Business News: Understory, EFI Global, Shift Technology

Understory Receives Patent to Manufacture Cost-Effective Weather Stations

Understory, the weather network and analytics company, announced it received a patent for its cost-effective method of manufacturing weather stations. On the heels of its mechanical strain-based weather sensor patent, this secondary patent significantly lowers the costs of creating resilient weather sensors.

“Scientific-grade weather sensors previously costs around six figures due to components, assembly, installation, service maintenance, and the necessary layer of communication to receive data,” said Alex Kubicek, CEO and Founder, Understory. “In contrast, Understory’s method of manufacturing weather stations utilizes commoditized components that cost an order of magnitude less. With the cost barrier significantly lowered, we are creating resilient sensors that can be deployed anywhere in the world and last up to ten years in the field without human interaction.”

Understory’s weather networks are comprised of patented weather stations that form full-stack, rugged, tamper-proof, maintenance-free, precision weather solutions. These stations, with their patented solid-state technology, measure 50,000 times a second to provide research-grade hail, wind and rainfall data year round. Additionally, these measurements power a cloud-based artificial intelligence core that stitches measurements together to provide unprecedented damage understanding at every point in Understory’s networks.

With this patent, Understory is the only company capable of deploying cost-effective weather sensor technology worldwide to enable the collection of real-time and accurate weather data. Its patented, no-moving part creation method enables the collection of real-time, directional weather data at a fraction of the cost.

Understory is recreating the weather data infrastructure from the ground up. With 500 stations deployed across five major U.S. metropolitan areas, a national expansion underway to increase its sensor network to 5,000 sensors by the end of 2019, and a growing international presence. Understory is globally enabling better access to real-time, granular weather data to drive more informed decisions across industries.

EFI Global and Unified Join Forces

Sedgwick, a leading global provider of technology-enabled risk, benefits and integrated business solutions, has announced that its EFI Global and Unified Investigations & Sciences divisions will come together and operate under the brand name EFI Global. The combination solidifies EFI Global’s position as a premier global consulting firm in engineering, fire investigation, environmental health and safety, and specialty services.

This announcement follows the completion of Sedgwick’s acquisition of Cunningham Lindsey and is part of the company’s strategy to ensure its global solutions, core values and services are aligned with current and future market conditions.

The expanded operational capabilities of the combined business will mean that EFI Global can excel in its ability to provide skilled and experienced professionals and technical specialists to carry out in-depth investigations, deal with a full range of losses, and provide immediate response to clients worldwide.

Shift Technology Expands Operation to U.S.

Shift Technology, which provides FORCE fraud detection to insurers, announced its expansion to the U.S. insurance market.

The company’s U.S. operation will be located in Boston with Shift’s co-founder and CEO Jeremy Jawish working from the Boston office to help drive the U.S. expansion while continuing to oversee the global operation.

The U.S. sales effort will be spearheaded by Bradley Stoub, Shift’s newly appointed US head of sales. Also joining Shift and based in the U.S. is Dan Donovan, a veteran insurance claims and technology executive who will be serving as global head of product marketing. Stoub and Donovan are tasked with recruiting world class talent to build the U.S. team that will serve the rapidly growing Shift client base in the region, with the initial focus on expanding their existing U.S.-based data science team.

Coinciding with the U.S. expansion news, Shift has also become a member of the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud.

Shift’s FORCE has been in client production since 2014, on four continents, offering U.S. insurers a mature and proven product, providing a strong track record of Shift’s fraud detection success, and the industry’s largest fraud detection data science team. Adding to Shift’s value proposition is that FORCE has been designed to be easily integrated with the majority of claims management systems, enabling insurers to derive even greater value from their existing claims technology investments.