Jason_Roofer said:

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txags92 said:

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Jason_Roofer said:

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I don't think your rates are going to go down. It is totally agreed that many agents and adjusters aren't good. However, I can get a good claim force approved from a bad agent by going through the proper channels and legal avenues.

If that is replaced with AI, then those claims eventually may have hard set rules and without a person to appeal to, it simply won't go paid. If there is a person, I cannot imagine the heirarchy structure and time commitment it will require by contractors and owners to actually get to a person to even request such a thing and if you do, the process may take well longer than it did before.

We'll have to see how it goes, but reduction in your insurance is almost guaranteed not to be a thing. Typically, what I see with AI is simply a reduction in quality of services, which, with insurance, is hard to imagine.

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I want to see AI climb up on my roof after a hail storm...

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I agree. I still do EYEBALL inspections. BUT...one of my drones does FLIR and high def imaging. These things cost close to 10k in some markets. The AI is getting much better and there are algorithms available that can inspect photographs and IR and ATTEMPT to deduce hail damage. I already use drones for live measurements with AR. So, I can fly or take my phone and give the software 9+ photos and the AI will process that and spit out roof measurements, walls, 3D renderings, etc.

So, yes, while you are correct in that AI can't identify hail perfectly YET...it is coming.

In fact, what I see happening with AI, drones and Satellite is...your neighborhood having a hailstorm, and the insurnace companies send out drones over their insured homes, without your knowledge or consent, generating a report and then telling you that you have hail damage and you need the roof replaced. In other words, if you want to retain insurance, you won't have the leverage to tell me, your roofer, if you want to make a claim or even want to report it. The insurance will make the decision and you can either reroof your house, pay your deductible or out of pocket, or you lose coverage.

That's how I see insurance mitigating their losses.

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I can also see them using it to catch when somebody (or an unscrupulous drive by roofer) goes up on the roof after a hail storm with a ball peen hammer and makes sure the damage reaches replacement threshold.

I smoked a deer going 60 two weeks ago coming back from lunch at work. The entire claims process with Allstate has been handled via AI.

Over_ed said:

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https://www.wsj.com/finance/state-farms-ai-plan-for-sales-agents-sparks-uproar-a-real-slap-in-the-face-6453e2cb?mod=Searchresults&pos=1&page=1 (paywalled)

The CEO of State Farm just announced he is tearing up all contracts with agents effective end of year 2027. After that, contracts will have lower compensation and increased sales targets. Gross annual income is expected to drop as much as 40%.

"... ends a valuable deferred compensation program, axes health benefits and changes commissions on several types of policy, according to agents and company documents reviewed by the Journal. Agents who don't meet certain new sales targets for two years in a row will be paid lower commissions..."

State Farm will increasingly use AI to take over agent duties, including auto losses, household needs analysis, and product recommendation.

In short, agents are not worth current costs and other companies' (Progressive) lower costs reduces State Farm's competitiveness. Needless to say. 19,000 agents and their employees are unhappy.

FTR, my first jobs out of school were as a Sales Engineer.

I've had many insurance agents and most were not very good. I can see why many, especially younger buyers, prefer online / AI and not talking to a person. Personal selling is another place where AI will thin the herd.

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Farmers is doing the exact thing too.

I think some of you misunderstand or are confused about what State Farm is doing. State Farm is not abandoning or eliminating its agency force. Agency will remain State Farm's primary distribution system augmented with online sales. Just as it is today. There will certainly be fewer agents due to reduced compensation and benefits. Agents - still have a path forward with multiple incentives, but sitting back and coasting is not a business plan anymore.

Well, here's the rub....

Say you have a drone with AI tech providing the inspection and prep'ing the estimate. Everything good, right?
Then when the actual works STARTS, you have crews crawl up on the roof to start taking care of the roof.....and then they find something wrong/not addressed in the estimate - then what?

You've got a torn up roof and a check in hand from the insurance company....who pays the diff? If I'm the homeowner, I'm pointing the finger at the drone and AI tech - "you guys didn't inspect it FULLY, and you owe me the diff"....
We all know what the insurance company's response is going to be.....and there's rain in the forecast......

Logos Stick said:

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A low level employee will climb on the roof, record it with a camera, submit it to the AI image processor and AI will make the damage assessment. And it will do it faster, better and more consistently than humans.

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And that is precisely the problem. Who is benefitted by all that? Many years ago I renegotiated a roof settlement three times. It was the right thing for the insurance company to do and the service rep knew it. Can't see that happening with a computer.

Biz Ag said:

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Will Patrick Mahomes have to take a paycut from State Farm?

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No, but Jake from State Farm will.

Good time to start an insurance business then.

Wahoo82 said:

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Logos Stick said:

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A low level employee will climb on the roof, record it with a camera, submit it to the AI image processor and AI will make the damage assessment. And it will do it faster, better and more consistently than humans.

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And that is precisely the problem. Who is benefitted by all that? Many years ago I renegotiated a roof settlement three times. It was the right thing for the insurance company to do and the service rep knew it. Can't see that happening with a computer.

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I can. AI can be duped into doing stupid things.

Wahoo82 said:

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Logos Stick said:

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A low level employee will climb on the roof, record it with a camera, submit it to the AI image processor and AI will make the damage assessment. And it will do it faster, better and more consistently than humans.

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And that is precisely the problem. Who is benefitted by all that? Many years ago I renegotiated a roof settlement three times. It was the right thing for the insurance company to do and the service rep knew it. Can't see that happening with a computer.

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Based on what? So they sent three humans out to give three different assessments? I suppose they could always send a human out if you disagree with the initial AI assessment.

The fact that different humans doing the assessments also make mistakes and the assessment varies by human for the exact same roof diminishes the argument against AI. Yes, it can make a mistake, but it certainly won't vary if given the same image three times. The only valid argument I've seen against AI on roofs is that humans use more than vision to do assessment.

I used to live in a town with 2 State Farm offices. Our homeowners insurance was with one of them.

When we were selling our first house, the buyer was insuring it with the other one.

Their State Farm agent wouldn't insure the house without the roof being replaced, because they said our roof had hail damage. Our State Farm agent said there was no hail damage on our roof.

We got them in touch and let them argue it out amongst themselves.

They eventually replaced the roof.

Come Out Roll said:

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Well, here's the rub....

Say you have a drone with AI tech providing the inspection and prep'ing the estimate. Everything good, right?
Then when the actual works STARTS, you have crews crawl up on the roof to start taking care of the roof.....and then they find something wrong/not addressed in the estimate - then what?

You've got a torn up roof and a check in hand from the insurance company....who pays the diff? If I'm the homeowner, I'm pointing the finger at the drone and AI tech - "you guys didn't inspect it FULLY, and you owe me the diff"....
We all know what the insurance company's response is going to be.....and there's rain in the forecast......

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Same thing happens right now without AI. And if you have a good roofer like Jason, they go back to the insurance company for you, show them the difference in what the adjuster wrote up and what they found when they started on the roof, and negotiate additional funds to cover it.

If you dont have a good agent. FInd one. And dont use insurance firms that dont give you a personal agent. The 1800 call an agent to handle your stuff is a disaster for everyone.

Farmers uses agents still.

TexasAggie_97 said:

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Biz Ag said:

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Will Patrick Mahomes have to take a paycut from State Farm?

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No, but Jake from State Farm will.

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You mean "Jake.....from State Farm" who sounds like a man!

Might not be able to afford khakis anymore.

I understand it completely. It's the initial step of replacing a large percentage of human agents with AI. Not all human agents will be replaced and no one made that claim. That goes for all industries.

Come Out Roll said:

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Well, here's the rub....

Say you have a drone with AI tech providing the inspection and prep'ing the estimate. Everything good, right?
Then when the actual works STARTS, you have crews crawl up on the roof to start taking care of the roof.....and then they find something wrong/not addressed in the estimate - then what?

You've got a torn up roof and a check in hand from the insurance company....who pays the diff? If I'm the homeowner, I'm pointing the finger at the drone and AI tech - "you guys didn't inspect it FULLY, and you owe me the diff"....
We all know what the insurance company's response is going to be.....and there's rain in the forecast......

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As texags92 already pointed out, This happens all the time already. That's why it's important to use a roofer that knows what the hell he's doing. If I have the insurance estimate and it says 10,000, that's what I'm doing the roof for and if I tear it off and there is a pressing issue that takes the cost to 20,000, that's not your problem. Thats the insurance company's problem, not yours, and I'll document accordingly and get it paid for. Easy peasy. We don't stop the project to figure it out. We finish and make it right at the end or real time if I can get in touch with the adjuster by some stroke of luck.

This is an extreme example for illustrative purposes but it makes the point.

It's really not that different from getting your car fixed after an accident. You pay the deductible and the body shop deals with the hassle and extra damage if any.

Jason_Roofer said:

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Come Out Roll said:

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Well, here's the rub....

Say you have a drone with AI tech providing the inspection and prep'ing the estimate. Everything good, right?
Then when the actual works STARTS, you have crews crawl up on the roof to start taking care of the roof.....and then they find something wrong/not addressed in the estimate - then what?

You've got a torn up roof and a check in hand from the insurance company....who pays the diff? If I'm the homeowner, I'm pointing the finger at the drone and AI tech - "you guys didn't inspect it FULLY, and you owe me the diff"....
We all know what the insurance company's response is going to be.....and there's rain in the forecast......

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As texags92 already pointed out, This happens all the time already. That's why it's important to use a roofer that knows what the hell he's doing. If I have the insurance estimate and it says 10,000, that's what I'm doing the roof for and if I tear it off and there is a pressing issue that takes the cost to 20,000, that's not your problem. Thats the insurance company's problem, not yours, and I'll document accordingly and get it paid for. Easy peasy. We don't stop the project to figure it out. We finish and make it right at the end or real time if I can get in touch with the adjuster by some stroke of luck.

This is an extreme example for illustrative purposes but it makes the point.

It's really not that different from getting your car fixed after an accident. You pay the deductible and the body shop deals with the hassle and extra damage if any.

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To a point. When my house flooded a few years back Farmers told me how much they were gonna pay out based on the lowest bidder (Servpro, a garbage company who took advantage big time as well as stole a bunch of my stuff while I was displaced), and literally told me "you can use whoever you want to fix it, but this is how much we're giving you because someone will take it. If you don't want to use them, we'll pay you the lowest end of the estimate and you're on your own." So I ended up with my house pretty much rebuilt by the lowest bidder who tried to screw me over at every opportunity they had. Servpro gives low bids, but makes it up elsewhere where the insurance isn't involved. I despite insurance companies, but I despise Servpro more.

Either way, they're full of scumbags. My agent might be an ok guy, I won't judge him, but he literally does nothing. He will follow up with a claim a couple days later, asking if im alive, and then disappear when I respond. He also never answers his phone, so the agent end of the process is literally a non-factor. I have yet to interact with a single agent in my adult life who did anything other than set up my initial plan or add/subtract a vehicle, and a lot of that was actually done by assistants. I won't shed a tear if the changes in this thread happen, but the quality will likely only get worse regardless of what is done.

WestAustinAg said:

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If you dont have a good agent. FInd one. And dont use insurance firms that dont give you a personal agent. The 1800 call an agent to handle your stuff is a disaster for everyone.

Farmers uses agents still.

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They do. My dog is more useful if you need help.

Bring on AI, for the agents anyway. Adjusters are the bigger scumbags who are the ones who legitimately go out of their way to screw you over, but at least they do something. Even if their job is to make sure you get the least help possible, it's a harder role to replace with AI from my experience. At least with a person, when they try to screw you over, which they do with every word they say, you have a chance to counter it and threaten legal actions if need be, which was the only way I got even close to a fair treatment. Can't do that with a computer.

Kaiser von Wilhelm said:

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WestAustinAg said:

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If you dont have a good agent. FInd one. And dont use insurance firms that dont give you a personal agent. The 1800 call an agent to handle your stuff is a disaster for everyone.

Farmers uses agents still.

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They do. My dog is more useful if you need help.

Bring on AI, for the agents anyway. Adjusters are the bigger scumbags who are the ones who legitimately go out of their way to screw you over, but at least they do something. Even if their job is to make sure you get the least help possible, it's a harder role to replace with AI from my experience. At least with a person, when they try to screw you over, which they do with every word they say, you have a chance to counter it and threaten legal actions if need be, which was the only way I got even close to a fair treatment. Can't do that with a computer.

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Maybe that is about to all change with this new decision, but I have never had that experience in nearly 30 years with State Farm. I have had nothing but good experiences with their adjusters and they always worked with us to address things where we had any disagreement on repair costs.

State Farm trujy sucks in every way.

I dropped them this year. Clown show company.

CEO is also a clown.

Almost exact story of my brother. House completely flooded on lower floor and was pretty much total loss. Adjuster said it was $20k in damage. lol. It was actually $140k in damage.

About 15 months later after arbitration and fighting the insurance company he got $100k. Had to eat $40k.

His insurance agent never even called him and my brother lives in a small town where all of the professionals know one another. Brother went into see him to fire him and pretty much told that guy he was toast in town.

Queso1 said:

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Nah. The rates will stay the same.

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Or increase.

ultimately, the shame here...

the insurance industry is one where a person without a college degree can have a long successful, decent-income career -- particularly as a small office / agency CSR

there's a SF agent's office in a little strip mall connected to a convenience store I purchase gas.
IN 8yrs, I've seen someone in there twice.

On the the occasion I actually drive by my present agents office, it looks like the landscaper is scheduled once a month.
She did run for city council this last cycle.

Worked at the Snake Farm years ago.

Agents were always the tail wagging the dog.

Just sounds nasty.

txags92 said:

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Jason_Roofer said:

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I don't think your rates are going to go down. It is totally agreed that many agents and adjusters aren't good. However, I can get a good claim force approved from a bad agent by going through the proper channels and legal avenues.

If that is replaced with AI, then those claims eventually may have hard set rules and without a person to appeal to, it simply won't go paid. If there is a person, I cannot imagine the heirarchy structure and time commitment it will require by contractors and owners to actually get to a person to even request such a thing and if you do, the process may take well longer than it did before.

We'll have to see how it goes, but reduction in your insurance is almost guaranteed not to be a thing. Typically, what I see with AI is simply a reduction in quality of services, which, with insurance, is hard to imagine.

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I want to see AI climb up on my roof after a hail storm...

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Drones with cameras and AI evaluating and denying the claim

YouBet said:

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Logos Stick said:

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Good point. Drones with high def cams and fed to AI image analysis engine for assessment. You won't even need a human to go take the vids.

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They already use weather apps/tech to determine if your roof had hail damage, or at least was in the path of hail damage.

We got an auto generated email from Progressive a few months ago asking us if we wanted to file a claim for my wife's new SUV because she was caught out in a hail storm driving between San Antonio and Corpus. How they knew that I have no idea because we aren't using any of there tracking stuff, but she did indeed have some minor hail damage that we opted to just ignore because you can't see it unless you get down eye level and stare really hard. We will drive it for 10 years so I don't really care about the resale hit.

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Flock camera's ?

Queso1 said:

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Nah. The rates will stay the same.

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Nah, they'll go up.

AgBQ-00 said:

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I like my state farm agent. she has been very good with us.

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I had a good SF agent when in College Station in the 1990s. She retired mid-2000s and turned her firm over to a young that was a jerk. I dropped SF because of the bad service I got from him and SF in about 2014

Hurricane Harvey hit Rockport on a Friday night. Monday, my FIL and I were down there checking on their house. The neighborhood was deathly quiet except for the home alarms that were announcing their batteries not dead yet. We returned home, and went down a week later, and by then it sounded like mosquitoes had invaded because of all the insurance drones overhead.

These insurance corps are all scams. Just shop every 6-12 months and switch like your ass depends on it.

There ain't no loyalty.

OverSeas AG said:

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CEO is also always a clown.

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FIFY

If you use the above statement as a starting point and work backwards, the world ALWAYS makes sense. I can see things brighter than daylight.

I had SF through HS and A&M and it was great. Helped that my dad's college roommate was our agent. Everything was wonderful any time I talked with them.

Then, I moved to DFW and being a dumbass, I figured I'd get a local agent. They sucked. After the tried to **** me out of a new roof after a bad hailstorm (when every single other house in our cul de sac got one, I moved to Allstate. I've been with them for over 30 years now. My agent retired last year, but they turned it over to someone that had been in his office for quite some years, so I know them.

Never had anything but great service with them.