Business News: Athenium Analytics, EagleView/PrecisionHawk,

September 10, 2018

Weather Analytics Rebrands as Athenium Analytics After Merger

Weather Analytics LLC, a provider of risk analysis for insurance carriers, announced significant additions to its product suite and renaming of the company to Athenium Analytics.

Additional products being introduced this fall include:

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  • A contributory database among carriers to reduce risk and improve profitability in commercial-auto insurance,
  • Advanced artificial intelligence capabilities to automate reporting of roofing and property attributes at multi-structure commercial sites,
  • Highly granular verification of severe weather events by Athenium’s teamthink product, combining the leading solution for auditing quality assurance with Dexter, the premier weather verification tool, and
  • An underwriter’s dashboard to analyze builders risk — integrating client information, third-party content and predictive modeling from Athenium Analytics.
  • The product announcement follows Weather Analytics’ acquisition of and merger with Athenium Inc. earlier this year. A new website, www.athenium.com, launched to coincide with the changes. Jake Gerber led Client Services for Athenium Inc. and now is vice president of Product Management for the combined companies.

    Athenium Analytics has offices in Washington, D.C., Waltham, MA, and Dover, NH, with a total of more than 100 employees in the three locations.

    EagleView, PrecisionHawk Partner to Offer Virtual Claims Inspection and Adjustment Processes Via Drones

    PrecisionHawk Inc., a drone tech firm, announced a partnership with EagleView, a provider of aerial imagery and data analytics for government, insurance and commercial sectors. Through this partnership with PrecisionHawk, EagleView will collect at-scale insurance claims imagery via drones by leveraging PrecisionHawk’s global network of drone pilots, Droners.io.

    The addition of PrecisionHawk’s drone pilot network will benefit EagleView OnSite Solutions for remote claims inspection. EagleView OnSite virtual desk adjustment combines imagery from multiple sources, including drones, with a variety of data analytics and reports to enable adjusters to efficiently triage claims and virtually inspect properties from their desk.

    EagleView also confirmed today its participation in PrecisionHawk’s latest round of $75 million in funding.

    NI Holdings, Inc. Completes Acquisition of Direct Auto Insurance Company

    North Dakota-based NI Holdings, Inc. announced that it has completed its previously announced acquisition of Direct Auto Insurance Company from private shareholders on August 31, 2018.

    The acquisition of Direct Auto further diversifies NI Holdings’ portfolio of products geographically, and by line as additional casualty business is introduced into the business mix. Direct Auto is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois and underwrites specialty automobile insurance in the state of Illinois through independent agents. Joe Fitzgerald, the president of Direct Auto and one of the former principal shareholders, will continue to manage the Direct Auto insurance operations along with the current staff and management team. The acquisition closed on August 31, 2018 pursuant to a stock purchase agreement dated May 31, 2018.

    Under the terms of the stock purchase agreement, Direct Auto shareholders will receive $17 million in cash. As a non-public company, audited financial statements on a GAAP basis are not available for Direct Auto. Direct Auto’s statutory surplus as of December 31, 2017 was $16 million per its audited statutory-basis financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2017.

    Philo Smith Capital Corporation served as Direct Auto Insurance Company’s financial advisor and Beermann Pritikin Mirabelli Swerdlove LLP as legal advisor. Dorsey & Whitney LLP was NI Holdings’ legal advisor in this transaction.