Cindy Picos was dropped by her home insurer last month. The reason: aerial photos of her roof, which her insurer refused to let her see.
"I thought they had the wrong house," said Picos, who lives in northern California. "Our roof is in fine shape."
Her insurer said its images showed her roof had "lived its life expectancy." Picos paid for an independent inspection that found the roof had another 10 years of life. Her insurer declined to reconsider its decision.
Across the U.S., insurance companies are using aerial images of homes as a tool to ditch properties seen as higher risk.
Nearly every building in the country is being photographed, often without the owner's knowledge. Companies are deploying drones, manned airplanes and high-altitude balloons to take images of properties. No place is shielded: The industry-funded Geospatial Insurance Consortium has an airplane imagery program it says covers 99% of the U.S. population.
in my early 20s, while struggling to find a profession, I worked briefly in insurance and got licensed in my state
It was one of the big turning points in my life, where I realized that the entire point of the system is to fuck people out of their money, and that often those people are legally obligated to pay handsomely for the privilege of being fucked.
I quit a week or two after passing the exam for my license.