Deep Vector Loss Start provides risk mitigation

Insurance brokers and agents looking to reduce risk in the policies and customers they cover can look at losses, which are commercial loss histories that show how risky a potential customer is or isn’t.

However, losses were a resource-intensive process. Scott Knowles and Wesley Janse van Rensburg, co-founders of Deep Vector, launched their AI-based Loss Scan product in August 2023. This year, the company participated in InsurTech NY Match acceleration program. Loss Scan addresses the problem of extracting loss data in a way that helps insurers and agents better understand the policyholder market and its risks, Knowles explained.

“The hardest thing for anybody to do is not just get all these losses right and figure out, once we have them, how do we value them?” he said. “It’s a human process normally in the background. That’s how it’s always been done, page by page of claims information. Then try to get a conceptual idea of ​​how many types of claims we have in this particular industry so they can actually make a decision on what to do for rates depending on the industry, whether it’s workers’ compensation, liability car, how can you tell.”

Knowles, who began his career as an insurance sales agent, began working in insurtech and operations in 2009 in roles with CWI Insurance, Ally, MODGIC and Zywave before starting Loss Scan in January 2023. Knowles and van Rensburg, CTO of Deep Vector, worked together at Zywave, specifically on its ModMaster worker analytics service. Zywave acquired MODGIC, where Knowles was CEO for 10 years.

Loss scanning creates a truly complete picture of risk by capturing all granular claim information such as claim status, cause of claim, location or vehicle information, if applicable. These can be hundreds or thousands of pages with all the details of the claim. Loss Scan then “represents” the information so carriers can better assess a policyholder’s risk, Knowles said.

Agents and brokers following clients can then present them with the results of a loss scan assessment to show what their risks are. “My job as an agent is to evaluate your business, find the holes that are causing your premium pain points, create a creative but highly impactful plan that will help us mitigate and reduce those claims,” ​​Knowles said.

The company is working on a risk scoring system to be added to Loss Scan to make it easier to understand the results it produces, according to Knowles, and expects to launch the feature in the first or second quarter of 2025.