Description: In Texas, homeowners including Tracy Gartenmann reported warnings against insurance nonrenewals based on aerial imagery flagged by AI systems. Gartenmann's insurer, Travelers, reportedly cited overhanging trees. She reportedly spent $3,000 to address the issue and retain coverage. While the AI system appears to have functioned as intended, critics argue it lacks adequate human oversight and imposes material and emotional burdens on policyholders. Other cases reportedly involved disputed roof assessments. Companies such as State Farm and Nationwide used vendors like CAPE Analytics and Nearmap.
Editor Notes: The KUT investigation was published on 05/13/2025 and references multiple incidents from 2023 onward. The specific case of Tracy Gartenmann occurred in January 2025, while other cases involving State Farm and Nationwide span from 2023 to early 2025, based on homeowner complaints and regulatory filings, according to the reporting. See also Incident 1082 for a variant of this incident that occurred in March 2024 in California.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: Nearmap and CAPE Analytics developed an AI system deployed by Travelers Insurance , State Farm , Nationwide and American Mercury Insurance Group, which harmed Tracy Gartenmann , Homeowners in Texas and Homeowners affected by AI-assisted insurance nonrenewals.
Alleged implicated AI systems: Nearmap aerial analysis tools , CAPE roof risk scoring system , Algorithmic roof condition classification and AI-assisted aerial imagery risk assessment
Incident Stats
Incident ID
1083
Report Count
1
Incident Date
2025-05-13
Editors
Daniel Atherton
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
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 c…
Variants
A "variant" is an incident that shares the same causative factors, produces similar harms, and involves the same intelligent systems as a known AI incident. Rather than index variants as entirely separate incidents, we list variations of incidents under the first similar incident submitted to the database. Unlike other submission types to the incident database, variants are not required to have reporting in evidence external to the Incident Database. Learn more from the research paper.
