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Tractable’s Next Move: AI Property Claims Assessment Before Damage Photos

August 29, 2022 by Susanne Sclafane

Tractable, an InsurTech that revs up auto claims assessment processes using artificial intelligence that’s trained on photos of dented cars, is now teaching machines to handle property disaster claims even faster—and without post-disaster images.

Executive Summary

At a time when reports about InsurTechs increasingly highlight failures and dwindling funding levels, the story of Tractable, a company that uses artificial intelligence to visually assess car and home damage claims, stands apart. Not only did the company achieve unicorn status in 2021, it also boasts partnerships with more than a third of the world's top 100 carriers, including the likes of GEICO, The Hartford and American Family. Executives Alex Dalyac and Jimmy Spears fill in part of the backstory of Tractable, a company that brings together a non-technical startup founder who learned to code on his path to entrepreneurship and a 30-plus-year insurance industry veteran. They lead a team that started a business centered on AI predictions of auto repair costs based on damage photos, which has expanded to include photo-assisted property disaster assessments. Investigating the next phase for Tractable, they are working to proactively deliver notice of disaster-related losses without even needing photos of damage.

The idea, in fact, is to start getting notices of losses out to insurers and help out to policyholders before a hurricane, storm or typhoon actually damages the property, Alex Dalyac confirmed during a recent phone interview, attributing the concept of “proactive first notice of loss” to industry veteran Jimmy Spears, the former head of global auto physical damage business of USAA, who joined the Tractable North America team as head of Automotive in 2020.

Executive SummaryAt a time when reports about InsurTechs increasingly highlight failures and dwindling funding levels, the story of Tractable, a company that uses artificial intelligence to visually assess car and home damage claims, stands apart. Not only did the company achieve unicorn status in 2021, it also boasts partnerships with more than a third of the world’s top 100 carriers, including the likes of GEICO, The Hartford and American Family.

Executives Alex Dalyac and Jimmy Spears fill in part of the backstory of Tractable, a company that brings together a non-technical startup founder who learned to code on his path to entrepreneurship and a 30-plus-year insurance industry veteran. They lead a team that started a business centered on AI predictions of auto repair costs based on damage photos, which has expanded to include photo-assisted property disaster assessments. Investigating the next phase for Tractable, they are working to proactively deliver notice of disaster-related losses without even needing photos of damage.

Dalyac and Spears spoke to Carrier Management about how the two men teamed up and about Tractable’s journey to become a successful InsurTech, which uses computer vision technology and AI to help many of the world’s top carriers estimate the cost of auto physical damage claims and settle them in minutes. The interview took place just two weeks after American Family became the latest top-10 U.S. auto insurer to sign up to use one of Tractable’s newer offerings—AI Subro—to increase efficiency and consistency in the review of subrogation demands using auto damage photos.