The Insurance Council of Australia Uses Drones to Assess Property Damage

Our client's problem:

The Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) on behalf of its members and government stakeholders needed to quickly assess the coastal beach erosion and subsequent damage to homes at Wamberal, NSW following the disastrous July 2020 storm. The beachfront had restricted access as a result of dangerous structures, emergency fortification work and high tide making traditional inspection methods dangerous and time consuming.

BIRDI's Solution

ICA partnered with BIRDI and our network of local, fully licenced drone operators to capture aerial images, video and orthomosaic imagery of Terrigal Beach to quickly assess the damage to the properties on Ocean View Drive.The BIRDI platform was able to assist in:

1. Access to a distributed network of qualified drone pilots - BIRDI has the largest directory of drone pilots with more than 2,000 across Australia.
2. Matched local drone pilots within hours of the request - saving time and money as drone pilots didn't need to be flown in to capture footage.
3. Aerial imagery processed and shared via the BIRDI platform - the imagery was immediately available via the BIRDI platform and was easily shared with stakeholders.

Results

The ICA team were able to subcontract all of the planning, compliance, and capture complexities associated with any drone operation, to the BIRDI team. The BIRDI team promptly matched a local drone pilot and the ICA were able to share the captured data with their members who were able to view and assess the damage on the BIRDI Platform within hours of capture.

Insurance Council of Australia, Insurance

The Insurance Council of Australia is the representative body of the general insurance industry in Australia. Their members represent about 95 percent of total premium income written by private sector general insurers. Insurance Council members, both insurers and reinsurers, are a significant part of the financial services system.