WeatherMind: Streamline and accelerate property damage assessment with WeatherMind
Mehdi Gaaied, Co-founder WeatherMind

Mehdi Gaaied is the co-founder of WeatherMind, an AI-powered solution for property insurers. WeatherMind’s Software is used to streamline and accelerate climate claim processing in the aftermath of natural disasters. The company automates the visual inspection and appraisal process, providing fast and accurate home damage assessment in a matter of minutes instead of months. Leveraging the latest computer vision research and deep learning algorithms, it handles end-to-end simple cases and prioritizes human intervention on most complex and traumatic cases. In an interview, Mehdi speaks on an array of topics. Excerpts:

Conception of WeatherMind:

Mehdi says that climate change is bringing new challenges to property insurers with regards to recurring exceptional volumes of climate-induced claims. He adds that these are usually concentrated in short timeframes and are highly heterogeneous in nature, leading to operational bottlenecks and ever-increasing treatment delays. “Insurers’ teams are structurally understaffed as it’s hard to predict when and with which amplitude a natural disaster will occur. In that prospect, technology can be the adjusting factor to better handle those “peaks of activity” inherent to extreme climate events, by clearing out simple claims and repositioning human experts where they are needed.”

Insurance technology industry – Challenges galore:

Our society faces emerging risks (cyber, climate) that require insurers to switch from their current backward risk approach (based on historical losses) to a proactive one (based on insured goods’ vulnerabilities).

Besides new technology capabilities (particularly GenAI) are bringing a lot of new potentialities. Taking advantage of them will require a pragmatic approach to make or buy and an IT architecture capable of “welcoming” a new generation of tech-enablers.

Key features of WeatherMind’s comprehensive platform designed for digital natives:

WeatherMind leverages pictures of damage taken by homeowners along with other information on the property to instantly assess damage severity and causality. “We then either process it end-to-end (70% of cases; bogus or low severity claims) or prioritize human intervention.”

The comprehensive platform enables a seamless data collection through a safe & step-by-step digital journey. It also accelerates damage inspection through its computer vision algorithms while providing an accurate and consistent processing method through its predictive models.

Mehdi says that a thoroughly explained settlement decision through their technical report-generation modules enables insurers to deliver an enhanced customer experience (shortened cycle time and transparent settlement decision) at a lower cost (-50% on investigation costs).

Insured properties: ROI

Beyond operational efficiency on claim management, WeatherMind intends to revolutionize climate risk selection and management. Mehdi argues that premium adjustment is not a sustainable way to compensate for increased losses due to climate change, and that insurers need to articulate a proper prevention business case with a clear ROI based on the vulnerabilities of the insured properties. “Our current positioning post-loss allows us to better understand what makes a house more or less vulnerable to a specific natural disaster so that tomorrow we can proactively identify each insured property’s weaknesses and recommend mitigation actions accordingly (with a clear ROI).”

Leadership traits:

A passionate, humble, committed and curious leader, Mehdi says that his positivity lies in the fact that he accepts feedback and criticism in a positive way. He adds that traits of a good leader include their willingness to accept failures. “Use our fear of failure as a driver to confront the market as fast as possible rather than an inhibitor, and celebrate intermediary milestones as the road to success is long and full of hurdles.”

WeatherMind- Looking Ahead:

Mehdi adds that the company plans to roll out its claim automation solution on a growing number of perils (subsidence, hail / storm, floods, …) and with an ever-increasing level of insights / reliability. It also aims to expand across the value chain and help set up the foundations of active climate risk management.