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Transcript: WGAN-TV: Matterport Meets Insurance Underwriting and Risk Mgmt10680

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WGAN-TV Matterport Meets Insurance Underwriting and Risk Management with Matterport Director of Accounts Brandon Donatelli and Matterport Account Manager Rodrigo Abrue (Wednesday, 11 December 2019)

Hi All,

If you are a Matterport Service Provider - seeking new Matterport scanning opportunities in a different vertical than residential real estate - you will find this WGAN-TV show helpful for understanding how Matterport helps in Insurance Underwriting and Risk Management. Plus, you will have a better understanding about how to pursue these opportunities and how to pitch the benefits of Matterport scanning in Insurance Underwriting and Risk Management.

Thanks to Matterport Director of Accounts Brandon Donatelli and Matterport Account Manager Rodrigo Abrue for this insightful show.

Questions about Matterport meets insurance underwriting and risk management?

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Happy holidays,

Dan

Transcript (video above)

- Hi all, I'm Dan Smigrod, Founder of the We Get Around Network Forum. Today is Wednesday, December 11, 2019, and you're watching WGAN-TV Live at 5.

Our topic today is Matterport Insurance, Underwriting and Risk Management, and we have two guests for you on the show today, hey Brandon.

- Hi Dan, thank you for having us.

- Good to see you, and hey Rodrigo, good to see you. Okay, Rodrigo, you've got your mic off there. So, our two guests, Brandon Donatelli. Brandon is Matterport Director of Accounts, and Rodrigo Abreu is Account Manger.

So Brandon, how about we start with you? I have no idea about insurance underwriting and risk management meets Matterport. Tell me a story so I can understand what this means.

- Absolutely, so when it comes to underwriting and risk management, insurance carriers are focused on understanding a client's needs, both physically with the property, and understanding this type of business that they're in, and what kind of risks may be present in those locations.

So, the need for information is paramount so that they can make proper indemnification decisions that in the event that there loss, that there's accidents that would occur. So we have a number of carriers with different scenarios.

One might be an example of an owner of a gas station with a car wash, who the carrier would like to know the condition of the property physically for the building, as well as the type of machinery that operates within that property that could give indications to potential risk to personal safety for customers and workers, which could affect everything from a potential liability for a claim to somebody's health or an accident that might occur, as well as a worker, an employee who's operating that equipment that could face a potential injury with the equipment that they're operating.

So, the need for information to properly identify what the risks are at these sites, and utilize that information to create a value for the potential for one of those risks to occur with those. The value of what a loss could equate to is not an easy practice.

There's a number of formulas and sort of actuarial information that's been around for 100 years or so that is utilized as part of the formulas to determine this, and then a number of limits to that information exists.

So the need to go out and visit sites live, with risk engineers to actually perform inspections is another method that's often utilized.

A lot of our customers tell us, we don't have exact numbers, but it's in the ballpark of around 10 to 15% of commercial policies are actually getting visited onsite, and the reason the number is so low is because the cost of sending a risk engineer out is extremely high.

So current technology, and the opportunity to go out and capture this data both visually, and obviously in Matterport scenario to create 3D virtual twins of that, of those properties or those risks, enables some decision makers and the people who formulate those sorts of value routines, the underwriting for those policies, it gives them the ability to see more data so they can make more informed decisions and do a much better job evaluating both the policy, to establish premium, as well as identify the potential risks, so that the insured is protected adequately.

- Thank you, that's a good overview. You've covered a lot of ground, and I'm totally confused on so many fronts. Let's break it down into small pieces. So let's say that I've just bought that, was it a car wash?

- [Brandon] Yes.

- I've just bought the car was from Rodrigo, and I imagine there's probably some kind of insurance that I need, related to this property.

I know my business of car washing, but I don't know from Adam about insurance. So what's the typical insurance that a car wash would seek, and then without Matterport, what does that process look like, both in terms of the insurance underwriting and the risk management?

So I call my insurance agent, and I say, "Hey, good news, I just bought from Rodrigo, "this car wash, I think I need insurance for it." So what happens?

- So Brandon, if you don't mind, I can take this one.

- [Brandon] Yeah.

- So at this point, and setting aside any kind of particularities with regards to car washes. I don't know if it would be any kind of specific insurance, but suppose you call a broker, with the intention of buying small business insurance, and let's say that that covers your needs entirely.

Or that your brokers gonna put something together that does. Your policy application is going to go to an underwriter. And the job of this underwriter is going to be to match what's on your policy to a given rate.

Now one thing that people often misunderstand about underwriting, is that they think it's a purely statistical exercise right? That it's just crunching numbers, it's all about spreadsheets and mass tables of data, but there is a human element to it.

So underwriting can almost be thought of as being two sides of the same coin. One is the statistical part that is setting of rates.

So that's saying car washes in this zip code, that these characteristics are going to have rate x, and that's based on historical data.

And then an underwriter, an actual person is going to look at your policy, and he's going to look at the individual characteristics of your car wash and try to match that to a rate that they've already established.

And then, once he's done that, he could adjust your premium up or down, based on, I don't know, it could be that, let's say your car was is right next to a fireworks factory, right? Something that in his subjective opinion, is going to raise your risk overall.

So then he's going to make an adjustment, and this is in many situations, subjective. So they need more information, they need data.

They need data about the actual location that they're going to be insuring, about the business, what the business looks like on the inside and the outside, it's operations, And that's where Matterport fits into broader--

- Before we even get to Matterport, Rodrigo.

- [Rodrigo] Yeah.

- Even before we get to Matterport, I'm still trying to understand the problem of what's happening today, and then we'll talk about how Matterport solves that problem, if that's okay.

- Of course,

- What I'm trying to understand, is okay, let's assume for a moment, I have a really big car wash. This is a mega carwash, and it warrants somebody to come out and inspect. What do they, what is it they are looking for, and what is it that they're doing?

- So in the case that your business actually does merit someone going onsite to perform some sort of inspection, there are going to be certain items that they're going to want to check-off on the list.

These are going to be things that could potentially lead to a loss, or that pose risks that are relevant to underwriting specifically.

That's mapped to a given category that they have priced. And this could be very industry or geography specific. It's hard to go into exactly what we--

- Let me just give an example. Are they looking to see if I have smoke detectors? A fire, the things that rain in case I have a fire?

- Yeah, if I could jump in and add to Rodrigo's points, flying in from 30,000 feet, we can look at this scenario, and largely, an insurer's going to walk in, and if they know the category of business, they may have a list of potential risks that they're looking for, but even at a general broad sense, they're going to start in and identify the location of the property, both geography.

Is it in an area where we're subjected to weather patterns, snow loads, hailstorms?

Anything that could cause damage by weather-related events, and how is the building manufactured? Is it up to date current with maintenance, or are there potential risks involved that are easily identifiable through a point of view inspection of the property itself?

Further as an interior inspection of the property is performed, you can look a little deeper and start identifying building codes and life safety codes, with things like smoke detectors. Are there fire extinguishers present?

Are there proper panic hardware mechanisms on doors to exit the property?

All of these details are identified right into the restrooms and bathrooms to identify the plumbing systems and the shutoffs, and is there an alarm system present?

Is that alarm system a closed system or is it an open system? Fire sprinkler systems, depending on the type of business it is, if there's a high likelihood of combustion through the use of scenery and equipment, or restaurants with cooking equipment that routinely have fires and high risk.

Those all affect different rating factors that allow a carrier and insurer to start to formulate that valuation of that property.

- So I'm hearing that there's so far, two people that are key to this discussion. One is the, a risk engineer, and the second being the underwriter.

So if we could focus a little bit more maybe on the risk engineer first, is that the person that's doing all the data collection, that the underwriter will then look at that data?

- Yes, so risk management is a broad topic. It's usually managed by an individual on site, but there may be multiple stakeholders in assessing the overall risk of any given business or commercial entity. It involves taking steps to minimize the likelihood of things going wrong in a simple form, and that creates this concept known as loss control.

And loss control teams identify loss control measures.

So, they take a series of information about the building, the age, the business type, and they compare that against other businesses of similar types, and establish risk ratings, based on what other businesses have experienced over some period of time.

Like I said, the insurance industry is one of the oldest industries in modern business. Since businesses started in the U.S., insurance almost immediately became an element of critical mass, right about 100 years ago during recession periods, and times when businesses started suffering significant losses, the need for insurance became really, really, front and center for most businesses, so they can protect themselves.

So yes, risk engineering and risk management really truly is the fact-finding method, both physically on site, as well as comparing data to identify the risk and likelihood of a potential loss, whereas the information they gather and collect, is then shared with the underwriting or underwriting team, who then continues to formulate and evaluate that information against actuarial data to determine what the value of a policy needs to be, both from the policy premium perspective and then the risk coverage in the event of a claim or a loss that might occur.

- Okay, so this sounds like this process has been around for 100 plus years in the United States, of insurance underwriting, risk management, so what's the problem?

- Well the point points are risk identification is complex.

There's a tremendous amount of analysis around exposure to risks that's necessary to be performed. Continued evaluation for risk mitigation options that might or might not exist, such as avoiding potential claims or pitfalls, or a transfer of retention of risk, depending on the types of businesses or what's being operated within a business.

For example, that car wash may have indoor parking of vehicles that are being detailed or going to be worked on.

There's a mechanism of understanding that if one of those vehicles was to spontaneously combust and cause a fire, how does that policy behave in a way that's it's going to protect a business from the potential of another insured vehicle or piece of property, within the business, and how those interact with one another and perform.

And that's where that risk identification is critical and important, and an underwriter would need that kind of information from a risk engineer to say: Hey, there are going to be other forms of property or others acts being occurred within the confines of this business or the covered loss site, that need to be identified."

How do we create additional endorsements, that could provide additional coverage, or do we make recommendations on coverage requirements. For example, vehicles that are uninsured should not be allowed on site.

They make a recommendation to the business owner and say: If a vehicle that's uninsured on your property causes a fire, you might not have coverage, and you need to have anybody that leaves a vehicle at your property sign a waiver, and you might have to provide confirmation of insurance coverage to protect yourself."

And risk managers identify these potential perils, and then identify that with underwriting to determine if there's potential policy exclusions or additional information that would have to be provided. Again, the main points and implementation of these types of options and being able to monitor and adjust for these things, are big pain points for these businesses.

Again, driving the need for both visual spatial data, as well as analytical data.

- Well so let's move into the Matterport role here. If maybe you could map for me, here's the problem or pain point, and this is what Matterport solves, and the benefit of doing that is the following.

- So certainly, so risk identification, and I'll go one step further and talk about a little bit of drone technology as well.

We all know Matterport, we're well along the phase of awareness. I think largely, a large amount of people know what Matterport is today, and what it does.

But how it's behaving and how it's changing the industry and really changing a 100 year industry, because it's able to bring data visually and analytic data, data we can pull out of that visual information, to start making better decisions and changing our reliance and actuarial formulas that no longer fit today's building standards or risk standards, so to speak.

So drones, for example, can help us identify issues of like the condition of the roof of a building and if it's in good maintenance and in good care, it could also help us see different perspectives of a property, literally from 10,000 square feet and closer from a bird's eye view to help us identify anything from the risk of other buildings that are in poor maintenance, that could potentially have a collapse or an issue that could have a negative impact on that business's ability to stay active and continue to operate, and then as we dive in, come down to the ground or street level, our ability to walk through the front door.

Matterport has that great capability on our exteriors to capture 360 imagery at a very high, 130 plus megapixel value, and then carry on into the interior of the property, capturing optical imagery that's three dimensional, a literal digital clone of the property, allows someone from another state or across the country, to actually go in and perform those risk engineering inspections that normally would have been very costly to put a high value resource like an engineer, maybe fly them in, have travel costs associated with that.

We can eliminate a lot of that, by having a capture partner enter a property and go in and capture the visual spatial data that's needed so that the resources within the underwriting and risk engineering ecosystem can work with that data to make better informed decisions and write better policies.

Largely, the biggest pain point that this creates, this whole ecosystem is when we're operating with carriers, only seeing 10 to 15% of the properties are actually sending risk engineers out, we're largely creating a scenario where rates for policies are now becoming competitive from one company to another, and in order for insurance carriers, after that business, they're changing their rates, but to that market conditions, rather than actual business risk conditions, and this is dangerous.

This could lead an insured to barely underinsured, because we don't have actual data about the business and how the business needs to be covered appropriately, how that policy needs to be written.

So, the capability of Matterport to provide much better insight with that digital clone that we create, is now giving both the end user or the insured, more peace of mind that the carrier is writing a policy that actually covers everything that that insured needs coverage for in the event of a catastrophic loss, and then the carrier has a huge benefit, because they're actually capturing the data information they need to write a policy that's going to provide significant coverage and adequately cover the insured, and not allow market conditions from maybe a competitive bid to drive a price down arbitrarily, versus an actual coverage need, for that insured.

So now we create that environment that we can create a truly merit-based, competitive marketplace for carriers.

- So, gosh, so many questions come out of that. The first, let's talk about those businesses that are not getting a visit by a risk engineer.

- Yeah, kinda scary right? Dan I mean--

- So, the insurance company, the underwriter has made a decision not to send somebody to a site, so they're going to have an expense, associated with now bringing in a photographer to shoot a Matterport 3D Tour, outdoor views inside. Does the additional expense solve enough problems to warrant that additional expense by the insurance carrier?

- So we have a couple of scenarios we have to look at to make dollars and cents of this question.

So, first and foremost, as a carrier, if I'm talking about an insurance policy that's only worth a couple thousand dollars a year, that's largely going to probably make, help set what my budget, my ideal budget, might be to go out and capture information on that property, and if I look at the life span of a typical commercial line with a business, I believe it's in the three to five year range that the typical policy holder maintains that a policy with a carrier.

So if we look at the lifetime value of policy premium, without a claim being involved, what that looks like for the carrier, that largely dictates what the value of sending a risk engineer out to that site would be, or an alternative method.

- So, let's focus first on those where they're not sending out a risk engineer. So, they haven't been doing it. They've been writing insurance for 100 years.

They haven't dispatched anyone, so why now do they need to go through that expense, excuse me, and as a result of that, are they going to be saving money, saving time, accepting less risk?

Having a better written policy? What are they, what's the end result of having a Matterport 3D Tour done, and how does that translate into benefits from the insurance underwriter, the insurance?

- Interesting question to ask. So I believe largely, insurance carriers are, part of their formulation is that an error rate, based on the knowledge that they lack some critical information. So because the value or the cost of doing thorough inspections.

Dan, you look like you don't have as much gray hair as me, but you're probably about the same age as I am. I remember back when I got my first insurance policy--

- You're 25 too? ;-) That's exciting.

- Absolutely, right. So I remember when I first bought my first home, for example, not to switch gears from commercial to residential, but my insurance agent actually came to my property and took Polaroid photos of my property, a few on the outside, a few on the inside, and these were largely used to help valuate my property and valuate my insurance.

That has completely gone away by modern standards today. So various types of businesses and residences, based on value, the size of the policy are what starts to dictate do we send out, and perform a field inspection of this property?

And lot of the research that we've done in Matterport with experts in the industry in insurance, and a lot of the customers that we talk to, the running number seems to be around $1,500, and that's a very general number, to even have a risk engineer knock on a door of a business.

And that's if the risk engineer is located in the zip code or near the location that needs to be inspected. If it's a much larger commercial policy, and it's in remote location or a location that there aren't risk engineers available, the price can go up exponentially. So, we're looking at a couple of numbers here that are going to dictate what the value of Matterport needs to be from a capture perspective to bring value to this scenario.

- So--

- Dan, just to add, sorry. Just to add to the why now factor, I recently read a study by McKinsey & Company that showed that out of all insurance companies that they surveyed, only those that were in the, the only ones that were able to turn a profit were something like top 10 or 15% of insurers property, casualty insurers in the U.S. So what the points to is a market that's becoming increasingly competitive.

And winning in that competition is going to be having a portfolio of policies that is more accurately written and categorized in terms of risk, than their competitors.

So, that's what we're seeing today. We're seeing insurance companies, basically going after every resource, every sort, any kind of data that they get their hands on in order to make their portfolios of policies more accurate so that they can be amongst that small group that can actually claim to be profitable.

- Okay, so Brandon mentioned this number of $1,500 to dispatch someone to come physically look at the property. Let's pick a number and say it's $350 or $500 for Matterport, it's an arbitrary number, I imagine it's going to be something lower that $1,500, otherwise, they'd perhaps send out a real person anyway, so it's got to be less than ...

So if I can now do this documentation with Matterport, for $300 or $500 or whatever that lower number is, I'm still looking for the specific benefits to the underwriter. So I'm hearing they can do a better job assessing the risk, which might mean either charging more and not getting that business, or charging less and maybe winning more business, but knowing that the risk matches the premium. Is that--

- Right.

- And there's a bit of a tension between those two in underwriting. There's the, on one side, there's the force that wants to drive premiums down so they do win the business and then--

- I can just imagine this conversation. Here you got sales going, "We need to charge a negative number to get that business."

- [Rodrigo] Yes.

- "We're going to lose money, but it's okay, "'cause I'm going to collect my commission." So I can imagine that there's huge tension between sales and underwriting, and I have no idea.

- Yeah, in fact, there's even a term for this. It's called the production underwriter. It's the underwriter that's expected to produce numbers that are going to drive sales.

And it's a, well, it's a controversial topic, it's the cause of a lot of debates in the insurance and the actuary and all.

- I can just imagine, because if the underwriter is writing the policies too high and losing the business, the sales people are not going to be happy and the company might toss the underwriter, because they're losing too much business.

On the other hand, if the risk assessment is at the right level, that they really don't want that business unless they're paying a premium on the premium to get that business, this is a fascinating topic, so I'm just--

- It is, truly is.

- I'm trying to understand to say, how does Matterport coming, presumably coming in a lower cost?

- Well one way that definitely Dan, to interject there, it definitely is creating a cost-effective opportunity to go capture good information, but it's bringing transparency that is serving everyone's best interest.

So rarely do we see a situation where new technology comes in, and it certainly serves everyone's interest, and that's what's so amazing about Matterport, and why we're so passionate about it, because we identified that it does a number of things that help everyone.

So carriers, I feel really appreciate it from a sales and agent perspective because the ability to go out and shop insurance for potential insured gives them to the ability to get an apples and apples comparison from one carrier to another.

Largely today, like I said, market conditions determine pricing, but you, insured are not, they don't know what they don't know, right.

And Matterport provides a transparent medium that is able to help everybody write the same apples to apples type of policy comparisons, so one, the insured wins.

They're getting the coverage that they need. Two, the carriers have a medium that's helping them stay competitive with their competitors, because they're all working off the same square footages, they're seeing the same risks, they're identifying the endorsement and coverage issues that need to be addressed, and they're making well-informed decisions with more information for a much lower cost to capture that business.

- So while it's hard to, If I could just kind of end this, but just the question of the tension between the sales activity and the actual pricing of risk.

You know, it's hard to make a determination as what needs to win at any given moment, but a rule of thumb is that underwriting accuracy is going to be the superior course of action. I think that is fair to say that that's an accepted kind of axiom for underwriting generally. They want to earn--

- It apparently makes sense to me, probably makes sense to the three of us, that you want to be able to have the good information in order to write the best policy at the appropriate premium, but I'm confused, Brandon. I just assumed that maybe the underwriter is paying for the Matterport Tour.

And then all of a sudden, there's three different carriers that come in, and they each do a Matterport scan, and I'm going, "Well this is crazy." So is it?

- Well and I have to tell you, I mean, Matterport is a hot topic today, because the life cycle of a model, a digital twin, really transcends so many different industries.

So certainly home inspectors are beginning to use 360 cameras to utilize, you know, if the picture says 1,000 words, a Matterport digital twin model is like an encyclopedia of information with many, many books, right. So it's just a tremendous amount of data and information.

- I get it, let's come to homeowners in a separation conversation. We'll pick that up in a moment, but I really want to still drill down of, who's paying for the Matterport scan?

I just assumed it was the underwriter. And then if you got three different quotes, you got three different Matterport scans, conceivably, or maybe have one guy sends in a risk engineer. Another one sends a Matterport, and the third does it blind.

- Yeah and you have this scenario where a number of these different stakeholders have their own platform, or the ability, and that's why our sharing feature is so critical, because at the property owner's permission, this information could be shared to everyone's benefit, and yes, you absolutely have that situation.

I don't believe we need to perform multiple captures, but there will be an opportunity to share with multiple parties, and the value, the copyright value of the digital asset, or twin in the model, becomes a value even after the labor of capturing.

- This is probably totally unrelated, but I'm just fascinated by the topic. Is that my, underwriter A buys the scan, and then says, "Hey, I'll sell it to the next guy "for half the price, and I'll sell it "to the next guy for the half the price, "and I'll sell it to the third guy "for the half the price, and I'll have made money "on my scanning business." First to scan gets to resell it to the others?

- Yeah, let's say if I'm an non-captive insurance broker, and I have a customer that comes in that owns multiple businesses or properties, and they want to get competitive analysis of insuring a business or a property, and I carry five different lines of insurance.

As the broker, I may have a capture partner go capture that property, and then I might go my five carriers and say: Hey, we charge a flat fee to go out and capture a digital twin or asset of that property, If you'd like me to quote this line, you could help me subsidize the cost of that capture, and spread that amongst three different carriers."

- What's the title of that person?

- That would be an insurance broker potentially.

- A broker, so the client.

- [Rodrigo] Potentially, Yep.

- So the client could be, for this Matterport Tour, the underwriter, it could be the insurance broker, who may actually end up making money out of this saying: Hey, five companies, if you've like to quote, you don't need to send anybody out, 'cause I'm gonna give you a Matterport 3D Tour. Oh, by the way, that's 350 if you want the Matterport Tour."

And all of a sudden, a broker has got a new profit center, selling the same thing over and over again.

- [Brandon] That's right.

- But let's not forget that, we wanted to list potential stakeholders that would be interested in paying for that scan.

- [Dan] Yes.

- We're not limited to insurers, I mean we can go into, I mean, where do we even start? You got the emergency management services that would want that scan to help them prepare for an emergency. You would have government agencies that would possibly take into with that, it's--

- Pause on that a moment, Rodrigo.

- It's really myriad.

- Rodrigo, pause on that just for a moment, because you mentioned emergency services. I want you to come back and complete your list, but I want to take advantage of the fact that Brandon, in his previous life, was a firefighter.

Thank you for your service. Would that, if you had had Matterport 3D Tours on some of the fires you showed up, would it have been helpful to you?

- Not only helpful, but it would've really protected my safety, shedding light on some, you know walking into a property. Imagine walking into an industrial plant that maybe has costly chemicals or explosives.

You know that, even if it's posted on the door with a proper placard, and I enter that property, but I don't know where those items are stored, my life is at risk. So we have a number of partners that we deal with too, like a PrePlanLive.com, who is dealing with a company that, they're taking Matterport scans and utilizing our digital tagging technology, to locate and create a preplanned scenario, and as we talk to the carriers and insurers, they absolutely love it because it provides a solution that is identifying potential risks and hazards that will help them insure the properties more effectively.

It's providing the customer and the carrier claims preplan, that's helping eliminate the potential for a catastrophic loss to occur, because now we're pre-planning and identifying those risks, and putting measures in place to provide safety precautions and provide upkeep and maintenance to potential hazards.

It's an incredible, incredible opportunity, and largely the conversations that Rodrigo has with a lot of our carrier partners, and that I'm having with a lot of our carrier partners, everybody just loves the opportunity that this provides, and some of the cost factors we're talking about, both the cost to capture and the cost for hosting each model, has been largely a huge cost savings, comparatively, to what it previously cost to go get similar information.

- So, just to stay on the topic, just for another moment, is Matterport being used today by firefighters going into burning buildings?

- Not actively live and burning buildings that we're aware of in partnerships, but there are schools, there are churches, there are hospitals that pre-plans in place, and there are some partnerships that we strategic alignment, we have some partners that are using Matterport to create a canvas of mapping out safety pathways and entry to buildings and utilizing Matterport for things like, in Michigan, where PrePlanLive is located, they're using Matterport and MatterTags to link live feed of live surveillance cameras into a Matterport model, so that if there is a potential active shooter scenario, the first responders, before they even arrive on site, could identify the shooter's location, and know maybe where to stay or enter the building to try to apprehend the shooter and get the situation or the state under control.

- So this company, PrePlan?

- PrePlanLive.com, correct.

- PrePlanLive.com, so they know how to get in touch with emergency responders in the event of shooting, fire, with flood, whatever it might be, in order for the responder to be able to make a better assessment prior to entering a space.

- That's correct.

- That's way cool, I love that.

- Very impressive, and it's a relevant, like every day now solution, and all of it is based on the canvas of the digital twin.

So the digital twin is a blank canvas that we're adding all these other different technologies to, and it's creating an environment for us to have this sort of central repository of information, instead of having maybe a three-ring binder with pages and tabs that somebody needs to be familiar with, including the carrier.

So part of like, a solution in the way we're seeing Matterport being used now, and these other sort of ancillary business models, is it's creating the visual representation of the property in this really immersive way, and if I want to talk about safety mechanisms in the building, or maybe I want to talk about the mechanical room or where this is located, how to perform the emergency shutoffs to secure the building or stop flowing water from a broken pipe in a weather condition that's freezing subzero temperatures.

Somebody who maybe is new to the property, or even somebody who isn't even familiar with the property, could look at this digital model on a phone app, and be able to go to the right location, click on a MatterTag, open up an attached video that shows the exact procedure to shut off a critical system safely and effectively and not cause an image.

An underwriter or an insurance carrier identifies that this technology is going to reduce claims and make it more cost effective to do business or to insure this potential client. So the whole ecosystem creates this just awesome loop of value to everyone involved in such an immersive way, it's changing the world we live in, in really massive ways.

And right now, the story is, Dan, capture partnerships, right. How are we getting this data in front of everyone who needs it to make good decisions for the property owners, to protect themselves, for the carriers to write competitive bids for policy premiums, for claims and safety professionals in the event of a catastrophic event, to properly manage and deal with loss. Very, very impressive.

- I think that's a great segue back to Rodrigo, is to ask to you identify the stakeholders. Forgive me, I interrupted when you mentioned emergency responders.

- Of course, it starts all the way from the very inception of the building, starting with the architecture who has to design what the building's going to look like, to the construction firm that's going to actually put it together, the engineers who are involved in that, and the actual maintenance, going on to banking and finance, the mortgage company has to conduct the inspection as well.

The insurance company, who's going to be writing the insurance premium. From the building management.

- You blow my mind here, and I want, we could talk big picture for so long, I'd be so exciting, but I want to bring it back to insurance underwriting and risk management, so if we could for the moment, focus on the stakeholders and insurance underwriting and risk management.

So and I think you started with the first one, being, I mean it seems related, emergency responders, and it sounds like that plan that Brandon was describing could actually help reduce the premium, because the risk, perhaps, is lower, that we're going to have a total meltdown of that building, because there's a way to help first responders deal with an emergency.

- Oh absolutely. I mean you see the value of the digital twin and allowing businesses to become more secure, generally, and then this is going to naturally lead to more, more cost effective premiums, because there are fewer risks. There are fewer potential losses.

- Let's stay with the stakeholders, so someone like PrePlanLive.com, who's buying that scan? Is that the facilities manager?

Is that the owner of the business? Is that the insurance broker? Is that the insurance underwriter, who's then reselling it, because they did the scan, but in order to the underwriting, but they realize it unlocks value for a lot of other people, and now they're not in the business of an expense. They're in the business of actually generating revenue. Is that possible?

- Well frankly, what I see, is that there's a marketplace coming up, and I see all those people that we mentioned as being participants in that marketplace.

Whoever it is, in the process of selling, or selling and buying if they're given a model at any point in time for any purpose. It could vary, but all those people are gonna have a stake in it, and--

- Now I can see that is the future. I mean, I literally can see there's the marketplace that's one company is scanning at different life cycles of a building, and selling licensing to whomever, but today, how are you making sales for Matterport? Who are the different stakeholders in this insurance conversation? And are they buying or just expecting somebody to give it to them free?

- Oh no.

- Are the underwriters expecting the broker to give it to them free? Is the client expecting the broker to pay for this? Is the broker expecting the client to pay for this? Who is the stakeholders who's paying for it?

- Well I can tell you a fact that underwriters are willing to offer a reduction in premiums just for the existence of a Matterport scan. So what means is the broker knows he's going to be able to offer something of price that's more competitive to his clients, if he has a Matterport scan period.

And so then, where does it pass on that cost? Does he pass that cost along to his clients? Potentially, yes, but.

- So this, it's an interesting tension there, because I can imagine the broker is earning a commission from the client, and anything that the broker spends as an expense, may come out of the pocket of the broker, even though if the broker laid out the money to do the Matterport scan, might actually end up saving the client a ton of money on the premium, and conceivably, is actually reducing their commission, because the insurance is written at a more efficient rate.

- Well another scenario you can envision is a building property manager who conducted a scan so that he can have an emergency plan, with PrePlanLive, and he goes to his broker and says, "I already have a Matterport scan, "I want you to charge, no I want a reduction in commission," or I want you to be able to go out and find a policy "that's going to be cheaper."

So really, this friction that you see, and that is apparent in so many different, of these potential interactions, that to me, is the sign of a potential marketplace. Because we have value being created in different places.

- So if go back to Brandon, I think, I'm going to guess, that your value proposition is that if you can get from $500 to $300 or $500 to $500, for providing documentation, then there's a business model that works for the underwriter to pay for the scan, never mind all the other potential use cases which actually could be a revenue-generating opportunity for the underwriter, until someone else comes along and figures out the bigger business is shooting once and licensing that scan, to everyone in this ecosystem, from the facilities manager to the emergency pre-planning people to the five underwriters that want a quote on a project, et cetera.

But the business is actually there today from an economic standpoint, for an underwriter to actually pay for the Matterport scan.

- That's correct. Strategically that is one avenue, and if we look at the way the insurance team model and strategy that we have here is, is we're actually talking to numerous stakeholders with the claim or the insurance policy being the central cog in this whole system.

Underwriters for new policies will be using this more frequently to write better, more accurate policies giving a customer end user proper coverage, huge value for underwriting, and 5% or 6% of policies written will have a claim annually.

Those are numbers on a five-year run rate, that are pretty reliable. So we're looking at sort of a book-end approach to where we're taking multiple angles to how we can help close the gap on the amount of properties.

Our goal at Matterport is to have a digital twin of the entire built world, and we can do that by providing service to claims, service providers, that when there's an actual claim on a policy, they're using Matterport to document the damage, to help make better informed claim decisions that helps settle claims and reduce cycle times more efficiently.

We're looking at reducing the loss-adjusting expenses on the claim side, and then the customer experience, because of the transparency is making our your everyday customer more informed, more information at their fingertips, and a much more digestible format that they understand.

They're looking at their home in a 3D model that they understand and are familiar with, and it helps them visualize what this process looks like. So if we're book-ending new policies and claims, and in between, we have policy renewal periods that occur annually.

We start to fill in all the spaces or gaps between the policies, and we know that insurance is required largely on property, commercial for sure, residential property, 94% or 95% of the homes in America have a mortgage, and mortgage companies are required to carry insurance coverage, that a homeowner allows it to lapse or doesn't have coverage, so they can protect their portfolio and their assets.

Facilities managers and large businesses are required to have pre-plans in place, emergency action plans or emergency response planning in place, both for their business's health, for business continuity, and by way of the NFPA, the National Fire Protection Association, requiring any business that has the general public access, has to have some sort of a plan in place to protect the occupants of any of those structures. It's a massive market.

It touches multitudes of stakeholders that need to, or have a high desire and interest in capturing that model, and uniquely enough, everybody would like their own copy of the model, which for us means that anyone of these stakeholders, there could be a scenario where they share a link.

Anybody that's worked with Matterport knows how easy it is to share, but ultimately a carrier may want to have their own version, and what the capture partner's permission and then some sort of an agreement, a copy of the original model could be then placed with the carrier's account.

Another model could potentially be placed with a pre-planning system partner, like a PrePlanLive company.

Another copy may be shared with a contractor when they want to do remodeling to their home or add an addition or their architecture or engineer in any of those processes. So there's a tremendous demand right now, and the big story is, how do we get capture devices, you know, Matterport largely uses the term, capture ubiquity or camera ubiquity.

We don't want to necessarily have to have the Matterport camera, so we're rolling out the mobile capture option, which, think about insurance carriers, potentially putting on their app, so the State Farm app, or the USAA app that you access on your phone will have a link to cut, hit a Matterport button, and provide a low resolution, but largely usable, spherical image of their property, so we can do a proper assessment of their personal property, determine coverage for that, or that in the event that they have a small toilet overflow that causes some property damage, but it's not catastrophic and huge, but it's enough to warranty maybe a claim. You have the ability to capture that information.

- Okay, let me bring you back to down to, we talked about a space, a business, where the majority have not had documentation. They've not sent out a risk engineer to assess the property.

Let's switch gears and talk about spaces that are large enough, there's enough money involved, and the underwriter's presently sending out a risk engineer, does doing a Matterport 3D Tour, does that replace the risk engineer?

Is that in conjunction with the risk engineer? Help me understand what problem Matterport solves, where a risk engineer is presently going out?

- Currently, there's a number of providers all over the world, that provide risk engineering services, and we're seeing a huge uptake in business of them purchasing capture devices, our camera.

In addition to that, we're seeing carriers understand that because Matterport is a third party, and there's a somewhat inability to manipulate the data or the imagery, if we have that raw original model, we now have that ability for a carrier, you know if the property that we're writing a policy for has an existing digital model created, we have a great opportunity to repurpose or reuse that digital twin or that model, and carriers seems open to using that information.

Both in the strategy that I explained to you before, many carrier have that claim scenario, where the underwriting department is not in alignment with the claims department, and when renewal comes around, we're talking about software integrations as well, with some of the large software providers that carriers and some of these stakeholders use to manage their operations and work with them, and that's another area where Matterport is really about integrating our software platform to really make it accessible and easy to use for everyone that is, whether you're a capture provider, whether you're a service provider using capture technology to better document the work that you do, or you're the underwriter and you identify that a property you're writing a policy renewal for, maybe had a claim six months ago, and there is a model created for that scenario, that could then be used at the policy renewal period, the annual renewal time.

- Bring me back to, I have a business. It's a commercial space.

The insurance underwriter is sending out a risk engineer. Does Matterport 3D Tour, does that replace the risk engineer? Is that in addition to the risk engineer? What are the ... what is it the underwriter has to say? Is this saving money? Does it replace that person? Is it better documentation? Is it, I don't have to send that person out three times, as I keep coming up with questions?

- We're covering a multitude of those points in different ways. I don't believe we're going to replace risk engineers. I believe that the risk engineer who previously had travel time, and maybe can only inspect or visit two, three, maybe four properties in one work day, now might be able to see eight, 10, or 12 in one workday and not leave the office. So these higher cost resources out in the ecosystem--

- Ah, so the risk engineer could be doing their work back at HQ. They don't have to be on site. They could literally walk the space through a Matterport 3D Tour, and then also perhaps annotate it, with MatterTags for the underwriter.

- [Brandon] That's right.

- So the process continues to work, except it's a virtual site visit by the risk engineer.

- That's correct, and then as our technology is--

- So I think hearing there, is that's saving time and money or inefficiency, because if the insurance company is paying for the risk engineer, I have no idea with their an employee or separate company, but it sounds like you can do way more many risk assessments by the engineer, without having to have all this drive time involved, which you can't make that expense up. If you have somebody drive 50 miles to go to a property, and 50 miles back, that was three hours that they couldn't be making assessments on a property.

- That's right, and that's where this brings in huge value, and again, that affects everybody. That's is going to help carriers lower cost, which will make them more cost competitive and a relevant option to a potential buyer. It's going to make the workload for the risk engineer greater, which is going to be beneficial to their business and secure their place in the ecosystem.

But then a really interesting side of Matterport that I think is exciting is, is technology and artificial intelligence starts to expand, and it's doing so rapidly, our ability for object recognition and identifying objects in our scans, is going to help take the actuarial formulations and identify things like, you could imagine, fire extinguishers are pretty easy to recognize, identify type items, and if we looked at a million properties through an automated or artificial intelligence form, where a computer is scanning all these properties, looking for a large, red object with a handle on top and a black tube, and a very specific object profile, we can start to look at the way we identify property in a more cumulative matter or cumulative repository of information, to start to update and help carriers make better actuarial formulations and value of underwriting and policies, and start to really catch up 50 and 60 and 100 year-old actuarial information, to catch it up with the modern building standards in the modern risk, the risk analysis factors that are in place, as we're starting to become so much more sophisticated in our society and the way that we do businesses, here's how technology's having a very direct impact on that.

- Where do high net worth individuals show up? I neglected to tell you that I have a $10 million home in Atlanta. It's 30,000 square feet, it's three levels. I got a lot of artwork in addition to the bowling alley and the firing range, et cetera. Is that a real-world scenario for risk underwriting?

- Yeah, complex policies, private client groups, there's a number in this country that insure those types of assets, and you can imagine, that's a very real scenario and we do see a large increase in that type of asset. And we're starting to see more of that.

- Is it happening today? Are Matterport scans being used for high net-worth individuals with luxury homes, boats, et cetera, for underwriting?

- Absolutely, yes. We have some pretty impressive work that we're seeing occur with some of our customers and capture partners. I know that especially with some other--

- You have a young daughter?

- [Brandon] Do I?

- No, not you, in any of these high net-worth individuals?

- Don't tell my wife, and yes I still am 25, so.

- Yes, so absolutely, but we see this, and we see great things. Like we see the exotic Jaguar car collection, and the 20-car garage with all kinds of imagery, and it's just, it's really exciting to see things that you maybe see on TV or in movies.

These are things that are really out there and occurring and we're capturing it with our equipment and through our service providers, and strategic partners and customers that are out capturing with it.

And then it gets really exciting when we talk about things like privacy and the technology we have and those scenarios to blur faces on a photo, or blur out a license plate on one of those vehicles, or critical information of privacy issues that our technology is doing a phenomenal job of protecting individuals' privacy and giving our service providers the ability to operate in these environments with less liability to privacy issues like that.

- You touched on Matterport artificial intelligence meets Cortex to provide some interesting analysis of a space. In September of 2019, Matterport showed off Matterport Measuring Mode.

I imagine that's going to be out in 2020. There are three things that I saw in that demonstration back in September. One was for the Matterport account holder.

The person who has access to Workshop 3.0, could annotate the space with measurement. Second, could enable the user of that space to create measurements, temporarily, of that space, and then third, auto generation of measurements that automatically populate the space. It might be the measurements of the door jam, the ceiling, the length, the walls, et cetera.

When Matterport Measurement Mode comes out, presumably in 2020, and is then a commercial product, how might that be used, related to insurance underwriting and risk management, those tools?

- Well again, it's going to create the ability to, for formulations that are square foot generated based on size or volume, it's going to help establish that really well, and the ability to manually go in and capture these dimensions, especially if you're capturing, for example, high value, high net-worth art on a wall, and you need to establish, is this 24 inches by 36 inches, or you can go on and use that dimensioning tool to capture dimensions at very high accuracy.

Really interesting, what we're seeing is the accuracy of our equipment is beyond the resolution capability of many of the computer monitors that are actually viewing it and seeing it. So we're a little bit ahead of some of the optical technology I would say, to some degree, which is exciting because that makes us really relevant as we start to see high-resolution monitors like 4K plus monitors really come into play.

But then what's really, really intriguing and exciting, is automated dimensioning, when we talk about integration, when there's other strategic partners and software platforms that can automate usage of the automated dimensions and data, this starts to continue to further automate important processes, and when I think about things like, Sherwin Williams or Benjamin Moore, a paint company that want to talk about, both items like identifying popular colors maybe, in certain zip codes or certain continents to understand what the trends are, in maybe paint colors, but they're also going to maybe capture the ability with our resolution to identify paint quantities in understanding what the average home might require in terms of paint, and with the high-resolution capture identify, the texture of walls, which directly affects the amount of paint.

If you've ever painted a textured wall, versus a smooth finish wall, you know you need less pains on a smooth finish than you do on a textured smooth finish.

- Will we actually get to the point where the Matterport Cortex artificial intelligence could tease out, this is how much paint the interior of the house needs?

- Absolutely, and I don't know that Matterport's going to necessarily be the software that does that, but we're providing the mechanisms for somebody who values that to be able to do so. And I think yes, right now today, we can do that, but let's take it full circle back to insurance.

If I'm writing a policy and I'm in a home and I identify or a business, and I identify that there's a heavy Venetian-plastered texture on the walls. This is a much, much different repair issue and a claim.

I may value that policy very differently than just the square footage formulation, based on some of the finishes in that property, and that's where Matterport's AI comes in really, really handy, and it can start to recognize and send red flags up or integrate with software to be able to identify certain rule sets that are necessary. So that's where I think that gets really exciting.

- Let's switch gears a little bit and talk about capture. Who does the capture? Who's doing the Matterport scans? How does that happen?

Are the underwriters going out and buying Matterport cameras? Are they engaging individual Matterport pros? Seems like a logistical nightmare of connecting those that need a scan for underwriting with those that shoot, is there a platform or a mechanism to facilitate that?

- Yeah, capture partners, and remember you're talking to myself and Rodrigo. We're members of the insurance team within Matterport.

So we serve at large, the insurance vertical in its entirety. Both the carriers, the homeowners, and the service providers that perform both underwriting as subcontracted labor, and services during a claim scenario, for things like restoration from a fire or flood.

All of these stakeholders have huge value for this and like I said, capture partnership, and this is important. Underwriters probably are not going to purchase hardware. They're going to outsource that, and we need to, we're currently working carefully to build our Network of capture partners, and largely we have the Matterport Service Provider, MSP program.

So currently we're working very aggressively to bolster that program and create a single application to be able to serve the needs of carriers and underwriters that need capture services and utilizing our service provider Network and growing it.

In addition to that, we get into complex capture partnerships where we talk about things like personal protective equipment or PPE as we call it in the emergency and safety and the insurance industry.

But when we're in an environment that has mold or respiratory contaminants, or fire and soot and other details that are not necessarily very easy to operate in, we need to make sure that we have a capture partner Network of providers that know how to protect themselves and operate in environments and identify that they could be in a dangerous environment and recognize they may need to say:

You know what, I can't go in that room, there's been structural damage due to a fire, and because of the potential for maybe a collapse or a wall to fall down or some sheet rock on a ceiling that has suffered a tremendous amount of water damage, and is waterlogged, bogged down by weight of water consumption, could potentially fall in on the room and hurt someone." We need to--

- So let's put fire and flood damage and remediation and renovation, let's put that in a separate bucket. We did a WGAN-TV show on this topic, with your colleague Tomer. Let's focus back on the underwriting and the risk management. So, how are those scans, those Matterport 3D Tours getting done today? Are there underwriters? Help me--

- Yes, there's a number of risk engineering and building consultants in the industry right now, for that serve the industry, largely before there was a 3D twin capture capability, so they're the natural option that a lot of the carriers are going to, saying, "Hey, do you have a 360 or Matterport camera, "and can you capture this?"

And they are providing this as an additional service. Largely now, like we said before, we're only seeing 10% to 15% of the properties getting this. We now see that we have a cost-effective solution that's definitely very interesting, and desirable by a carrier.

So now we're seeing a much higher demand than the existing ecosystem of building consultants and risk engineers can fulfill in the time or the ramp up that carriers would like to capture this information. So we're seeing the need to create additional business models to expand the volume of capture partners to be able to go out and assist in this.

- So, are the risk engineers a totally separate business from the underwriting, meaning underwriters don't have their own risk assessment people? They go to a third party company, and that's the logical company to be doing the Matterport scan?

- Yeah in the U.S. alone, there's well over 5,000 insurance companies. And currently the tier one, which is like the State Farm, the Allstate, the Liberty Mutual, Nationwide, USAA, very well known, great carriers.

They are large enough to probably have their own risk and loss control teams internally, and yes, they are identifying the need to potentially get cameras or outsource the field labor portion of this, so they could manage the volume internally at their desk without having to leave the office, and then the thousands of other carriers that are out there, they don't have the in-house risk engineers or loss control teams, are outsourcing to those consultants, into those risk engineering firms that can provide those services.

The current ecosystem is probably only fulfilling 15% with the capability or capacity of maybe increase that to 20% of the policies written, so we have a huge opportunity to build Networks that can serve at a cost-effective rate, fulfilling the needs for data in field information to write those policies.

- So I'm hearing two things for the, if I heard correctly, for the risk engineers. They are either asking when someone calls for a risk engineer, would you like fries with that?

An upsell of an Add On of Matterport, or doing business development for the 85% of the business that they're not presently getting because the cost of sending out a skilled risk engineer is too high, and therefore, hey, I know you didn't call us for a risk engineer, but we now have this new solution called Matterport, and we can do it for 1/3 or 1/2 or 20%, whatever it is, of the cost of sending out. So this is business development for them, as almost a new line of business.

- Correct.

- So you have a very, you and Rodrigo sound like you have a very complex sale. You need to get the underwriters excited enough to say, "We want this, even though "they're not going to buy a camera "and not going to go necessarily book "a photographer to do this."

- [Brandon] Correct.

- Then, got to go explain to the risk engineers, that this is not gong to put them out of business. This is really an Add On for them, or a new business opportunity for the majority of properties that don't get commercial underwriting risk engineers in person.

- Well and I see an opportunity for risk engineers and building consultants, because the cost of capturing the simplicity of the Matterport methodology is very basic. And it's really a volume play so to speak.

So I identify some of these building consultants and risk engineers, also needing to tap into a service provider network that can help them supplement their people.

In addition to that, building consultants and risk engineers, even if they have a camera in their hand, they're still a very high hourly cost, even though it takes less time, so they're identifying a, what we call a scanning technician-type role methodology where they're hiring someone, maybe college or intern level that can go out and perform scans on properties, in volume, because it's a little bit of a lower to medium skilled position, but they still have limitations.

They need people in the marketplace who understand how to use a camera effectively and efficiently, and they have a need that is much much greater than they can fulfill on their own. So we have an interesting scenario today because I feel like at the price point of what Matterport costs today, even just for the software alone, there's not a lot of big competitors that really bring the high level accuracy in detain that they want.

And we're hearing this from carriers and the people who are really driving the demand for this, they really identify Matterport as the gold standard.

[Continued...]
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[Continued from above]

And to us, it's very, very exciting, and we're trying to bridge the gap between how can we provide a digital twin for every policy that's written insurance, and that's our goal and our strategy is to help facilitate an environment where we get cameras in everyone's hands that could possibly capture a scan, because we have a lotta catching up to do, in the U.S. alone, to properly capture properties that are insured. And it's our goal to capture every one of 'em.

- I mention this as a complex sale. You got to go get the underwriter excited enough to demand Matterport. You got to get the businesses that are in the risk underwriter, the risk assessment, risk engineer people to say: Oh yes, we want to offer that as a third-party service, We don't necessarily want to be in the business of providing Matterport."

So that third piece of a puzzle sounds like, there's a need for a marketplace to make it easy, fast and simple to actually book a Matterport Pro on demand. Don't know if that's the Uber model but it sounds like there's a missing piece in this equation that even if you get to the point where the underwriters want it, the risk engineering companies logically want to provide the service.

Still, somebody needs an easy way. We can obviously identify Matterport Service Providers, but I suspect, I'm just guessing that the people who are buying 10,000 scans over the course of a year, don't necessarily want to talk individually to each individual Matterport Service Provider. They need a portal platform, a mechanism.

- That's right, and that's what we want to provide is we want to be the vehicle to get those models into each stakeholder's platform that requires it or needs it.

In addition to this, one of the things that we identified earlier this year, an insurance net we're providing new at Matterport is a new licensing and certification plan that helps insure that our service providers and capture partners understand our platform in-depth, because one of the business model, well part of the business model that I think is largely being overlooked is right now we see just utilizing a camera for capture and I feel like that's only a small percentage of what Matterport really delivers.

If our capture partners are able to do a little bit more utilizing MatterTags and more information capture in the field, they're really bringing a huge value to the service that they provide, and when we talk about risk engineering and underwriting, we start talking about the ability for these folks to understand that appliances and high-value equipment and machinery may have additional documentation needs that the camera has to zero in on, or an additional still capture might be important to go capture maybe a identifier tag on a machine or think of a furnace or hot water tank in making sure that we're positioning our capture to be able to read critical information about make, model and serial numbers on equipment.

So when we talk about the service provider capture provider ecosystem that we're attempting to grow and expand in a big way, we also identify the need to provide some education guidance to make sure that we're continuing to increase the capability and help the individuals that are utilizing this as an arm of revenue producing in their business or making a business out of it in it's entirety, understand some of the unique needs and pain points that underwriters and risk engineers have or need, so that we're helping prepare those capture partners to be able to truly provide huge value and make a business of this.

- While that market place is working itself out however that gets provided, are there things that Matterport Service Providers, MSPs can do today to get business in the insurance underwriting and risk management space?

- Well certainly, I would say that if this is of interest to you, and you want to be in this ecosystem, it would go along way just to learn some of those pain points and understand there is a tremendous amount of information that can be found online.

And like I said, we're providing a certification pathway that would allow individuals to get some pretty, slightly above awareness level knowledge of what they need to be able to provide, how they need to be able to do this work safely and what they can do to really operate with Matterport and the platform at the highest level utilizing the dimension tools, utilizing deep links, utilizing some of the tools that are really important and critical to being more effective, other than just providing a capture and digital model, but actually being able to add additional supplemental value to the model they create.

- So beyond becoming proficient in all the different tools and solutions that Matterport offers, beyond getting certified in some Matterport certification program that we'll look to in 2020, what is the Matterport Service Provider, what can they do today to say, "Okay, I watched this show for an hour "and fifteen minutes, I get it, sounds exciting, "I Want a piece of this business", do they start looking up in their markets, risk engineering, insurance underwriting, do they call on their local--

- I would recommend on our website to go to our service provider page and express interest and share their information if they are not already registered with us and let us know that they're interested in serving this segment of the market and we can obviously work to keep them in the pool of capture partners that we want to provide.

I'm currently not at liberty to say a lot about what we're creating, but it's going to be pretty exciting and we're aggressively working on really building up our platform to be able to allow this segment of the business to expand exponentially. And it will be something that will have public face in-tune to share with all the current service providers,

I think they're going to like it, and I think it's really going to do a great job of serving the need of the demand in the insurance industry, but I think at large, many industries that have the use for this.

- It's very exciting, I think, you know I bought my camera in July of 2014, there wasn't, you know, I was probably one of the first that bought a Matterport camera, there wasn't a network of us. I think today there's probably thousands and thousands that equal critical mass and now it's being able to cover certainly in the United States, but how do you then efficiently match up service providers, buyers of Matterport Tours with sellers of Matterport Tours?

- So like I said, I'm not at liberty to share all because it's not complete yet, but we are looking at a global solution that makes it extremely easy for anyone that would like a professional capture to be able to nearly one click request and then immediately identify geographically providers in those locales and be able to respond quickly and help providers get good alignment with business potentially. This isn't, in the past, something that Matterport is not something that we want to say, "You're going to build business and we're going to help you "create and run a business."

That's not who we are. But we are providing a medium that has a great opportunity for individuals that both have the means and the capability to create a system that they can operate a business with. I imagine that there's a number of people that this might be the primary function of their business, but we can't make any claims or guarantees to anybody today, how this looks.

We know that the opportunity is huge, we know that we're going to try to fulfill a easy capture, a way to get aligned with that business and I know that we really value the people out there in the ecosystem, the service providers, the capture partners that we have, and we want to make sure that we continue to enable them to be successful.

- Awesome, this has been a fascinating show, I thank you both, before we wrap it up, is there anything else we haven't covered that we should talk about?

- You have anything Rodrigo?

- I think that was pretty much it.

- Yeah, we covered a lot of ground and I think we--

- [Rodrigo] Covered a lot. probably have a good couple of topics in there for the future, Dan. Any time we'd love to be on your presentation and on your show and anything that we could do to provide the insight to how Matterport is really making a paradigm shift in the way that the insurance industry operates today.

Pay close attention because the ground we've covered in the last 12 months is just the beginning. What you're going to see in the next 12 months on a global scale is going to be very, very impressive and we're excited as well what we have ahead of us.

- Awesome, I'm super excited to hear and who knew that Matterport meets insurance underwriting and risk management could be such a exciting topic.

I'm fascinated and I can be on here another hour but I know that wouldn't be fair to you, but I, at some point ask you to come back,

I'm certainly interested in this certification program and then this marketplace that's eventually coming out in 2020. I'm super interested in the Matterport Measurement Solution that was announced in September and hopefully is coming out soon. Lots of topics that we've covered today.

Just terrific, I think I have a much better handle and I think our audience has a much better handle understanding how Matterport Tours can help save time, save money, reinvent a process of how it's presently being done, disrupted in a good way. How there's all kinds of exciting ancillary things that are coming.

I mean, who knew that an insurance underwriter, maybe at a global level could say: We're going to put a stake in the ground, we're going to do 20,000 scans in the United States to make our underwriting better, and oh by the way, after we've done that better underwriting, we're going to turn around and we're going to license that content to somebody else and we're going to turn that expense into a profit center." And it sounds like we've talked a little bit about that today is actually something that's a real possibility.

- Absolutely, I think you've nailed it on the head and I think that's exactly the message that we'd like to send out and have everybody hear. We're chasing 100 millions of models and we're going to need everybody that's willing to help us get there, so we look forward to again what the future brings for all of us.

- Terrific, Brandon, thanks for being on the show.

- Thank you Dan, appreciate it.

- [Rodrigo] Thanks for having us, Dan.

- Rodrigo thanks for being on the show. We've been visiting with ... our topic today has been Matterport meets insurance underwriting and risk management. We've been visiting with Brandon Donatelli.

Brandon is the Matterport Director of Accounts, we've also been visiting with Rodrigo Abreu, whose an Account Manager at Matterport, obviously two subject matter experts when it comes to this topic of insurance, insurance underwriting, risk management et cetera.

If you missed any portion of today's show, we've been recording it, we'll place it in the We Get Around Forum by tomorrow, Thursday, December 12, 2019. For Brandon and Rodrigo,

I'm Dan Smigrod, Founder of the We Get Around Network Forum.

Thanks for tuning in.
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WGAN Forum
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Hi All,

WGAN Forum discussions tagged:

Fire
Flood
Remediation
Restoration
Insurance

Plus ...

How to be Certified: Actionable Insights Matterport Certification (AIMC)
Transcript: Matterport Insurance Claims: Flood/Fire Remediation/Restoration

Best,

Dan
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