Jonathan Scott, one half of HGTV's famous home-improvement duo, Property Brothers, is insistent on using technology to reduce catastrophe risk in homes.
And the insurance industry has a clear role to play as advocates, particularly in areas that are rebuilding after a major
His motivations are both professional and personal. Scott is an investor in Phyn, a provider of AI-powered water cutoff technology; he's also engaged to actress Zooey Deschanel, whose home was destroyed in the Palisades
The 100-year-old house was the second home built in the area, according to Scott, and after its destruction he set about reconstructing it to look exactly like the home Deschanel lost. He also wanted it to last through the next catastrophe.
"In rebuilding it in a wildfire zone, I didn't want it to be susceptible to the same challenges, and so I'm using a technology where there's no timber," Scott said in a keynote address at ITC Vegas on Thursday.
The technology, from RSG 3-D, came recommended to him by an insurance partner, Marsh. RSG 3-D creates insulated concrete panels that are designed to withstand natural disasters.
"It's essentially fireproof, earthquake proof, termite proof, [and] the cost is only 10% more than a traditional wood-frame home," Scott said.
The choice was obvious to Scott, but he seemed to be the only one making it. "There are 800 new homes being built around us right there; every single one is being built with wood," he said. About eight more homes switched to RSG 3-D at his urging, he said.
Scott also recommends using ember mesh and security glass to prevent embers from finding their way into homes during wildfires.
Each of these solutions comes at a cost, but could genuinely reduce the chance of major or total loss of a home due to local hazards, Scott said.
Insurance companies can play a role as advocates for these technologies, particularly in areas that are rebuilding after a disaster.
"In California we've been having a lot of insurance challenges," Scott said. "I think it's going to take the voice of the insurance industry to lead the charge and say, 'this is how we should structure the system, and the stuff that we should put in our homes to protect it.' "
In a spinoff show called Brother vs. Brother, Scott and his twin Drew saw the effectiveness of resilient home-building play out in Galveston, Texas. A month after the pair completed renovations for the show, a hurricane struck the area where they were building.
"The only two houses that were unscathed were the two houses that we renovated because we put stuff in that was specifically meant for the erosion near the ocean, hurricane [proofing] for the roof and the windows," Scott said. "Everything else was decimated."
Scott became an investor in Phyn to reduce another major cause of loss, water damage. Phyn's technology creates profiles for each water fixture in a home to compare normal usage to a potential leak. It sends its observations to an AI system in the cloud to better diagnose issues. It can alert the homeowner when it detects abnormal signals, allowing for human intervention in the case of a false positive (such as an extended shower or use of a guest bathroom), and can shut off if it gets no response.
Scott uses Phyn's devices in his own home. "It usually tells me if my kids leave a tap on in the guest house," he said. Without such a monitoring system, "that would just run for weeks because I never go over there," he said.
