/Infrastructure: Allows for detailed aerial survey of premises allowing for measurement, condition / hazard review and can be modelled to illustrate risk areas in simulated severe weather events. The footage recorded for later analysis allows for a much more detailed survey than an on the ground survey or clients photos and can access areas of a site inaccessible due to damage, debris or remnant snow or water on site.
Flood mapping: Identify risk of flooding for new or proposed infrastructure. Monitor flood plain during winter months and track extent of damage. Examine aquatic zones for factors that may lead to future flooding i.e. build up of sediment in river bed which may redirect water, destruction of river bank due to construction or erosion of flood relief embankments.
Pollution: Identify pollution on the ground within aquatic zones or surrounding landfill or chemical plants.
Erosion: Track the amount of erosion along coastal areas. This can be done annually or post storm event, providing insight into the risk associated with coastal communities. Project erosion based on historic satellite evidence.
Fire damage and risk: Identify areas that are most at risk using optical imagery such as vegetation indices which provide insight into the moisture retention of vegetation and thermal imagery providing data on the land surface temperature. Imagery can also be used to identify ignition point of fire and track its evolution either in real time (based on the amount of potential fuel along its path) or post event. Precise analytics of post fire damage
Marine: Ship tracking, optical and radar (SAR),satellite data can track the presence of ships; this may be used to track illegal shipping activity or the whereabouts of an unresponsive vessel.
Aquatics: Pollution e.g oil spill, track the source of the spill and its likely trajectory based on environmental factors.
Forestry: Crop management (presence of fire breaks), risk modelling- wind and fire, damage assessment, illegal logging. Forestry relationship with surrounding environment i.e. mature forest at increased risk of fire damage as it matures next to large school or urban area.
Climate Change: temporal analysis of regional environments as our climate changes, track the effect of increased rainfall or drought. Elements that may change the associated risk to property
Recently AAT have assisted in identify ignition points for forestry fires, through interpreting historic satellite imagery supplemented with their own data, which has assisted authorities in investigating these incidents.
There is massive potential for AAT solutions to enhance the underwriting, surveying and post claim assessments across agriculture, property and large commercial risks.
If you would like to find out more about Aerial Agri Tech and how their solutions could add value to your operation please do not hesitate to contact me on Aidan.Mahon@itcarlow.ie or 087 761 8574.
