Tracy Gartenmann had no idea the company that insured her home against wildfires, hailstorms and high winds was also spying on her.
Until she got an email.
In January, a representative for Travelers Insurance emailed Gartenmann to say the company would not renew the policy she’d had on her home in Austin for more than a decade.
Trees had edged too close to her roof, a company representative said, endangering the home. How did they know? Attached to the email were two photos from above Gartenmann’s house. The representative said they had gotten the sky-high images from a third-party company.
“I thought it was a scam,” said Gartenmann. Once she realized the email was real, her reaction changed: “It felt like an infringement on my rights.”
KUT News spoke with homeowners, industry experts and insurance watchdogs, and reviewed hundreds of pages of complaints and state filings. Documents obtained through public records requests confirm that insurers in Texas are using aerial photos taken by satellites and aircraft to determine if they want to keep insuring homes.
Prescient story to run into just after the strongest storm I’ve ever experienced rolled through. Thankfully, the warned 3" hail turned out to be marble sized where I’m parked. But the rain was absolutely insane, and 60mph winds in a van isn’t fun.
Of all the truly scummy things insurance companies do, this kinda sounds like the least worst. It seems akin to periodically checking your driving record for auto insurance.
That’s valid on one level, except your driving record is an objective measure of your interactions with traffic infractions. Aerial photos are very much subjective – and the determination is being made by automated systems, which inherently can only be objective. Wrong tool for the job.
When I bought a new house, the insurance company sent an inspector to check the outside. Trees, roof, siding, nothing inside but the basics outside.
We had to trim a tree back because they didn’t want it overhanging the roof at all. Annoying, but relatively minor. They want to minimize their payout, which makes perfect sense. Part of that is making sure the homeowner takes care of the property.
Hmmm, I’d see it more like them flying over your car and following you to see first hand your driving rather then the record. Only because they are getting the most upto date into.
Still isn’t invasion of privacy because public filming. It’s just dirty