Weather monitoring insurtech firm wins resilience award
Posted On: Sep. 25, 2019 7:16 PM CST
LAS VEGAS — WeatherCheck Inc., a firm that provides detailed information on hail risks and hail damage, is the winner of the inaugural Resiliency Innovation Challenge.
Sponsored by the New York-based Insurance Information Institute and InsureTech Connect, the competition highlights innovative approaches to problems surrounding disaster preparedness and responsiveness.
Open to companies that are less than 5 years old and with fewer than 100 employees, the program was launched in June. Three finalists presented on Wednesday to a panel of judges during the InsureTech Connect conference in Las Vegas.
Demetrius Gray, co-founder and CEO of Louisville, Kentucky-based WeatherCheck, made the winning presentation. Launched last year, the company’s monitoring service provides warnings on incoming weather systems and informs agents and homeowners when a hailstorm hits a specific street address.
The two other finalists were Cowbell Cyber Inc., a Pleasanton, California-based firm that uses artificial intelligence and data to allow users to continually assess and underwrite cyber risk; and True Flood Risk, a service provided by Bronxville, New York-based Think Geohazards Inc., which provides a flood assessment tool that uses machine learning and various algorithms to provide information on individual flood exposures, including the first floor elevation level of a specific building.
The judges were: Susan Holliday, senior adviser to the International Finance Corporation in Washington; Arlene Kern Sunnyvale, California-based innovation executive and senior vice president at Munich Reinsurance Co.; Lee Ng, vice president of enterprise innovation at Travelers Cos. Inc. in Hartford, Connecticut; and Kevin Pray, vice president of innovation at The Hanover Insurance Group in Worcester, Massachusetts.
The award was presented by Sean Kevelighan, CEO of the III.