Live from the CAT Center: Where Expertise Meets Innovation

[LIGHT MUSIC]

(DESCRIPTION)
Slide: Wednesdays with Woodward (registered trademark) Webinar Series.

The slides moves to the left, and the speaker's video appears in the top right corner. The speaker's video has the text, Travelers Institute. The slide has a laptop that displays the text, Wednesdays with Woodward (registered trademark) Webinar Series, on a desk next to a red mug with a white Travelers umbrella and a potted plant. Logos: Travelers Institute (registered trademark), Travelers.

(SPEECH)
JESSICA KEARNEY: Good afternoon and welcome. Thank you so much for joining us. My name is Jessica Kearney. I'm Vice President for Public Policy at the Travelers Institute, filling in today for our host, Joan Woodward.

Welcome to Wednesdays with Woodward, a webinar series where we convene leading experts to talk about some of today's biggest challenges. As always, just to start, a brief disclaimer about today's program.

(DESCRIPTION)
Slide: About Travelers Institute (registered trademark) Webinars. Text: The Wednesdays with Woodward (registered trademark) educational webinar series is presented by the Travelers Institute, the public policy division of Travelers. This program is offered for informational and educational purposes only. You should consult with your financial, legal, insurance or other advisors about any practices suggested by this program. Please note that this session is being recorded and may be used as Travelers deems appropriate. Logos: Travelers Institute (registered trademark), Travelers.

Slide: Wednesdays with Woodward (registered trademark) Webinar Series. Text: Live from the CAT Center: Where Expertise Meets Innovation. Logos: Travelers Institute (registered trademark), Big I (registered trademark) (Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America), MetroHartford Alliance, Master's in Financial Technology (FinTech) Program at the University of Connecticut School of Business, University of South Carolina Darla Moore School of Business, American Property Casualty Insurance Association (service mark) (A.P.C.I.A.).

(SPEECH)
I'd also like to send a huge shoutout and thanks to our webinar partners today, the Risk and Uncertainty Management Center at the University of South Carolina's Darla Moore School of Business, the MetroHartford Alliance, the Big I, American Property Casualty Insurance Association, and the Master's in FinTech Program at UConn's School of Business. Thank you for joining us today, and a special hello to all the members joining us as well.

(DESCRIPTION)
The slide presentation is replaced by the speaker's video. She stands in front of a wall with several mounted screens that display maps and charts.

(SPEECH)
So, we have a very special episode today. You may have noticed we're not in our normal Wednesdays with Woodward location. Today, I am thrilled to tell you that we are coming at you live from Travelers’ very own Catastrophe Center or the CAT Center, as we like to call it, here at Claim University in Windsor, Connecticut.

So maybe you came with us earlier this year. We had a-- this is the second series in our Claim University Webinar series. We were here earlier this year at Claim University to talk about all the training that goes into our claim teams and everything that they learn here on site. It's pretty amazing. So we're back. And today we're going to see how Travelers puts all that training to work for catastrophes with our Claim professionals.

And I want to warn you, we're coming at you completely live, so anything can happen. So let's start with the fun, shall we? So today is June 4. It's the fourth day of the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season. And this is the place where Travelers prepares to meet all of our customers' needs during and after hurricanes and other catastrophes as well.

So think wildfires, tornadoes, hailstorms, you name it, all these weather disasters demand operational preplanning, real-time analysis, high-tech capabilities and a trained, absolutely ready-to-go team. And that's what happens here. And that's what we're going to learn about today.

So we're going to go behind the scenes. Please stick around with us for the hour-- again, it's live from the CAT Center-- to meet some of the key players who are instrumental in making it all happen. So joining us today, I'm really pleased to introduce Chris Day.

(DESCRIPTION)
He joins her.

(SPEECH)
Chris is Assistant Vice President for Catastrophe Claim. Hi, Chris.

CHRIS DAY: Hi.

JESSICA KEARNEY: In that role, Chris is responsible for communications and logistics management. Chris, you've been with the company for 25 years now. And prior to working at Travelers, and we're to talk about this a little later, you actually spent six years in the U.S. Army, Colorado National Guard. Very cool experience to bring to the table here and a background that I'm sure sets you up well for your position today. So thank you for having us.

CHRIS DAY: Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. It's really a pleasure to be able to share what we do here at the CAT Center, and why we think CAT response is one of the most important things that we do as an industry.

JESSICA KEARNEY: So, I kind of teased a little bit that we're here at the CAT Center and that we're actually here in the command room of the CAT Center. And I'm sure our audience can see all the screens behind us.

(DESCRIPTION)
The screen directly behind them is the largest, and it displays a map of the continental United States. To the right and left there are several smaller screens that display more maps and various charts, including bar and line graphs. The titles and information on the graphs are not legible at this distance.

(SPEECH)
So, can you share what goes on in this room? And as families all across the country are tuning in before a major weather disaster, they're preparing their loved ones, preparing their property, what's going on here in this room?

CHRIS DAY: Yeah, maybe let me set the stage. So, imagine there's a hurricane two days out from landfall.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Yeah.

CHRIS DAY: For the U.S. coast. Everyone across the country is tuned in to CNN. They're watching The Weather Channel. It's kind of a 24/7 thing where everyone's following the news.

Here at the CAT Center, we've mobilized all of our CAT leadership. It's an intense, it's really focused experience where we're moving through the final steps in our preparation. We're meeting with the offices.

We're working through all of the final logistics plans. We're reaching out to external organizations. We're gathering increasingly detailed weather forecast information so that we can prepare for the event, and then really getting ready for that landfall.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Yeah.
CHRIS DAY: And it's not only just hurricanes, too. So, we bring this to bear across all event responses. And maybe to get us started, we've got a video, an overview video from one of our senior leaders that can take us through what we do, really, 365 days a year.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Amazing.

Let's roll the video.

(DESCRIPTION)
The video plays. Logo: Travelers. Text: Travelers Catastrophe Response. A man stands in the CAT office. Text: Patrick Gee, SVP, Property & Catastrophe Claim.

[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

(SPEECH)
- Hi, I'm Pat Gee with Personal Insurance Claim here at Travelers. We'd like to spend a few minutes showing you how Travelers makes sure we have all the right pieces in place to respond to our customers' needs when disaster strikes.

(DESCRIPTION)
Text: Planning Ahead. A man points to one of the mounted screens and gives a presentation to people seated at a long conference table in front of the mounted screen wall.

(SPEECH)
- Residual hail in Oklahoma. I think that's the most important thing we're going to watch.

- It starts with planning ahead, understanding where our customers' homes, businesses and other property are exposed to risks from large-scale weather events and other catastrophic loss situations.

(DESCRIPTION)
The center screen displays four weather maps.

(SPEECH)
We use location analytics and geospatial mapping tools to identify insured property, down to a pinpoint radius.

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The man points to one of a series of bar and line graphs.

(SPEECH)
Combining this intelligence with weather data and aerial imagery also makes it possible to identify damages quickly when events happen, often hours or days before the location is even accessible.

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A large cloud front roils in the sky over a road jammed with cars at a standstill.

(SPEECH)
But it's not enough to know what's damaged.

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Text: The Right Resources. A tree beside a house has several fallen branches and a split trunk.

(SPEECH)
A lot goes into making sure we have the right resources to help.

(DESCRIPTION)
A facility stands on a lot in the countryside. An app screen displays a File a Claim form. Call center staff sit at computers with headsets on.

(SPEECH)
Customers can reach us anytime via the Travelers app, where they can report a loss with a few clicks of a button, or through our Contact Centers, which are staffed 24/7 with Customer Care Specialists who can authorize emergency services or other temporary living arrangements. They will also assign the claim to a skilled specialist for handling and let the customer know what to expect next.

(DESCRIPTION)
The Travelers website displays a page titled, What to Expect After Filing Your Property Claim, with a Property Claim Process below detailed with icons and a list. The icons are titled, Contact Travelers After Property Damage, File Claim, Determine Coverage, Estimate Damage, Issue Payment.

(SPEECH)
Our unique loss consultation capability is designed to answer questions about coverages, deductibles and likely repair costs so that customers can decide whether it's in their best interest to file a claim in the first place.

(DESCRIPTION)
A neighborhood with destroyed houses.

(SPEECH)
When severe disasters disable local infrastructure, we are able to send in one of our mobile claim vehicles to serve as an immediate point of contact in the impacted area. These fully self-contained mobile offices can be invaluable in getting immediate help to customers who have lost everything. They can charge their phones, access our network, and even get a cold drink while we set them up with a place to stay and a funds transfer for immediate living expenses. All this activity is managed here at Travelers' National Catastrophe Center, a fully hardened facility co-located with our Claim University training facility, as well as the Travelers Risk Lab here in Windsor, Connecticut. We aggregate data feeds from across North America to understand what's happening in real time, and make sure we have the right people and strategies in place to respond to events as they unfold.

[END PLAYBACK]

JESSICA KEARNEY: All right, so that was a great overview video. And we're going to sprinkle a few more of those throughout the hour, actually let us hop all around a few different locations within the CAT Center so our audience can get a view of some of the different areas. And now, let's talk a little bit more into this room.

You gave us a good tee up. You gave us a good overview. We talked about all the screens that you see behind us. But let's dig in a little bit more to these screens, because a lot of information coming at us. What's going on here?

CHRIS DAY: Yeah, so terrific question. I'd say it actually starts behind the wall.

JESSICA KEARNEY: OK.

CHRIS DAY: So behind these screens, we've got computers, servers, all of the technology that drives real-time information for us to use in the event response.

(DESCRIPTION)
He gestures to a grid of nine screens to the right of the large central map, then nine screens on the left side.

(SPEECH)
So broadly, if you think of that side of the room as claim volume, information about what's happening on the ground, this side of the room is dedicated more towards claim handler availability, what's happening as we prepare for the event.

And putting them together allows us to make real-time decisions that much faster.

(DESCRIPTION)
He gestures to the large central map screen.

(SPEECH)
So if you think about it, you've got real-time weather. So this is the actual, current severe weather forecast. This is current radar loop from the National Weather Service.

We have incoming call volume. We have claim handler availability, even tuned in to social media. So we can interact with all of those. We can bring any one of the screens up and interact with it.

We can connect anyone from across the desk. They can connect in. We can share their content. And we can connect with-- in a conference call situation with those on the ground, with the claim handlers who are responding to the event, bring them into a teleconference mode. We have two cameras, so we can either share what we're seeing on the wall, or we can share the room content as we're communicating around the country.

It's all in control. This is the heart of the operation. These are-- these two controllers allow us to switch content and interact with any of the content, so we can move the screens around and interact with them live from these controllers.

JESSICA KEARNEY: So truly a command center where you are taking all this information off of all these screens and really using it to make decisions, really quick, fast-acting decisions.

CHRIS DAY: Real-time decision-making, exactly.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Right, right. So I have the opportunity to take a look at some of these screens, some of the things that you were telling about. And I wanted to share. Let's break down a few of them for our viewers today, because it's really fascinating to see what you're looking at. So first, weather notices. Seems very obvious that you'd be tracking the weather. But can you tell us a little bit about how you get that data?

CHRIS DAY: So, we're connected in with-- to the actual real-time management information that's in our claim systems. That's pulled into graphical displays that we can see in multiple different configurations.

(DESCRIPTION)
He points to a line graph on the upper left titled, Weather Notices for the Last 7 Days.

(SPEECH)
This, for example, this is the last seven days of weather.

We're looking for trends in weather. We're looking for how the claims are reported, where we're seeing information. When we look at it broken out in different ways, we'll see regionally what's different with the weather or by one of our claim offices. We look at longer trends as well, so we can pinpoint what's happening and respond to events that much faster.

JESSICA KEARNEY: That's great. And one of the things that you just mentioned was social media. And I think this is just a really interesting layer of this. So you have catastrophe sentiment. Tell us more about that.

CHRIS DAY: Oh, yeah, the one that's right behind you there. 

(DESCRIPTION)
He gestures to a screen on the lower right with a horizontal bar graph titled, Sentiment Around Catastrophe Mentions. It is listed for the last 7 days, and has type of mention color coded in the key. They include Hail, Hurricane Monitoring, Tornado, Wildfire, Earthquake.

(SPEECH)
So we track and compile real-time social media information. So if you think every post that has to do with a tornado or hurricane, aggregate that together, and we look for trends within that. So think about it this way. There is an expected number of mentions of the word "tornado" within a given Wednesday.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Yeah.

CHRIS DAY: If we see a spike in that or a change in the sentiment, are people more or less concerned about those combination keywords, then we have a leading indicator to know that there's something going on. We can then go in and focus, be able to do additional analysis on that. Doesn't predict the weather better than our folks do at this point. But it does give us some sense of what our customers are feeling, what they're going through on the ground.

And so a good example of that, for instance, was a few years ago, there was a power outage event in Texas. And the power was coming back on after the event. And we saw a spike in power outage sentiment and negativity out of Austin, Texas.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Mm-hmm.

CHRIS DAY: And so we were able to understand that something was going on there. We dug into it a little bit more. And what was happening was that the power restoration was lagging in Austin, well behind what was going on in the rest of Texas. And, to put it bluntly, the people in Austin had had it.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Yeah.

CHRIS DAY: They were mad at everybody. They were mad at the weather. They were mad at the utility companies. And so what we did with that information is that we adjusted the number of claim handlers we were sending in.

We knew that those customers had a lot on their plate. They were dealing with this aggravation of multiple days of power outage. And everyone who's had a power outage knows how, just it's amazing, you rely so much on electricity. We don't have it for several days, you just realize how much we rely on it day in and day out. And so by adding that additional capacity, it gave our claim handlers time to spend with the customers, interact with them.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Have that personal back and forth.

CHRIS DAY: Provide that personal, empathetic back and forth with them to understand that, so that they could have the space to be able to then discuss what happened to their property and start that recovery path more effectively given that additional space for the customers.

JESSICA KEARNEY: That human element, that emotion, that's so important. And I know we're going to talk about that in a number of points still in the hour to come. But that's such an interesting way to get at that feeling. It's fascinating.

You also talked about call volume. Obviously, that's an important one to be able to plan. So can you tell us about that?

CHRIS DAY: So, the incoming call volume, so our partners, our call center partners-- it's CCS, those are our notice centers. We get a feed for their call volume in real time. So we understand what's going on. And they are-- talk about empathy, they are the first empathetic contact that our customers have.

Our customers have had damage to their home and their business. That being able to take that first notice and connect with them, provide that empathetic response, gather the information we need to be able to assign the claim to the right claim handler. We want to understand what type of claims we're getting in, how quickly they're coming in, where they're coming from. We get all of that information from that feed from our call centers. And then we use that to drive the response, and really to drive the assignment of the claims and the escalation of the claims throughout the day.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Which ties into another screen I wanted to ask you about, which is deployment status.

CHRIS DAY: Yeah.

JESSICA KEARNEY: So all of these things are feeding into where are you sending people and when. So can you talk a little bit about that?

CHRIS DAY: Exactly, so maybe the best one to show might be our CAT team deployment status.

(DESCRIPTION)
He gestures to a screen on the far left with a horizontal bar chart.

(SPEECH)
So this is the real-time availability and deployment status for everyone on our CAT team. And they are the first line of our response.

So you heard in the video, and maybe everyone heard in the video, we don't send catastrophe claims to independent adjustment firms, to third-party adjusting firms. We handle every catastrophe event, and we assign our claims to our own staff. And the CAT team is the first layer in that response.

As events get a little bit bigger, we leverage the capacity of our claim center offices and will deploy property staff around. But what really makes us different is, especially from the rest of the industry, in large part, that does rely on sending blocks, maybe tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of claims to independent adjusting firms after large catastrophe events. That's where we have cross-trained thousands of Claim professionals from other lines of business so that we harness the power of all 13,000 people in our Enterprise Response Strategy--

JESSICA KEARNEY: Maximum flexibility, yeah.

CHRIS DAY: --to be able to respond to every event that we have. And I mean, everyone in the industry is trying to do a great job in CAT. And to a large part, we do. I mean, it's where we really come together.

But what we believe is that over the last 20 years or so, that the traditional model of being able to send those large blocks of claims to the independent adjusting companies to be able to handle during the large CAT events doesn't really meet the needs fast enough for the customers, when all of the carriers are calling on that capacity all at the same time for those largest events. And so, for that reason, we haven't sent any claims to independent adjusting firms in CAT event response since 2006.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Wow, OK. Yeah, so that's a really critical point. And I think that means also that our adjusters know us inherently and our culture and who Travelers is and has that background. That's great.

So it seems like there's so many very intentional things that are coming together here, the strategy and the tactics here at the Command Center and the CAT Center, you're also co-located here at Claim University, which is our training facility for Claim professionals. And I'm sure that's intentional as well. So can you talk about that?

CHRIS DAY: Exactly, that is no coincidence. We're co-located here for several reasons. One is, if we're going to use all of our own staff in our event response, the first step in that process, to make sure they have the right expertise and specialization to handle every file. And as we saw in the first webinar, that's what they get here at Claim University, from the time they're a trainee all the way through their career, as they continue to gain experience and training in more complicated claim files.

Secondly, we can leverage the on-site training capabilities we have here to do real-time, just-in-time training and orientation for those CAT events.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Yeah, crossover.

CHRIS DAY: We can increase the velocity with which we orient people to the specifics about the CAT event. And then, it's just a really big place, too. It's 100,000 square feet of flexible space. We have all of the conference rooms. We have all of the meeting rooms and the auditorium spaces and classroom spaces that we can convert to claim handling offices if we need to. And so, in the largest events, I mean, we have hundreds of people here.
So Superstorm Sandy, that was about 100,000 claims for Travelers.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Yep.

CHRIS DAY: And we had several hundred people here at the CAT Center. They're working claims. They have their manager.

We have our training staff that are helping them. They're going through training and orientation. They're working with customers.

We, in fact, had Thanksgiving dinner for all of them. I mean, they're here, we're responding to so many claims for the time period that we have everyone responding, that we're not sending them home, unfortunately, for holidays. But we're continuing right through that process to meet the customers' needs.

JESSICA KEARNEY: That's fantastic. And I'll just mention too, if you want to get more detail on Claim University, that webinar, one that we did in this Claim series, we'll drop it in the chat so you can take a look at it and get a full sense of what Chris was just talking about. So I want to get to this question.

I mentioned, I teased in the beginning that you have the background in the Army and the Colorado National Guard. How has that combined experience really helped you every day on the job here at Travelers? I want to dig into that a little bit because I think it’s important.

CHRIS DAY: Well, thank you. Yeah, like many in the audience and probably across the industry, I didn't start off in insurance. I did start my career with the U.S. Army.

I was with the 10th Mountain Division in Fort Drum, New York. And then I transitioned to the Colorado National Guard. I think the leadership training in the military is uniquely advantageous in our industry, especially in CAT response.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Yeah.

CHRIS DAY: So the way I think about it is a relentless discipline around mission and execution. And I would organize it this way. So I used to teach it this way. It's like, drill your standard operating procedures or your SOPs until they're automatic.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Muscle memory, yeah.

CHRIS DAY: Muscle memory for that so that they just happen automatically. Then plan the mission to the smallest possible detail that you can, but then execute the mission with maximum flexibility and resilience, because the first thing that's going to happen is it's all going to change from the plan. And so that flexibility allows us to do that.

When I came to the National Guard from active duty, I didn't know exactly what I was going to do. Then I heard about what we do in CAT response as an industry. And I was like, well, that sounds like what I want to do. So then I had the opportunity, I got on with Travelers, I was able to get onto the CAT team, and I was six years as a claim handler and unit manager.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Mm-hmm.

CHRIS DAY: I did some time as a Regional Manager in the Upper Midwest before, in 2006, coming here and joining the leadership team in this current role where I, like you said, do more of an operational role and logistics, communication, coordination, vendor services. And then I coordinate all of the shared services across the organization that support us in a CAT event.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Well, thank you for sharing your background with us, Chris. That's good color into where you're coming at this position from. So you talked a little bit about how you bring in the military strategy and the tactics and your SOPs.

Walk us through a timeline in this room. What happens in the days leading up to a hurricane or some other weather event? And how does that timeline look like?

CHRIS DAY: Sure, well, let me start with this. And I'll say, it starts with watching the weather.

(DESCRIPTION)
He taps a button on a keyboard and the grid of screens on the left change from graphs to weather maps. They focus on hurricanes.

(SPEECH)
So you hear about the supercomputer weather models in hurricane season mostly. We've come into that.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Yeah.

CHRIS DAY: So the U.S. model says the hurricane is going to go to North Carolina. The European model says South Carolina. So these are views of that. This is the European model. That's the NOAA GFS supercomputer model, the U.S. model. That is the 16-day view of the Atlantic hurricane basin forecast.

We also look at thunderstorm activity. This is potential atmospheric energy. That's an indicator of thunderstorms. You have then surface winds. So we're looking for different types of perils, different types of impacts across all of the country, out to as far as 14 or 16 days into the future.

Those models are updated about every six hours. And so we then start the process of looking for potential events. When an event looks imminent, maybe six days out, we kick off our timelines. And we have specific timelines that drive us towards-- or that follow specific steps. More than 200 in our hurricane response that follows through that.

As the forecast develops and we get more information, we move further down. And then the event happens, and we move into the execution mode and the response. And then we move into what happens five or six days after. And then, eventually, we have steps that go through the demobilization and how we go back to the normal operations.

JESSICA KEARNEY: And we actually have meteorologists here on the team at Travelers.

CHRIS DAY: We do. Our Enterprise CAT and Enterprise Underwriting, that team, we have staff meteorologists. I think, my personal opinion, some of the best in the industry actually work right here at Travelers.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Yeah, yeah, they're great. So I know we've been talking a lot about the technology and the data. But what does it actually-- we're talking about the timeline. What does it actually feel like to be here in the room during those key moments?

CHRIS DAY: So after the response, it's sort of a building intensity. We're understanding what's going on. We're evolving our understanding. We're running the development models. We're seeing how many claims we're going to get.

That's leading us to the deployment decisions, the response decisions and what we're going to do logistically. And all of that is building up. We're running multiple teleconferences from here at that point. And then, we're working directly with the impacted offices so we can figure out exactly what their needs are and what we need to do to deliver a response to meet the needs of the office, the employees and the customers.

JESSICA KEARNEY: So that we're able to help others.

CHRIS DAY: Exactly.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Yeah, yeah, and so we talked about coordinating with our teams. But who are you coordinating with externally?

CHRIS DAY: Good question, external organizations. So think departments of insurance.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Yeah.

CHRIS DAY: So, I am the liaison for disaster response to all 50 department of insurance. We have vendors, external, that they have responsibilities back to us. And we're providing information to them about the response.

And then, State Departments of Emergency Management, through our partnership with the NBEOC with FEMA, that's the public-private partnership with FEMA. They have ability for us to connect with Department of Transportation. We can get gas availability from Department of Energy. And all of that feeds more data, more information about what we need to do for the logistical response.

JESSICA KEARNEY: That's great. One thing I'm wondering, maybe just a quick response on this one. What is the difference in a weather event that you can see coming a few days in advance versus one where you have no foresight?

CHRIS DAY: Yeah, that's a really good question. For a hurricane-- so I talked through that timeline. We call that a chronological timeline. So it starts six days out.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Yeah.

CHRIS DAY: We do everything in one day, and then it's five, and then four, and then three. At the end of each of those days, we do a checkpoint to see what we've accomplished, what we need to plan for the next day. For sudden events, we organize the timeline functionally.

So each group or each team has a set of tasks that they need to complete. We do the tasks simultaneously across all of the departments. When all those steps are done at the end of the day, we've done all of the preplanning and response steps all in one motion.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Terrific. All right, so I have to get to technology because we've got some cool technology that helps us respond to our customers after a CAT event. Let's hear about that.

CHRIS DAY: Yeah, so we've made a sustained investment in technology. I'll highlight a couple of them. And then we've got a video I'll tee up that we can go to some more.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Yeah, great.

CHRIS DAY: So let's talk first about some of the geospatial technology.

(DESCRIPTION)
He taps a button and the left grid and large central screen both display a gray map of the continental United States with green streaks in the Midwest.

(SPEECH)
So we get feeds from multiple weather sources. And we pull them in to understand the impact of events.

So for example, for hail, we get a feed from every Doppler radar station in North America. It's turned into an overlay that shows us where every hailstone fell.

(DESCRIPTION)
He points to the green streaks on the left grid screen, which zooms in to show clusters of yellow and blue dots and spots of yellow and orange within the green. The map is titled, Geospatial Analytics, Hail Dashboard.

(SPEECH)
We have-- this is a storm that happened in North Texas a couple of years ago.

Everywhere that's green is 1-inch hail. Everywhere that's orange is 3-inch, yellow is 2-inch. Every orange dot is a commercial building we insure. And every blue dot is a home that we insure.

So within an hour-- so we get this feed every hour. Within an hour, we know exactly which of our locations are potentially impacted. We know where we're going to put hotels.

(DESCRIPTION)
Clusters of red dots appear, mostly over the yellow and orange spaces, with some in the green and surrounding areas.

(SPEECH)
We can start the process of figuring out how many claim handlers we're going to need, because we have models to run the number of claims we expect to get out of the event. And then, when the claims come in, that's the red dots, since we know the type of damage associated with each storm, we know the type of Claim Handler we're going to put in. More severe claim handlers into the area where there's 3-inch, then less severe damage, higher work standard, we can get through a lot of claims in that tight area.

Then, for larger events, we'll layer in high-resolution imagery.

(DESCRIPTION)
He taps a button and the map changes to an overhead neighborhood view. The screen is titled, Geospatial Insight. Catastrophe Map Viewer. It goes from a before to an after view, showing damage to buildings.

(SPEECH)
So, what we can do is we've captured high-resolution imagery of nearly all of our insured locations across North America. So we can use that information on every claim, no matter what happens. But after an event, we capture high-resolution imagery for wildfires, tornadoes, and we can identify post-loss, we can identify total losses and partial losses, often before the evacuations are even lifted. And that gives us a head start on responding to the event.

JESSICA KEARNEY: So technology leading to super actionable insights that we can act on. So just really quickly, how quickly can we see what happens to a customer [INAUDIBLE].

CHRIS DAY: No, good question. So we get these images about 24 to 36 hours. It depends on cloud cover, smoke cover. So it'll vary. But we move instantly into the analysis.

And so, as soon as we get the imagery back in, we are understanding exactly which of the locations are damaged. And we run the full models. But maybe we can go to a video right now and show maybe how we bring a lot of that technology together and not only respond to the event here at the CAT Center, but also the technology we have in the hands of the claim handlers, that they can use to adjust the losses.

JESSICA KEARNEY: That sounds great. Let's roll the video. We'll see you on the other side.

[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

(DESCRIPTION)
A video plays. Text: Revolutionizing the Claim Process. A man walks down a street with storm damage and debris. Another man measures a spot on the side of a house. A mobile Travelers office RV is parked in a lot.

(SPEECH)
- Our Claim employees' commitment to being there for our customers is inspiring.

(DESCRIPTION)
The speaker stands in an office. Text: Jim Wucherpfennig, VP, Property Claim.

(SPEECH)
And Travelers is committed to giving our Claim professionals innovative tools to help. In fact, over the past decade, we've revolutionized the Claim professional's toolkit and capabilities.

(DESCRIPTION)
Text: Drones. A man in a Travelers Catastrophe Response Team jacket uses a drone to examine a damaged building.

(SPEECH)
We were the earliest insurer to use drones for damage inspections. And today, we have one of the largest commercial drone fleets in the entire United States. We partnered with the leading drone operations risk management and flight planning provider in the industry, all to make it easy for our Claim professionals to know when and where they can fly.

(DESCRIPTION)
Another Travelers team member flies a drone up to a house roof.

(SPEECH)
Drones matter because they keep our Claim professionals safely on the ground instead of up on roofs. And they enhance the quality and speed in which we can respond to our customers.

(DESCRIPTION)
Text: High Resolution Aerial Imagery. A neighborhood is pictured from above.

(SPEECH)
In addition to drones, we use high-resolution aerial imagery that can help us start the damage assessment process even before we get to the area.

(DESCRIPTION)
3D models of houses and diagrams appear. Text: Images courtesy of EagleView (registered trademark).

(SPEECH)
This can be a game-changer in scenarios such as after wildfires or hurricanes, where authorities close entire towns for weeks at a time.

But

(DESCRIPTION)
Signs block a road with a landslide and broken asphalt.

(SPEECH)
aerial inspection tools are only the start.

(DESCRIPTION)
Text: AI Powered Applications. A man in a living room points a smartphone slowly around the walls. He takes photos.

(SPEECH)
We also use artificial intelligence-powered applications that can turn a series of smartphone photos into automatic and accurate measurements for both interior and exterior damage.

(DESCRIPTION)
The man sits in his car and examines his laptop, which displays the photos and analysis data.

(SPEECH)
This data automatically populates our estimating software, eliminating hours of manual measurement and data entry for our claim professionals.

(DESCRIPTION)
The Travelers website displays a Property Claim number L.J.Z. 2 0 3 9, on the File a Claim page. The claim page has spaces to upload photos and check messages. A user uploads files to the claim.

(SPEECH)
We make it easier for customers to communicate with us throughout the claim process, over the phone, via text or through the Travelers mobile application, and our secure portal, where they can message their Claim professional and share documents.

(DESCRIPTION)
A smart device photographs damage under a staircase, in a bathroom ceiling, and in a bedroom with a broken ceiling and debris on the floor.

(SPEECH)
We can even complete a virtual inspection live with the customer through our Virtual Visit platform.

And finally, a customer's claim is not always over when we issue payment.

(DESCRIPTION)
A bulldozer works on a construction site. A man installs a window. A team works on a house roof.

(SPEECH)
It's only over when the damages are repaired. So we can help them connect to a network of certified and reputable contractors. All of these innovations remove work and save time and enable our Claim professionals to focus on what really matters, providing the empathy and support for our customers in their time of need.

[END PLAYBACK]

(DESCRIPTION)
Travelers Claim professionals chat with customers at their claim sites. Some of them smile and hug. The video ends.

(SPEECH)
JESSICA KEARNEY: All right, and we're back.

(DESCRIPTION)
She walks through the CAT office past rows of cubicles.

(SPEECH)
And in that video, we just saw how Travelers uses innovative technology to prepare for and respond to a weather event. And now we're going to take a little bit of a different approach.
We're going to talk about the people part of that equation, which is a really important component, of course. And to do so, we've taken just a few steps out of the command center. And we're here on the floor with our Claim professionals at the National Catastrophe Center.

(DESCRIPTION)
She walks up to stand between two men.

(SPEECH)
And joining us now to talk about CAT and Claim workforce are Joe Balog and Major Ramsey. Thank you both for joining us.

MAJOR RAMSEY: Thank you.

JOE BALOG: Absolutely.

JESSICA KEARNEY: So, Joe, you lead the Workforce Management team, as we mentioned, a really critical part of this entire equation. And you're actually responsible for deploying people to events. We talked a little bit about that with Chris in the command center. So if we have a theoretical hurricane about to hit the Gulf Coast of Florida, what are you and your teams busy doing?

JOE BALOG: Yeah, and I appreciate the opportunity to speak a little about behind the scenes of responding to a CAT event. Our team is, first and foremost, following the CAT event timeline. That's our roadmap. So our Workforce Management Analysts are reaching out to the impacted claims centers. And we're trying to understand some on-ground insights that may help pave our deployment package as we plan to respond.

JESSICA KEARNEY: And 16 claim centers across the country?

JOE BALOG: There are 16 claim centers across--

JESSICA KEARNEY: Yep.

JOE BALOG: Yep, absolutely. So the other thing we're trying to do is understand their local strategies and how can we support that with our CAT response. And to do that, we need to understand how many people do we have available.

And it starts with our CAT team. So we've got reports that we run on a daily basis. It tells us who's available and for how long. If you're not available, when are you coming available, so we can layer you into our response.

JESSICA KEARNEY: And you can leave at a moment's notice.

JOE BALOG: Exactly.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Yeah.

JOE BALOG: And we know that every single day throughout the year, not just when we're preparing for a large event. The second layer of our response is we are looking at those 16 different claim centers. And we're calibrating capacity across the place, down to the individual level, so we know which offices may have a little bit more capacity to support an event versus an office that may not at this particular time.

And those folks are placed on an alert roster. And the offices have a certain percentage of their outside staff on the alert roster, ready to go, minimum 16 days, traveling into an event within 24 hours. So this is no surprise to those folks who volunteered to be on that roster.

And then, thirdly, we look at our Enterprise Response Strategy. So those are folks that Chris outlined from other lines of business that's got a little bit of a property skill set to handle those lower severity claims, giving us some capacity for our core--

JESSICA KEARNEY: All the flexibility that's baked into the system, yeah.

JOE BALOG: Absolutely, absolutely. So at that point, we're also looking at hotels. As we know, during catastrophe events, hotel availability can become very limited very quickly. So being proactive in that approach is crucial to our response.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Yeah, it's not the first thing that comes to mind, but it's really important. You got to have a place to stay.

JOE BALOG: Absolutely, absolutely. So at that point, this storm is now making its way towards landfall. We're working with our analytical team. They're providing projections for us.

Now we know how many people we have available for at least our initial wave. And we're matching that up, accompanied with that local office's capacity, and taking that up against our projections, and how many people do we need to send in within that 24 hours. And our team is issuing deployment instructions. And at that point, those folks are moving within 24 hours. And now it's execution time.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Yeah, so a really critical part in logistics that go into the whole piece. So, Major, I want to bring you in. So you lead claim handling here. And in this hypothetical example we were just talking about with the hurricane, what are you and your teams working on?

MAJOR RAMSEY: So our Claim professionals and managers here, as you see many of them behind us and around us today, are typically handling resolution claims from prior catastrophe events, which would include our customers who are starting to engage contractors to get the repairs started. They'll send in their estimates for our team to review and provide further guidance to them on the next steps in the process. As well as those customers who have now gotten the repairs done, they'll send in their final invoices for our team to take a look at and analyze and issue a final payments and close the loop on their claims. But the team quickly transforms into escalation mode in the immediate aftermath of an event like this.

JESSICA KEARNEY: I bet, yeah.

MAJOR RAMSEY: Yeah, so it's very much a team effort. So I want to talk about our escalation process a little bit and how we respond to our customers' needs. So, much like Chris talked about, it starts with the planning and prepping so that we make sure we have an adequate number of Claim professionals available after hours, during the day and on the weekends to support our customers and all the calls coming in.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Yeah, 24/7.

MAJOR RAMSEY: 24/7, and they work with Joe's team to help triage claims for timely assignment. And then, during the calls, as they start to come in, we focus on the empathetic communication, understanding the stress and the challenges that our customers are currently facing.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Yeah, it's a high-stress moment.

MAJOR RAMSEY: Very, very high stress, a lot going on. So our Claim professionals really take the time to listen to our customers and understand their needs. And then we weave in the technology during the call. So the geospatial imagery that Chris mentioned earlier.

JESSICA KEARNEY: That was incredible.

MAJOR RAMSEY: Incredible, and also, our video inspection capabilities gives us a lot of information to understand the full scale and scope of the severity of the damages in the affected areas. And then we can then take those and give our customers a little bit further guidance in regards to what vendors they may need to engage, such as mitigation or emergency services for those customers who have water in their homes and need to get that taken care of, or tree service vendors for our customers who have trees on their home and pose a threat for further damage.

JESSICA KEARNEY: I imagine those all can be in short supply when you're going into an area like that.

MAJOR RAMSEY: Absolutely, time is definitely of the element during these events to get these vendors out as quickly as possible to support our customers, and then, also, additional living arrangements for those customers whose homes are uninhabitable. Again, Joe talked about the hotels and everything. That's very important to make sure we can get our customers taken care of in the immediate aftermath. And then we also spend the time to make sure to walk them through how the rest of the claim process is going to work out. That includes talking to them about their policy, how it may respond, any applicable limits and deductibles.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Mm-hmm, all important pieces. And I guess one question I have as we're hearing both of your input here, what does it take, what are the qualities that it takes to be on a Claim Catastrophe Team that you have to be ready to go at a moment's notice? What does it take?

MAJOR RAMSEY: Very good question. So we get individuals from all different backgrounds, at all different stages in their career and in their lives. So experienced Claim professionals, as well as individuals who are new to the industry, property claim, and then, also, individuals who are starting a second career. Chris is a prime example of this.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Yeah, great example.

MAJOR RAMSEY: He gave a great detailed example of his background. And then, this facility here, we will bring everybody in for extensive training. If you were able to tune into the prior webinar, you got a chance to see a virtual tour of this great facility and all the resources that are available to our employees. So we make sure to give them the technical skills that they're going to need to encounter any type of claim that they're going to see out on their deployments.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Yeah.

JOE BALOG: And it's not just the expertise within-- it's certainly important, the claim expertise. But it's the resiliency, their adaptability, and really, the heart behind the work they do. These are folks that, at a moment's notice, are traveling to a challenging environment, unpredictable environment to help others in their time of need. So I'd like to introduce you to Erika, one of our CAT team unit managers, and listen to her as she explains what a day in a life of a CAT rep is.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Great, let's go to it.

[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

(DESCRIPTION)
A video plays. Logo: Travelers. In black and white, we drive across a bridge.

(SPEECH)
- I really enjoy being with people. And I enjoy the fact that I get to help people on a daily basis. I absolutely love what I do.

(DESCRIPTION)
The speaker talks to a group in an office. Then she sits for an interview. Text: Erika S. Claim Unit Manager, Catastrophe Response Team, Travelers.

(SPEECH)
My name is Erika. And I'm a Unit Manager at the CAT team.

(DESCRIPTION)
She packs a water dispenser and an instruction booklet into a plastic tub. She packs a suitcase.

(SPEECH)
The catastrophic unit, we basically handle claims that result out of a catastrophic event. The CAT team comes in to support that claim center.

It's been really exciting since I started because I've been able to travel all throughout the country, helping the customer at their time of need. You want to be prepared. And you want to make sure that you're ready to go. But you just never know when.

Is it now? Is it going to be tomorrow? Or is it next week?

(DESCRIPTION)
She closes and zips up her suitcase.

(SPEECH)
Honestly, I think that's how life is anyway. So I think it just adds to the adventure and makes it more exciting.

(DESCRIPTION)
Text: Jamaica Queens, New York. She walks down a corridor with luggage.

(SPEECH)
- You're all packed and ready?

- Yep, pretty much ready to go.

Now I'll be going off to El.

(DESCRIPTION)
She hugs a woman standing in front of a home.

(SPEECH)
They've been experiencing some heavy rain and some heavy wind. 

(DESCRIPTION)
She uses a laptop to check a message titled, Hotel Update: CAT Deployment to the North Texas, and then the title blurs.

(SPEECH)
Yesterday morning, I got my deployment notice. So I made my travel arrangements for that.

And then, now I can see my team who's going to be deployed out with me.

(DESCRIPTION)
She rides through neighborhoods and a downtown area, then gathers her suitcases after the car parks.

(SPEECH)
So I sent an email out to everybody, just saying, hey, we'll talk more next week after we do our orientation. And then we can just talk, just talk our CAT talk.

[LIGHT MUSIC]

(DESCRIPTION)
She takes her luggage into an airport. Then she drives through a city.

(SPEECH)
So, we're in now El Paso.

(DESCRIPTION)
Text: El Paso, Texas. A building features a mural of a man with his fists raised to the sky.

(SPEECH)
You're not going to find a better group of people in terms of their dedication to be able to service the customer, because they truly do care.

(DESCRIPTION)
Text: Claim Corps. She meets with a group around a table with laptops. They drive through the area.

(SPEECH)
So, we are on our way to our first inspection.

(DESCRIPTION)
They park in front of a home and speak to the people inside.

(SPEECH)
The thing that I love the most about being in the field is that I'm able to connect the voice with the face. They know a little bit about me. I know a little bit about them.

(DESCRIPTION)
A man points out ceiling damage and she takes notes and sketches a diagram.

(SPEECH)
So now when they call me, and they say, hi, this is so-and-so, I know exactly who they are.

(DESCRIPTION)
She photographs a building. A man on a roof pulls up a tarp. The team chats with the owner inside, then they use a drone to check a rooftop.

(SPEECH)
They think that the adjusters are there just to save money for the insurance company. And every time somebody would say something like that, I would just stop them dead in their tracks and say, look, I'm going to handle claims the way that I hope that somebody would handle a claim if I were the customer.

(DESCRIPTION)
She points out a ceiling corner and they take a picture.

(SPEECH)
And they can see that, oh, you're not big insurance company. I'm just Erika. I'm just a person handling your claim.

(DESCRIPTION)
She sits next to a claim team member and they use a laptop. She checks her notes and diagrams.

(SPEECH)
There's lots of things that we do really well here at Travelers. And there's lots of things that makes us special at Travelers. But I think it's the people, really, that makes us special.

(DESCRIPTION)
She laughs with her team gathered around a table.

(SPEECH)
Yeah, the best thing about what I do is being able to help people.

[LIGHT MUSIC]

(DESCRIPTION)
Text: Claim Corps. Pursuing our promise to care through science, data and heart.

Logo: Travelers. It's better under the umbrella (registered trademark). Text: Home. Auto. Business. Insurance. Visit travelers.com/claimcorps. The video ends.

[END PLAYBACK]

(DESCRIPTION)
The speaker stands outside with another woman. Behind them there is a Travelers RV and a Travelers Claim Response Team van.

(SPEECH)
JESSICA KEARNEY: All right, and we're back. I hope you enjoyed the video. That really takes a look at what it takes to be on the CAT Response Team. A little of what Joe and Major also shared with us. And those folks do some really amazing work.

We've moved locations again. We are outside. And we've got some interesting things behind us, the Travelers CAT vans, which we're going to hear more about, and which also made an appearance in our first webinar on Claim University.

So if you joined us for that program, you might remember us talking about the CAT van.

(DESCRIPTION)
The Travelers RV has an awning spread out over a table with a Travelers tablecloth and folding chairs, and the Text: Mobile Claim Headquarters, 1 800 Claim 33, www.travelers.com on the side.

(SPEECH)
I'm just going to tease. We're about to go inside the CAT van in just a minute. So you get to come on inside with us.

But now I am joined by Travelers Vice President for Claim Catastrophe, Joanne Carmody. Joanne, thanks so much for being with us. You lead Development and Execution of Strategies for Catastrophe Response and Workforce Management. And I'd love for you to tell us and our audience a little bit more about your role here at Travelers.

JOANNE CARMODY: Absolutely, well, talking about the great work that our teams do is one of my favorite things. And so we've heard about the 400 people on the CAT team, the 16 claim offices, all of the planning and coordination. And so, really, my role is to make sure that there's clarity around who's doing what, that there's really, really strong communication and really good cooperation so that everybody is able to execute for our customers, ultimately. I think one of the most important things I do is understanding where there are barriers, where there are things that are going to impede the mission that Chris talked about, understanding that finding ways to remove those barriers or minimize those barriers, and just making sure that everything can run as smoothly as possible in a fairly complex environment.

In terms of my background and experience, I've been in the insurance industry for more than 25 years. I've been with Travelers for more than 20 years. I started my career as a claim handler.

I've had a number of leadership roles. Most of them were in Canada. Actually, all of them until this current role were. About three years ago now, my husband and I relocated to Connecticut for this role specifically. But way back at the very beginning of my career, I spent several years as a catastrophe claim handler.

JESSICA KEARNEY: So you've seen every slice?

JOANNE CARMODY: I have. But that time out in the field, working with customers, being there when they needed us the most, that really stuck with me. And so that's why, having this opportunity, working with this team-- we heard Erika's passion come through for helping the customer.

That's not unique to Erika. That really permeates the entire team. And so that's something I absolutely wanted to be a part of.

JESSICA KEARNEY: That's amazing. Thank you for sharing that with us. You oversee everything here, including the deployment of these CAT vans behind us. So tell us what's happening when one of these huge vans rolls onto a site or rolls into an area where they've just had a major weather disaster.

JOANNE CARMODY: Absolutely. So what you see behind us, we have the large Mobile Claim Office here on my right, the smaller quick response vehicle on the left. These are just two of our fleet of vehicles. We actually have four of each. And they are strategically placed around the country so that they can respond quickly wherever there is an event.

We will use them for insurance villages that a department of insurance will organize, where all of the carriers go. We typically tend to use the large vehicle for that. We can also position them at agents' offices, if an agent's been impacted, a large commercial customer, if they've been impacted.

We use the quick response vehicle to get closer to our customers on the ground, right onto the streets that have been impacted. So really, a variety of uses. They are mobile offices for us.

They're fully equipped. We can conduct our business, we can meet customers and take new claim notices right from the van. We can answer any of their questions. We can give them a claim check if electronic funds aren't the right solution for them. So it's a very flexible tool in our toolkit.

And I think about the California wildfires from earlier this year. And obviously, they were devastating for the communities of Altadena, Pacific Palisades. But I think about the role that these vehicles-- and we had one of each. In that event response-- played in helping the coordination between the local office, the CAT team, our large loss partners, claim handlers from around the country. But why don't we hear from two of our Southern California office leaders about how the event went and how these vans played a role in that response.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Great, let's watch the video.

(DESCRIPTION)
A video plays. We fly over neighborhoods burnt mostly to the ground. Charred rubble and debris, blackened trees, and burnt-out shells of cars fill the lots.

(SPEECH)
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

- Something sort of magical happens out of these terrible disasters. And

(DESCRIPTION)
A woman stands in front of the Travelers response van. Text: Kristina Encinas, Property Claim AVP, Southern California, Diamond Bar, CA.

(SPEECH)
our team really feels it. And they feel it personally, because their peers and their colleagues are impacted.

So they're willing to go above and beyond to be there for their peers, the customers, the company.

(DESCRIPTION)
Travelers staff walk through the debris with customers. The van drives down a street with burnt lots on either side.

(SPEECH)
We saw a lot of people just volunteering to deploy out, deploy locally, stay an extra hour, work weekends to make contacts, attending insurance resource events on the weekends. So our employees really rise to the occasion when these types of significant events happen.

(DESCRIPTION)
A man takes photos inside a home. Another man uses a drone outside. The speaker stands in front of a burnt home with only the chimney standing. Text: Paimon Banani, Claim Regional Vice President, Southern California, Diamond Bar, CA.

(SPEECH)
- Then at enterprise level, we met and conferred and made sure that we had all the appropriate resources in place and that we have people there for our customers. So that was a lot of organizing. We had tremendous support from our product partners, who really led the efforts with various organizations and departments in coming together, making sure phone calls are being answered.

(DESCRIPTION)
We move in close to a burnt house from above. Travelers staff talk to customers on burnt lots. The Travelers response van drives down the road.

(SPEECH)
We're reaching out proactively, utilizing our technology and notifying people who may have their homes impacted and are there for our customers. It was a real all-hands-on-deck approach from our catastrophe partners, making sure that we had those resources available, our major case was available and had adequate staffing to come out and handle some of these large losses, locally, that we were properly staffed in the LA area.

(DESCRIPTION)
Travelers staff photograph the damage. People in hazmat suits walk through the rubble. The Travelers response van drives through burnt-down neighborhoods.

(SPEECH)
We also pulled resources from other local territories. And our Mountain West partners also were available to handle claims for people that were impacted by evacuation orders, or maybe they were renters and all their items were gone. So it was really across multiple offices and multiple partnerships.

(DESCRIPTION)
Red Travelers umbrella. The video ends. The speakers stand inside of the RV, which has wood paneling, tile floors, and several work areas.

(SPEECH)
[END PLAYBACK]

JESSICA KEARNEY: OK, so as promised, we are now inside the larger of the two CAT vans. We're going to talk a little bit about what goes on inside the vehicle. And that video you just saw shows you the teamwork that goes into a response.

And now we're going to show you the CAT vans that go into the response and how it really brings it all together. So, Joanne, can you give us a little tour around the van? What are we seeing in here?

JOANNE CARMODY: Absolutely, so I think I referred to this as a Mobile Claim Office. And you'll see in here, it really is. We have four workstations that allow four of our Travelers employees to work with individual customers simultaneously.

(DESCRIPTION)
The workstations have office chairs and laptops.

(SPEECH)
We have a private room in the back behind that door. It's a small boardroom area. And it really allows us to have some of those more challenging conversations.

Customers have had total losses, or they've lost their homes, they've lost their businesses. And they really just need a place where they can tell us about their experience, maybe tell us about their evacuation or their time waiting out the tornado, and just really giving them a space to do that that's private and separate, so that they can then start to be positioned to move forward with their claim. Really, telling their story is the very first part of that. And I can actually think about being in this particular van, more than 10 years ago, after a wildfire, and sitting in the back and listening to a customer talk about all of the sports memorabilia that they lost and what it meant to them.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Yeah.

JOANNE CARMODY: And that was what they needed in the moment. They didn't need instruction. They didn't need information. They just needed to talk. And so being able to be there and listen, this van has tons of great technology, but it's the conversations that really matter.

You'll see we have TV screens in here so that we can continue watching the weather. We can also stay connected with local news so we know what's going on on the ground where we're deployed. We have charging stations. Often, if there's no power, this gives customers a great place that they can come in, charge their device.

JESSICA KEARNEY: So important, right? So important.

JOANNE CARMODY: In a world where we're so connected and we rely so much on our mobile devices, being able to come here and get that power, and more important than just the power, these vehicles are satellite equipped. So in the event of a storm, telecommunication systems may be down, being able, not only for us to work and continue working, but for customers to be able to connect in and talk to people who want to make sure that they're OK. So that level of connectivity just really goes a long way to setting the event up.

We also have other amenities, like air conditioning, a fridge with water, a bathroom. So really gives customers a place to get out of the elements, come in, sit down and start their claim process.

JESSICA KEARNEY: That's amazing. And you talked about the private conversations in the back and how often those are had here. And I think about our business partners, the independent agents and brokers who are also having those conversations with folks who've lost their homes and other possessions.

And you even mentioned outside that sometimes the CAT van goes directly to an agent or broker in various situations. So I know we have many agents and brokers on the line watching us today. Can you talk a little bit about what this all might mean for them?

JOANNE CARMODY: Absolutely. So when I think about our agents and brokers, I think about our Travelers goal of being an indispensable partner to them. And so one of the things that goes into that is some of the technology that we looked at earlier, that post-event imagery that we then run the damage detection models against, and we have a good sense of what is damaged, how severe is the damage. But our agents have access to that information, too. So they can proactively understand how their customers have been impacted, which of their customers have been impacted and start to really advocate for them.

So I consider that to be a big part of our partnership. But I also think about a number of the other things we've talked about. So the fact that we handle our claims internally, with Travelers employees.

And that, I think, delivers a more consistent outcome. The agents know what to expect when there is an event and one of their customers who's insured with Travelers has a claim. And that repeatable, consistent experience, I think removes some of the uncertainty.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Yeah.

JOANNE CARMODY: And when you think about, we're in the business of risk, I'm hoping that that really instills confidence in our brokers.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Yeah.

JOANNE CARMODY: I think the last thing I think about is the Travelers promise. So our Travelers promise is to take care of our customers, our communities and each other. So from the customer standpoint, we're insuring potentially one of their largest assets, their home, their business. And we're here to help them recover after an event.

In terms of our communities, we invest in the places where our employees work. We invest in academics, and really trying to have thriving neighborhoods. And lastly, taking care of each other, so making sure that our claim handlers, when they're out responding to these events, that we're taking care of them, because the CAT team really is a family. And I'm hoping that all of that combined really gives those agents confidence when they're placing business with Travelers.

JESSICA KEARNEY: That's terrific. And as I think about the things that we've talked about over the last 45 minutes or so, so we have the technology, we've got our highly trained teams, we've got incredible assets like this, the CAT van. So at the end of the day, when you think about all those things together, what does that mean for our customers?

JOANNE CARMODY: Well, I think for our customers, they get the benefit of that 13,000-person Claim organization that pulls together in an event. They get the benefit of all the planning and the operational experience. And really, I think one of the key things is the speed to execution.

So we're very quickly identifying people to deploy. We're very quickly triaging the claims and making sure we're getting the right claim to the right person, making sure that we can quickly contact our customers, get out and do the inspection, and get money into their hands, because often after an event, resources become a little scarce.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Yeah, very important.

JOANNE CARMODY: There's a supply-demand issue. And so being able to get our customers as close to the front of the line as possible is really important for us. So we think what we do in a CAT event and how we do it matters. But why don't we hear directly from some of our customers who've been impacted by an event and experienced Travelers response?

(DESCRIPTION)
A video plays. Text: Delivering On Our Promise. A woman in a Travelers shirt takes photos of a home's exterior. A man does construction in an attic. Travelers staff and customers talk, shake hands, and hug. The speaker stands in the CAT office.

[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
(SPEECH)

- At Travelers, we understand that catastrophes are not an interruption to our business, they are a critical opportunity to deliver on our promise to customers. That's why we built an organization designed to be resilient, resourceful and ready to respond with science, data and heart when our customers need us most.

(DESCRIPTION)
A man stands in front of an industrial area.

(SPEECH)
- There is no questions on whether we'd be looked after or not. We had enough money to get us through from Travelers.

(DESCRIPTION)
Cars drive down a road past a pile of storm debris. Boats and docs on a pier are destroyed.

(SPEECH)
The only time we have to shine is in a situation like this. It's all hands on deck. And we all need to put our best foot forward.

(DESCRIPTION)
A woman stands in front of a house with a tarp on the roof. Travelers staff examine the roof with her.

(SPEECH)
- Working with Travelers has been excellent. They have been prompt. They have answered our questions, been friendly. They put us at ease and gave us the information that we needed.

(DESCRIPTION)
A man stands in front of a damaged home.

(SPEECH)
- I have never been treated with such integrity and wanting to help me and help the tenants in my properties to get back to a normal life as quick as possible as Travelers Insurance did.

(DESCRIPTION)
A couple stands in front of a pile of rubble.

(SPEECH)
- We've already got a check, set us up with a place to stay. Everybody wants to know, who is that? It's Travelers.

[LIGHT MUSIC]

(DESCRIPTION)
Logo: Travelers. Text: Learn more at travelers.com slash claims slash capabilities. Illegible disclaimer information appears at the bottom of the screen. The video ends.

[END PLAYBACK]

(DESCRIPTION)
The speaker stands in front of the CAT screen wall again with the first and final guest speakers.

(SPEECH)
JESSICA KEARNEY: All right, and we're back here in the command center. And I've got Chris and Joanne here. And we thought we would wrap up our hour with a few presubmitted questions from our audience. You guys game for that?

JOANNE CARMODY: Absolutely.

JESSICA KEARNEY: All right, good. So I've got a few questions here. First one we wanted to cover, Gerald wants to know, what would you say is the biggest technology innovation in the CAT area in the past few years?

JOANNE CARMODY: That's a tough one because there are so many. But I think about drones. I think about our 900 drone pilots who are fully licensed, who have done more than 200,000 flights.

That's 200,000 roofs that they haven't climbed. They're kept safely on the ground. That's been a huge change. I think about the fact that they can show the customer directly, as they're doing that drone flight. They can look together, the customer and the claim handler, where is there damage, is there damage?

JESSICA KEARNEY: Mm-hmm, game-changer.

JOANNE CARMODY: That's a big step forward. I also think about taking digital images and turning them into measured diagrams. We used to have to have every single claim measured by hand. Takes a long time, not exactly 100% consistent.

JESSICA KEARNEY: That's a few clicks on the smartphone, right?

JOANNE CARMODY: Eight photos gives you a fully measured diagram now, that is consistently accurate. So that's a big step forward, too. I don't know. Chris, what would you say?

CHRIS DAY: Well, I'd add geospatial, so everything from analyzing the potential policyholders that could be impacted, overlaying the storm footprints as the event response happens, and then post event, which customers have the most damage, layering in the imagery, identifying total and partial losses, escalating claims, identifying claims for virtual handling. All of that really leverages the power of that geospatial understanding. Really, a picture is worth a thousand lines of Excel, may be the way to put it that way.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Yeah, and you gave us that great demo at the beginning of the program.

CHRIS DAY: Yeah, exactly.

JESSICA KEARNEY: It was really fascinating to see. All right, so our second question, Terry from St. Paul wants to know, what has been the biggest challenge in handling CAT events?

CHRIS DAY: So I'd say the difference. Every CAT event is different. And you have to approach them differently. Every hail event is different from the next one. There's no two tornado events that are the same, every hurricane, wildfires.

So, having a model that allows you to flex and respond and handle those differently is critical. I think that's a place where we've got an advantage then. Using all of our own people gives us, I think, more flexibility.

It's our own managers. It's our own staff. They're out there giving us the feedback about what's happening on the ground. We then put that into the response, adjust what we're doing so that we really customize each response for the customer needs.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Yeah, that's great. And you have all the processes that you need to be able to respond.

CHRIS DAY: Right from here, yeah.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Right from here. All right, so last question, Ryan from New Jersey wants to know-- this is, I'm sure, on a lot of people's minds-- will the future of catastrophe claim handling have a larger emphasis on using AI or focus on the in-person claim handling?

JOANNE CARMODY: Absolutely, that's a timely question. AI is on everybody's mind. I think I would say, at Travelers, we are committed to continuing to invest in the training and the tools and the technology that will help our claim handlers deliver the Travelers promise. So is that likely at some point to contain AI? Probably. We don't know exactly what that will look like. But we're also going to continue to make an investment in all of the tools so that claim handlers can continue to deliver empathy, build rapport, all of those other really important things along the way.

JESSICA KEARNEY: Terrific. Chris, Joanne, the hour has flown by. Thank you so much.

CHRIS DAY: Thank you.

JESSICA KEARNEY: To both of you, to Joe and Major for joining us, to all of your teams for welcoming us here into the CAT Center, and to everyone on the line today who stuck around with us for the hour. It was a really fascinating conversation, and I think makes me feel good that we have all this in place. So thank you very much.

(DESCRIPTION)
The slide presentation reappears. Slide: Wednesdays with Woodward (registered trademark) Webinar Series. Text: Take Our Survey. Link in Chat.

(SPEECH)
All right, so as always, we're going to drop a survey in the chat. So please drop us a line. Let us know what you thought about today's program. And also, let us know about some topics that you'd like to see coming up in the future. We read all of those and would love to hear from you.

And I'll just take a minute now at the top of the hour to preview some of the programs we have coming up, beginning with an in-person program next week, June 12.

(DESCRIPTION)
Slide: Cyber (registered trademark). Prepare, Prevent, Mitigate, Restore. Logos: Travelers Institute (registered trademark), Travelers. Text: In-Person Events: June 12: Houston, TX, Cyber: Prepare, Prevent, Mitigate, Restore (registered trademark). Register: travelers institute.org.

(SPEECH)
Our team is actually going to be on the ground in Houston. So if you're in the Houston area, please join us for lunch.

We're going to do a free cybersecurity education symposium. We'll bring in perspectives from across sectors to help you better understand how to increase your organization's cyber resilience. So you're definitely going to want to check that out.

(DESCRIPTION)
Slide: Wednesdays with Woodward (registered trademark) Webinar Series. Text: Upcoming Webinars. July 23: Recruiting Your Rising Stars: The Insurance Industry's Emerging Talent. July 30: Cargo Theft: Rising Frequency, Sophisticated Methods and Protecting Our Supply Chain. Register: travelers institute.org.

(SPEECH)
And then we have two webinar programs coming up in July that we'll hope you'll join us for. On July 23, we're going to look at emerging talent. We know this is a huge issue for those in the insurance industry, in risk management and beyond. So how do you recruit your rising stars?

We're going to hear from Travelers Personal Insurance President Michael Klein, who sits on the board of Gamma Iota Sigma, which has chapters at universities all across the country of students going into insurance and risk management. We're going to hear from Dr. Bob Hartwig, who heads up the Risk Center at the University of South Carolina's Darla Moore School of Business, and Denise Perlman from Aon. So lots of insights there into what the next-- what the upcoming talent is looking for in their employers. So please don't miss that one.

And then we'll close out the month, on July 30, we're going to be talking about cargo theft. So if you are in the insurance business on the commercial side, looking at fleets, looking at supply chains, this is going to be a really, really fascinating conversation that we'll hope you'll join us for, again, on July 30. So again, a huge thanks to our Claim organization for having us here today.

(DESCRIPTION)
Slide: Travelers Institute Risk & Resilience. A podcast microphone icon. Logos: Travelers Institute (registered trademark), Travelers.

(SPEECH)
Thank you for joining us. And I hope you have a great rest of the afternoon.

[LIGHT MUSIC]

(DESCRIPTION)
Slide: Wednesdays with Woodward (registered trademark) Webinar Series. Text: YouTube, Watch, travelers institute.org. Linked In, Connect, Joan Kois Woodward. Podcast icon, Listen, wherever you get your pods.

Logos: Travelers Institute (registered trademark), Travelers. Text: travelers institute.org.