How predict-and-prevent tech uses AI to avoid costly claims

To reduce the likelihood of costly losses, Nationwide and Whisker Labs are recruiting policyholders to engage in more prevention — with a healthy assist from AI.

Whisker Labs developed Ting, a sensor to prevent electrical fires, after the house of founder Bob Marshall's sister-in-law burned down from an electrical fire. 

"We had some technology from a prior company that I co-founded," Marshall shared with Digital Insurance previously. "I challenged the lead engineers and chief scientist to come up with a product to prevent electrical fires. It's a super simple plug that the homeowners plug into any outlet but don't let the simplicity of it kind of disguise the fact that it is super sophisticated."

Ting detects potential fire hazards, allowing the policyholder to take action before a fire occurs. This technology, paired with weather data and other tools, is the foundation of a predict-and-prevent program enabled by the companies' partnership.

Casey Kempton, president of P&C personal lines at Nationwide, and Bob Marshall, co-founder and CEO of Whisker Labs, shared their learnings about smart-home technology with Digital Insurance.

The following responses have been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

Can you share what kind of predict-and-prevent technology insurance companies are using?

Casey Kempton: At Nationwide, predict-and-prevent strategies focus on helping policyholders understand and reduce risk before a loss occurs. That can start with simple tools, such as weather and hazard alerts that notify customers of conditions that could lead to a claim. 

For example, Nationwide offers auto and homeowner members hail and severe weather text alerts designed to help protect vehicles and property. These alerts are sent up to 30 minutes before forecasted hail greater than one inch, giving customers time to move vehicles or secure their property.

More recently, we're seeing innovative technologies that help identify early signs of risk inside the home on an ongoing basis. These include solutions focused on some of the most costly and disruptive perils in personal lines, such as water damage and electrical fires like our partnership with Ting. By using connected devices and data models to detect risk early, we can help customers take action before a small issue becomes a major loss.

Bob Marshall: As Casey mentioned, the two most significant perils that impact property insurance are water and fire. There are now advanced technologies capable of detecting early warning signs of these types of events that are most often invisible to the human eye. Early detection and notification enables homeowners to mitigate loss from these events or even help prevent them and subsequent large insurance claims altogether. 

Ting, for example, uses AI-powered technology to detect early signs of electrical fire hazards such as electrical arcing. When hazards are detected, homeowners are notified via their smartphone app and contacted by our Ting Fire Safety team to walk through mitigation and prevention. By providing Ting for free to eligible policyholders, carriers like Nationwide are helping prevent these catastrophic loss events from affecting customers and their families. 

What kind of impact does this technology have on underwriting and claims?

Casey Kempton: Predict-and-prevent technology changes the dynamic between the customer and their insurance coverage by making risk management more proactive and collaborative. When customers actively engage in protecting their homes and their families, that can influence underwriting considerations such as eligibility, pricing and incentives. In many cases, insurers recognize this engagement through discounts or by providing the technology directly to customers because the potential reduction in losses offsets the cost.

From a claims perspective, these tools can either help prevent losses entirely or significantly reduce the severity of a claim when an incident does occur. That can lead to faster resolutions, less disruption for the customer and a better overall experience. Ultimately, this technology helps shift insurance away from being purely reactive toward a model that prioritizes protection, resilience and continuity for customers.

Bob Marshall: Beyond underwriting claims, the impact of the technology is fundamental to deliver a better experience for the customer. Of course, all insurance carriers endeavor to deliver a positive customer experience when there is a claims event. They want to take care of the customer and help them recover. Predict-and-prevent technology offers carriers the opportunity to fundamentally change the relationship with the customer for the better by helping prevent claims events from happening in the first place. Customer response has been overwhelmingly positive; they truly appreciate the idea that the carrier is investing in technology on behalf of their family and home. When you focus on helping customers stay safe, the long-term value follows. 

How do partnerships work between technology companies and insurers?

Bob Marshall: Above all, what's most important to ensure a successful partnership between a technology provider and insurer is a fundamental, shared commitment to one goal: protecting customers and preventing loss. There has to be an authentic commitment to that mission on both sides in order to have a successful partnership and move from "react and respond" to "predict and prevent." 

Casey Kempton: For insurers, partnerships play an increasingly important role in how we deliver meaningful value and protection to customers. Rather than trying to build every solution internally, carriers are increasingly partnering with technology companies that bring deep expertise in areas like sensors, analytics and customer-experience design. These partnerships help insurers to deliver advanced capabilities while staying focused on what they do best, by protecting customers and supporting them through trusted relationships.

Bob Marshall: Strong partnerships between insurance carriers and technology companies recognize and lean into each other's strengths. Carriers like Nationwide have the vital customer relationships and an agent network to reach customers, while technology companies like Whisker Labs provide the sophisticated, yet accessible, AI-powered technology that protects them. We rely on each other to meet our shared goal of protecting the customer. 

Our Ting partnership model is intentionally built around alignment. Unlike earlier industry approaches that prioritized distributing hardware without focus on activation or loss reduction, we structure partnerships so value is realized only when a sensor is activated. It's not enough to place a device in the home; it must be plugged in and actively identifying potential threats. This shared focus on outcomes ensures a stronger customer experience and a more effective, sustainable partnership.

What data can insurance companies gather from these technologies?

Casey Kempton: Through partnerships like Nationwide's work with Whisker Labs and the Ting sensor, the data we focus on is centered on understanding how the technology is being adopted and how it is helping members reduce risk in their homes. That includes insights such as activation and engagement rates, as well as whether the technology is successfully identifying potential hazards and prompting customers to take action.

Just as important, we track positive outcomes or "saves," where an intervention helps prevent or reduce a potential loss. That information is used to improve programs, support customers more effectively and encourage broader participation. Our main goal is to use these insights to promote safety, awareness and prevention for our members.

Bob Marshall: "Saves" are one of the most powerful metrics we track. At Whisker Labs, "saves" are specific to confirmed electrical fire hazards identified by Ting and resolved before they could escalate. This helps insurance carriers and their customers clearly understand the real-world impact of prevention. To date, Ting has helped prevent over 27,000 potential electrical fires across the U.S., and that number continues to grow as more carriers offer Ting to policyholders. 

What's ahead for this technology and what other areas can it be used?

Bob Marshall: I'll start with the other areas where Ting, specifically, already creates a positive impact for homeowners, carriers and communities outside of mitigating electrical fire risk. This past winter, we introduced frozen-pipe alerts to Ting. By leveraging Ting's existing temperature-sensing technology and insights from the larger sensor network, we're able to identify increased frozen-pipe risk in real time, alert customers and provide in-app insight into mitigation and risk reduction. Water damage from frozen pipes is a huge loss category for customers and carriers, so leveraging the existing technology to provide further value and protection has been an exciting, recent development for Ting, and another example of how predict-and-prevent technology is shaping insurance. 

There are also applications in grid safety and catastrophe prevention, both currently and in the future. A single Ting sensor helps detect electrical fire hazards within a home, while the broader Ting network of 1.3 million sensors provides insight into the health of the U.S. power grid. Unfortunately, it's become clear with increased demand and infrastructural complexities that the grid is stressed and it's leading to more consequences, like more frequent power outages, power quality issues, electrical fires and, in some cases, wildfires. We've partnered with emergency responders, insurers, utilities and more to provide insights from the Ting electrical safety network that will help inform how we can respond to these events and create a safer, more resilient future. As we go forward, we're hopeful that Ting technology and network insights  will help prevent some of these wildfires and dangerous events from happening in the first place. 

Casey Kempton: The pace of innovation in data, analytics, and AI continues to accelerate, creating new opportunities for this technology to play an even greater role in insurance. As these capabilities evolve, insurers will be able to identify risks that were previously difficult to see and help customers respond earlier and more effectively, not only for property risks but across personal auto, home and other lines of business.

In many ways, personal lines are now benefiting from approaches that have existed in other areas for years, including commercial insurance and health, where technology has long been used to promote safer behaviors. Bringing those concepts into the home, and onto the road through programs that reward safe driving, represents a significant opportunity to improve safety, resilience and long-term outcomes for customers.

Anything else you would like to share?

Casey Kempton: Nationwide believes insurance can do more than respond after something goes wrong. By working with technology partners like Whisker Labs, we are finding new ways to help customers stay safer in their homes and gain peace of mind well before a claim ever happens. These partnerships reflect a broader shift toward supporting customers with proactive tools and guidance, not just coverage.

Agents play an important role in making that approach work. Customers trust their agents, and those conversations are often where new ideas and tools really come to life. When agents can talk with customers about technology like Ting and how it can help protect their homes, it strengthens relationships and reinforces the value of the insurance partnership overall. Combining trusted advice with innovative technology allows us to deliver value that extends far beyond the traditional claims experience.