"The insurance sector pays out £2.5 million every day to UK policyholders alone for escape of water claims"
Source ABI
The total costs to those suffering water damage are higher making any solution a potential winner. But it involves far more than mitigating risk and and alerting emergency response when escape of water is detected:-
- The whole customer experience from incident to settlement needs transformation
- Hardware and software costs need slashing
- Water escape included as part of the connected & insured home
- Knowing when "escape of water" is urgently needed e.g. in case of fire
Recently, RS Components and Legal & General launched the "LeakKiller" challenge, the open source IoT hardware competition to detect water leakage fast and stop it.
See "Digital Platforms, IoT and Connected Homes"for more on that.
It shows that transformation is far more than just digital important that data, analytics and digital platforms are. It is combining these with services, IoT and everyday hardware. Expect to see new products during 2018
Here’s what the water shut-off system does: Uses sensors to detect standing water, excess humidity, and freezing conditions Automatically closes the main water supply to minimise, if not avoid, damage Connects wirelessly to the WaterLock hub and the cloud, allowing activation even from outside the property Works alongside a smartphone app, through which information may be shared (e.g. among tenants and landlords) Can supply data directly to insurers and property management firms, with the user’s permission