American Landmark Apartments is leaning into real-time weather data to help with insurance claims and work orders. The multifamily owner and operator based in Tampa and Palm Beach, Florida, is partnering with AppWork, a maintenance operations platform, to strengthen its processes to better serve its residents as well as to mitigate risks.
According to Sean Landsberg, co-founder and CEO of AppWork, weather intelligence can benefit owners and operators in two ways: when a work order is created and when an insurance claim is reported.
“Weather can play a big difference in prioritizing work orders,” he says.
The AppWork platform provides an array of maintenance functions, including work order management, preventive maintenance, and vendor management. Now it also can time-stamp the temperature and weather conditions into the workflow of a property, helping maintenance teams prioritize calls as well as providing clues into what the issue might be. For example, if a unit has a leak and it was sunny at the time of the time of the report, it could more likely be just a leaky pipe. While if it was raining at the time, it could be a different issue.
“We’re focused on equipping our on-site teams with tools that simplify daily operations and support more informed decision-making,” says Rachel Palmer, chief administrative officer at American Landmark Apartments. “When technology aligns with how our teams actually work in the field, it creates meaningful efficiencies.”
Palmer says she saw the benefits of the weather widget on the AppWork platform from a risk management perspective.
“In slip-and-fall claims, we’re routinely asked to document weather conditions for a specific date,” she explains. “Having that information tracked directly within the platform allows us to quickly access accurate data and better support our risk management and claims response process.”
Most times, site teams don’t think to record those details at the time of an event. But the AppWork weather widget records the temperature and conditions. Other features, such as wind speed, can be added. If it rains, it can also tell you how much precipitation has occurred.
With lawsuits often being filed months or years after an event occurs, the widget can retroactively look at the weather from that time and date.
“From a risk management standpoint, that capability is extremely valuable,” Palmer says. “It creates a clear, documented record that our insurance partners appreciate and rely on during claims reviews.”
Landsberg notes this adds an additional layer of detail and data. For example, a resident calls for an after-hour emergency about the temperature of their unit being too warm and the maintenance team decides it’s only 68 degrees outside and will wait until regular business hours to fix the HVAC. Four months later when the resident decides to file a lawsuit that their unit was too hot, the outdoor temperature is in the documentation.
“Before weather intelligence, how would you prove you were justified in not coming out?” Landsberg says.
Another benefit is weather events acting as triggers for work orders. American Landmark Apartments can create work orders before and after weather events, such as a hurricane.
“This technology is so new so we haven’t been able to take action yet,” adds Branden McDermott, regional maintenance manager at American Landmark Apartments. “We are playing the long game with the work order prioritization—what are the weather conditions outside and steer the service to the right hands at the right time.”
Palmer adds the AppWork program has been versatile and is easy to translate into Spanish.
“Many of our team members rely on the translation feature in their day-to-day work, and it’s been incredibly effective,” she says. “By ensuring information is clearly understood across languages, we’re able to operate consistently and efficiently without losing momentum due to communication gaps.”