Consistent 360° jobsite documentation lowers a builder’s risk profile in two ways an insurer can actually price: it helps teams catch hazards and installation errors while they are still cheap to fix, and it produces a time-stamped visual record that settles claims faster when something does go wrong. That combination is why carriers have started treating capture programs as an underwriting input rather than a nice-to-have.
Reality capture is moving construction risk management into a new era, and OpenSpace is increasingly recognized by the insurance industry. OpenSpace won the 2023 PropTech Breakthrough Award in its insurance product category, and carriers including AXA XL, Travelers, and Shepherd reward builders for using the platform.
Why do insurers care how a jobsite is documented?
Insurers price what they can see. A project with a consistent visual record is easier to underwrite, because loss patterns surface early and disputed facts become checkable, which narrows the range of outcomes a carrier is pricing against. This is a different argument from safety compliance. It is about the quality of the evidence available at the moment something is questioned.
A partnership with Shepherd grants OpenSpace customers access to its Casualty Pro excess liability offering, providing qualified contractors with underwriting credits and improved coverage on their Shepherd policies based on their OpenSpace usage. A conversation with Shepherd CEO Justin Levine covers how the insurance industry is shifting to keep pace with reality capture.
How does OpenSpace Capture build the record?
The record is a byproduct of walking the site, not a separate documentation task somebody has to be assigned. That distinction matters for insurance purposes, because a record that depends on someone remembering to document has gaps at exactly the moments it is most needed.
Using OpenSpace Capture, builders attach a 360° camera to a hard hat and walk the site as normal. Once the video from the walk uploads to the cloud, OpenSpace’s computer vision stitches the imagery together and pins it to the floor plan, creating a trusted visual record of site status. Powered by the Spatial AI engine, an immersive digital replica of the jobsite becomes available shortly after upload, and users can virtually walk through the site from anywhere as easily as using Google Street View.
How does consistent capture lower a builder’s risk profile?
The gains come from catching conditions earlier rather than from any single feature. Missing toe boards, improper railings, and pooled water are all visible in a capture and can be assigned before the next shift, and the same imagery gives QA/QC meetings something concrete to review instead of relying on recollection. Across a full project, that shortens the window between a condition appearing and someone owning it.
OpenSpace customers typically carry a lower risk profile because they can build with greater certainty and catch potential safety issues and costly mistakes before they happen. Capturing jobsites consistently gives builders the insight to make informed decisions about safety, along with documentation that minimizes disputes and increases accountability.
That steady stream of field evidence is what turns construction risk management from a preconstruction exercise into something teams can act on while the work is still in front of them.
| Risk area | What the visual record shows | Why it matters to a carrier |
|---|---|---|
| Site conditions | Housekeeping, guarding, and access on any given day | Hazards get addressed before they generate a loss |
| Installation quality | What went in behind walls and ceilings before closure | Fewer defect claims and less destructive investigation |
| Weather and catastrophe | Site state immediately before and after an event | Adjusters can compare conditions without a site visit |
| Scope and schedule disputes | Time-stamped proof of what was complete and when | Fewer disputes escalate into litigation |
Carriers writing larger civil and infrastructure projects also reward teams running drone construction site monitoring progress, since the aerial record makes safety patterns visible across the whole site at once.
How does 360° documentation speed up a claim?
A claim moves at the speed of its evidence. When an adjuster can see a space before and after an event without scheduling a visit, the fact-finding stage compresses from weeks into days. The condition for that is a record captured on a fixed rhythm throughout the build, since documentation assembled after an incident carries far less weight than documentation that already existed when the incident happened.
The visual documentation that 360° captures provide gives safety and project teams the transparency to collaborate efficiently and look back in time at the state of a project before and after an incident or weather event. Builders can share that documentation with claims adjusters to build a comprehensive picture of which items were on-site and what the actual conditions were at any point.
Having the right imagery can reduce the need for inspector site visits, help avoid disputes or litigation, and support a clearer accounting of site conditions at the time of loss. Builders who keep construction dispute records current throughout the build see the biggest swing in outcomes, since a record assembled only once a claim lands has nothing to compare against.
For fire protection contractors, that visual audit trail is especially critical because sprinkler and piping installations are hidden behind drywall within weeks, and without a captured record there is no way to prove what was installed correctly.
When Hurricane Ian hit the west coast of Florida in 2022, OpenSpace customer DeAngelis Diamond produced captures showing the insurance adjuster exactly what the space looked like before and after the storm. Within a month of landfall, DeAngelis Diamond was back to work because the adjuster was comfortable with the documentation. The company’s Chief Administration Officer and Project Engineer tell the full story in this on-demand webinar.
Builders using OpenSpace deliver projects faster and reduce the risk of trade partners falling behind schedule. When Suffolk deployed OpenSpace on a 53-story residential tower, the company accelerated delivery by one month and kept all of its subcontractors on schedule. The case study covers that project in detail, along with other ways Suffolk has benefited, including improved accountability and transparency.
The bottom line for loss ratios
The insurance industry is recognizing that OpenSpace mitigates project risk and improves loss ratios. Captured imagery and automated progress tracking simplify the claims process by creating transparency throughout the build, providing indisputable visual documentation, and safely accelerating delivery. We are here whenever you are ready to explore the benefits of OpenSpace.
Frequently asked questions
Does using OpenSpace guarantee a lower insurance premium?
No. Credits and coverage improvements are set by individual carriers and depend on their programs, your loss history, and how consistently the platform is actually used across projects. The capture record is evidence a carrier can price against, and it is the underwriter, not the software, that decides what that evidence is worth.
How far back does the capture history need to go to be useful in a claim?
Usefulness comes from continuity rather than volume. A record that starts at the beginning of the affected scope and runs on a fixed rhythm through completion answers the questions adjusters ask. A handful of captures taken after an incident rarely does, because there is nothing earlier to compare the current state against.
Who shares the captures with the adjuster, the general contractor or the subcontractor?
Usually whoever holds the policy being claimed against, which means it varies by project. On a GC-run capture program the general contractor typically exports and shares the relevant views, while a specialty contractor capturing its own scope shares directly. Agreeing on that before a claim arrives avoids a scramble in the middle of one.
