The following is an excerpt from our solution brief, Crop Insurance Claims Cycle Management, which explores how a drone-based platform can provide new levels of accuracy and efficiency in the crop insurance claims cycle. Download the solution brief to learn more.
Crop insurance coverage has grown significantly in the United States. In fact, according to Agri-Pulse, 334 million acres of farmland were covered by 1.1 million policies in 2018, up by 20 million acres from 2017.
As crop coverage grows, so does the need for accurate and efficient ways to inspect crop damage, build claims, and prevent overpayments or paying out for false claims.
Traditional inspection methods, including those that include boots-on-the-ground, can be slow, inaccurate, and costly. And though some agents have started to use drones to capture aerial imagery, few platforms offer more than images, and they don’t quantify crop damage.
Regardless of how inspection data is collected, aggregating it into a single, standardized database and extracting insights can be messy—if not impossible.
The solution? PrecisionHawk’s drone-based platform.
By incorporating data collection, processing, and reporting into a streamlined, end-to-end drone-based solution, we’ve made it easier to start using aerial intelligence.
The results are clear:
With our drone-based platform, you’re able to strengthen every step of the data value chain, starting with the discovery phase. From proof-of-concept to global scale, our consultants can assist you in defining a comprehensive strategy, not just a point solution.
Once we’ve established a plan, we can move on to the data collection phase. Although farms might seem like a remote location ideal for unencumbered flight, the environment isn’t without its challenges. For example, crop dusters aren’t fitted with trackers, so they appear unexpectedly, and they’re difficult to avoid. Plus, many farms are located in areas with high-wind conditions—and they’re expansive, typically requiring multiple deployments from various locales.
Our drones are purpose-built for such a challenging environment. They’re lightweight, but rugged, and include rotor blade guards to mitigate the damage that could occur on contact. They are also deployed with a high-resolution camera, allowing the operator to balance data fidelity with a safe stand-off distance.
To execute missions, our pilots use PrecisionFlight. The software’s intelligent flight planning enables operators to deploy manual, semi-autonomous, and fully autonomous missions that comply with regulations and safety management systems.
A typical mission looks like this:
While capturing field conditions at a single point in time is useful, you gain greater insight by tracking trends over a given period. Using PrecisionFlight’s repeatable flight plans, operators can capture multiple data sets, from separate missions, that precisely correlate.
After you collect inspection data, you need a focused system for analyzing and processing it. Sure, your analysts can pore over the terabytes of raw imagery and video. But by harnessing the power of machine learning, you can shorten the process, improving the precision and speed of your crop inspections.
Here’s how PrecisionAnalytics Agriculture, our cloud-based platform, automates the identification of crop damage: Once a drone operator—or any other ground-based or aerial photographer—has collected the requisite imagery, they upload it into the PrecisionAnalytics Agriculture system. The software then cross-references the uploaded imagery against thousands of terabytes of crop data, flagging issues. Finally, the system produces a collection of imagery annotated by plant health.
After machine intelligence identifies imagery that represents crop damage, it aggregates the data into an intuitive, web-based interface that’s accessible from anywhere.
PrecisionAnalytics Agriculture features include:
Typical issues that analysts identify using drone-based imagery include:
Once PrecisionAnalytics Agriculture produces findings, it’s time to take action. But how do you turn aerial data into action? And how do you integrate it with other systems? By using the software’s flexible reporting and integration features.
PrecisionAnalytics Agriculture lets you quickly export files, reports, and maps. For example, you can download an orthomosaic at whatever resolution you choose; a file of your zonal or plot statistics; a plant health map; an elevation map; prescription reports; or PDF reports of map views with your selected vegetative indices, zoomed in to areas of concern.
You can also integrate the data you need into your claims management system, giving you the opportunity to turn data into action.
Ultimately, you own your data—take it anywhere you need it.
With our drone-based platform, you can replace slow, inefficient “tailgate inspections” with drone deployments; hours of tedious image review with machine intelligence; and data overload with a focused system of reporting.
Contact an Agricultural Solutions expert today, and download our full solution brief for more details on how you can use drone-based aerial intelligence to transform the crop insurance claim cycle.