AIG is investing in an early-stage technology startup developing wearable devices, analytics and systems to improve worker safety.

Financial terms of the mega-insurer’s investment in Human Condition Safety were not disclosed. But an AIG executive explained that HCS fits into a larger strategy of finding new ways to help clients reduce their workplace risks.

“The technology from HC will help enable us to work with clients to make their worksites safer places for their employees and help reduce our clients’ overall cost of risk” Rob Schimek, CEO of AIG Commercial Insurance, said in prepared remarks.

Schimek added that AIG will look for other strategic partnering opportunities such as the one it forged with HCS – deals “that set the pace for mitigating and managing risks in ways unthinkable just a few years ago.

HCS, based in New York City, develops tools focused on helping workers, management and worksite owners prevent injuries. The idea is to do this using wearable devices, artificial intelligence, building information modeling and cloud computing, with a target industry client base covering manufacturing, energy, warehousing, distribution and construction.

According to AIG, HCS is conducting a number of pilots with the insurer and other “key strategic partners” to show how its technology can improve a work environment enough to reduce frequency and severity of work-related injuries.

AIG’s investment in HCS follows an initial $4 million investment with Clemson University to develop a risk engineering and analytics center focused, in part, on understanding risk and ways to reduce or prevent it.

AIG’s HCS investment announcement comes a month after the insurer revamped a committee of senior executives CEO Peter Hancock first formed in 2014 in a bid to further boost efficiency and growth. Hancock has made it a big priority to grow through innovation, though activist investor Carl Icahn has pushed back against his strategies.

Source: AIG