Airbus Aerial, the startup offshoot of commercial and defense giant Airbus, has been using its analytic tools to help insurance companies and first responders come to grips with California’s raging Carr fire, still only 61 percent contained as of Monday.
 
Airbus Aerial fuses satellite data with its in-house analytical systems to let insurance companies monitor areas they insure, enabling them to settle claims rapidly — in some cases, before the homeowner even knows their house has burned down.
 
One insurer logged into AA’s system on Friday and by Saturday had settled about a thousand claims, says AA President Jesse Kallman. 
 
“With the satellite, it’s pretty interesting to be able to triage an entire county,” Kallman says. 
 
The company also flies drones on some occasions and can integrate that closer-in data with its satellite imagery, but it’s not doing so over the Carr fire as the satellite data is meeting the needs of the insurance companies and first responders.
 
The company, just over a year old, has existing contracts with insurance companies to provide data and analytics, and quickly used its satellite data to start providing it using tools such as its Triage Toolkit, its proprietary damage classification system.
 
Insurance companies can log in through the company’s portal, enter their area of interest and get daily updates, including which houses have been destroyed.
 
“The insurers are actually contacting their customers before the customers know there is a problem,” Kallman says.
 
Firefighters can get data about what areas have already been burned out and what locations might be next, also updated daily.
 
Kallman says Airbus Aerial has worked on more than 100 fires in its short life but says its tools have improved over that time. In its early days (the company was announed at AUVSI’s Xponential show in Dallas) AA worked with third-party analytical tools, but now it has a full suite developed in-house, including a claims dashboard that uses machine learning to tell insurance companies which properties are a total loss, so they don’t have to endanger agents by sending them to check.

Below: An image of the Carr fire's destruction, with analytical data showing which houses have been destroyed. Photo: Airbus Aerial