Acend And Liberty Specialty Markets To Launch DroneInsurance.com Bringing On-Demand Insurance To The Drone Market

BOSTON, May 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Acend Inc., an insurance and technology company, and Liberty Specialty Markets, part of Liberty Mutual Insurance Group, are teaming up on a new drone insurance platform, DroneInsurance.com. By replacing paperwork and complexity with data-driven automation and user control, DroneInsurance.com is a platform that makes buying drone insurance easy to understand and convenient to purchase online.

"Insurance is complicated for drone operators. Insurance providers rely on historical manned aviation methods to evaluate drone risk. This approach has proven difficult to adapt to the dynamic way drone enterprise works, and places many operators with rigid, complex, and expensive policies," said Jason Griswold Co-Founder and COO of Acend. "The collaboration with Liberty Specialty Markets empowers us to collectively design innovative drone insurance products as well as have our policies backed by one of the world's most trusted insurance brands."

Key components of the platform:

• Platform provides coverage for all drone types, sensors and equipment.
• Baseline policies for drone assets on the ground start at an affordable cost.
• Flight coverage may be purchased on-demand to suit the customer's enterprise requirements. Whether customers require flight coverage for one day or for one year, the on-demand insurance platform provides users the control to dial up or down the policy coverages they need, when they need it.
• Includes a "Flight Saver" intelligent system that automatically looks for and applies discounts to customers who employ risk reduction techniques such as continuous pilot training, implementation of safety management and operation of more reliable equipment.
• A fast and easy to use claims portal and support center.
• An easy to use document center including the ability for a client to add Additional Insureds.
• An easy to use program for brokers.

"At Liberty Specialty Markets, we are always looking to provide risk solutions to our policy holders in new and innovative ways.  The rise of drone usage by our customers is expanding rapidly and partnering with Acend makes perfect sense to meet this increasing demand," said Mike Gosselin, Chief Underwriting Officer, Specialty.   "Here we have a chance to match Acend's market leading technology with innovative insurance products and collectively create a best-in-class solution for the drone market."

DroneInsurance.com is the first of several online products to be launched by Acend, Inc. focusing on the intersection of insurance and autonomous vehicles. DroneInsurance.com will go live in limited release and be on display for the first time at the DroneInsurance.com booth (#440) at Xponential 2017. It will move into full release across the US in summer 2017 with additional international markets scheduled to follow.

About Acend:

Acend is an insurance technology company building an insurance and risk platform for an autonomous and dynamic world. Acend's wholly owned subsidiary, Acend Insurance Solutions, LLC. division, is a licensed producer nationwide and its insurance products are available through www.DroneInsurance.com. Acend is bringing insurance tools to leverage artificial intelligence that are designed around delivering policies and rapidly managing claims for autonomous vehicles including driverless cars, robots and drones. Acend's first product to publicly launch is DroneInsurance.com. Acend is invested in by a team of entrepreneurs with strong aviation, technology and finance backgrounds. Founded in 2016, the company is headquartered in Boston Massachusetts. For more information, please visit www.DroneInsurance.com or www.Acend.io.

About Liberty Specialty Markets:

Liberty Specialty Markets offers specialty and commercial insurance and reinsurance products across key UK, European, Middle East, US and other international locations. We provide brokers and insureds with a broad product range through both the Company and Lloyd's markets and have approximately 1,000 employees in 22 offices.

You can learn more by visiting libertyspecialtymarkets.com.

About Liberty Mutual Insurance 

Liberty Mutual Insurance helps people preserve and protect what they earn, build, own and cherish.  Keeping this promise means we are there when our policyholders throughout the world need us most.

In business since 1912, and headquartered in Boston, Mass., today Liberty Mutual is a diversified insurer with operations in 30 countries and economies around the world.  We are the fifth largest property and casualty insurer in the U.S. based on 2015 direct written premium data as reported by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.   We also rank 73rd on the Fortune 100 list of largest corporations in the U.S. based on 2015 revenue.  As of December 31, 2016, Liberty Mutual had $38.3 billion in annual consolidated revenue.

Liberty employs more than 50,000 people in over 800 offices throughout the world.  We offer a wide range of insurance products and services, including personal automobile, homeowners, accident & health, commercial automobile, general liability, property, surety, workers compensation, group disability, group life, specialty lines, reinsurance, individual life and annuity products.

You can learn more about us by visiting www.libertymutualinsurance.com

SOURCE Acend