Scout InsurTech Interview with Tessi

Tessi is redefining how communities recover from natural disasters by using AI to connect survivors, funders and restoration crews in one streamlined workflow. Instead of relying on slow manual assessments and fragmented repair processes, the company uses remote scanning and automated work sequencing to match homeowners with the capital and labor needed to rebuild. Chris Luiz sat down with Co-Founder Susan Hunt Stevens to learn more about how Tessi is impacting the industry.

Who are your clients?

Our first client is Team Rubicon, the world’s biggest volunteer disaster-response organization. They deploy more than 180,000 veterans to help communities recover after hurricanes, floods, wildfires and other major events. They are using Tessi as they respond to large US-based disasters. As we move into broader commercialization, our core customers are commercial disaster restoration companies. There are roughly sixty thousand of them globally, from mom-and-pop operators to major players like ServPro, BELFOR, ATI and PureClean. Insurers are also a key stakeholder because they fund a large share of the work and could see significant savings through the automation of damage assessments and rebuild estimates as well as shortening the amount of time their policyholders are displaced. Even when we serve uninsured or self-insured homeowners, insurers and TPAs remain deeply tied to the ecosystem.

What does your product do? 

Tessi helps people repair their homes after natural disasters by connecting them to the capital and the labor required to rebuild. We use AI to scan every home affected within an incident area and automatically generate sequenced work orders. Those work orders are then matched to funding sources, starting with insurance if it exists, and if not, government programs, charities or volunteer labor. When funding is available, we match homeowners to licensed restoration crews for tasks such as debris removal, mucking and gutting, interior repair, appliance replacement and other stages of the rebuild. When a homeowner lacks insurance and has no financial capacity, we match them to volunteer crews.

On the workforce side, we increase the usable capacity of both paid restoration firms and volunteer organizations. A significant portion of their time is wasted on manual site visits, misfires, incorrect skill matches or dispatching crews without proper materials or equipment. By certifying the damage remotely, validating financial resources, and sequencing the work ahead of time, we reduce those inefficiencies and help them take on more jobs. For insurers, the platform reduces fraud, aligns payouts to actual repairs, and offers a clear view into what was damaged and what was fixed. At scale, Tessi becomes a managed repair network driven by AI

How much capital have you raised? 

We are pre-seed and piloting with Team Rubicon. We are preparing for our commercial launch in Q3 2026.

Was the company born from within or outside the industry? 

We were born outside the traditional insurance world but immediately recognized how central insurers and TPAs are to disaster recovery. Our viewpoint began with making the survivor and the restoration workforce process simpler, faster and safer. As we built the technology, it became clear that we offer significant value and cost savings to insurers as well. That realization moved us directly into the insurance ecosystem as one of the largest stakeholders in disaster repair.

What growth metrics have you accomplished over the last 12 months? 

Over the six months, we secured Team Rubicon as our first major customer and built the AI foundation that can assess homes at scale, generate repair sequences and match both labor and funding. We are now beginning conversations with commercial restoration companies as our next wave of customers. The next step is deploying with Team Rubicon, which will give us real-world throughput and immediate validation of the model to automate damage and dispatch. We will then bring in the financing and funding side.

Within your domain, what is the current challenge that the industry is facing? 

Disasters are increasing in frequency and severity, yet more households are underinsured or not insured at all. Restoration companies face slow pay, no pay and mounting financial risk. They cannot afford to dispatch crews to homeowners who may not have the resources to pay for the work. At the same time, insurers struggle with verifying damage, preventing fraud, and ensuring payouts are used correctly. Across both sides, enormous capacity is lost because crews perform manual assessments, arrive at job sites only to discover incomplete information, or chase leads that are not fruitful. The system is fragmented, slow and expensive for everyone involved.

How does Tessi take a unique approach to providing value? 

We treat disaster recovery as a marketplace problem and use AI to unify the actors. We certify the damage, identify the work to do and cost to repair, and validate the funding before a crew ever gets in a truck. That removes uncertainty for restoration companies, unlocks jobs they would normally avoid and improves their utilization rates. For insurers, we improve accuracy, reduce fraud and give them confidence that repairs were completed properly. For survivors, we streamline access to funding and repair help, whether paid or volunteer. No one else is connecting survivors, funders and labor in one workflow that optimizes dispatching, sequencing and financial matching at scale. That is why some people already describe us as an AI-first TPA, even though our marketplace model extends beyond traditional claims management.

What inspired you to start this company? 

At my last startup, we saw firsthand at several big clients the workforce impacts of trying to rebuild after a natural disaster. Even when funding exists, survivors get stuck in a maze of assessments, paperwork, manual site visits and long waits for contractors. On the volunteer side, we saw experienced teams losing nearly a third of their capacity due to inefficiencies. We believed there had to better way to accelerate recovery, reduce waste and get people back into safe, sanitary, functional homes much faster. AI gave us a way to transform the entire workflow rather than making incremental improvements.

Can you share any goals for the next 12 months? 

Our top goal is to run full deployments during upcoming disasters alongside Team Rubicon and our early commercial restoration partners. We will onboard additional restoration firms, integrate deeper with insurers, and explore partnerships with TPAs to determine where collaboration makes sense. We also plan to strengthen our AI models for remote assessment, expand the certified flexible workforce on the platform and build out optimization features that improve dispatching across large geographic areas. Ultimately, the next year is about proving our ability to scale across multiple disasters and multiple restoration partners.

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