Welcome to June. The Atlantic hurricane season starts today, and the World Meteorological Organization has a list of names ready to assign to this year’s storms that reach sustained winds of at least 39 mph.  

• Markets: After a strong April and May, the three major stock indexes enter June at record highs. Investors expect Iran war developments and Friday’s jobs report to help shape the coming weeks.

US military is guiding commercial ships through Strait of Hormuz, per officials. Anonymous federal officials who spoke with the New York Times said that the US military has guided nearly 70 commercial ships through the strait in the last three weeks, though they would not identify what kind of ships were assisted. The sources said most vessels turned off their transponders to make “dark” passages, so that they would not have to get permission from Iran or pay a toll to make the crossing. While last week the US seemed close to making a deal that would reopen the strait, officials said yesterday that President Trump requested a revision to the framework his team negotiated.

• A United flight bound for Spain had to return to Newark Airport after an active Bluetooth network named “BOMB” was allegedly discovered on the plane.

Staying strong and up today

Answer to today's trivia question: Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia

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Insurance, not assurance

In the outlet’s analysis, the five biggest home insurance groups—Allstate, Farmers Insurance, Liberty Mutual, State Farm, and United Services Automobile Association (USAA)—didn’t pay out on more than 44% of claims resolved last year. That’s up from 36% in 2015. Some of the reasons why include:

• New risk-assessment methods. Traditionally, insurers based underwriting on historical data—what has happened—but are increasingly using predictive models—what they believe will happen—to set premiums. The use of drone footage to calculate a home’s “risk score” is also driving up costs for some customers.
• Reinsurance costs. The term essentially refers to insurance for insurance companies, and those prices have increased, too.
• The rise of extreme weather. A report produced by the Treasury Department last year found that the number of weather and climate disasters causing more than $1 billion in damage increased 5x from 2018 through 2022.
• Covid-19. Yes, really. Experts say that pandemic-era supply chain snarls and insurance companies’ losses from them continue to be a hidden driver of price hikes.

But insurance companies want you to know…that people aren’t super good at filling out claim submissions. Several insurers said that the rise in claims filed by text or through an app has led to more submittals that aren’t up to snuff.

A USAA spokesperson said that the WSJ’s number-crunching did not account for “losses below a deductible, claims not pursued by customers, or claims later reopened and paid.” With those accounted for, he said, fewer than 6% of USAA claims were denied.

Zoom out: In a Pew Research Center survey of homeowners conducted in March, 42% of respondents said that home insurance premiums have increased by “a lot” over the past few years. Since homeowners insurance is required to secure a mortgage, the ramifications impact consumer spending, the housing market, and more.—HVL

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AI training app Shift is giving away professional home cleanings to people who live in New York City…as long as they let the company record the process and use the data to train the next generation of autonomous robot housekeepers. Because, despite all of the hype around it, AI still needs more help cleaning our clocks.

Dirty work: If you’re worried your home is too messy, don’t. Shift calls them “challenging cleaning environments” and says they’re especially useful. Take that, mom.

Scrubbing data

According to Shift, since the first-person footage will be used to train up the next Rosie Jetson, it’s more than valuable enough to cover the cost of the cleaners, for a limited time. Shift also promises to blur out sensitive details to ensure customer privacy.

Shift work: The promotion all ties into the app’s primary function: paying people to wear cameras while they perform a range of everyday tasks. Ars Technica reported that Shift US General Manager Harry Kilberg said the platform has paid tens of thousands of people in 15 countries to record daily work and chores.

AI training isn’t new. Companies like Mercor and Handshake are already worth billions of dollars, but they’ve typically been geared more toward white-collar work. Shift, and other companies like Encord, Micro1, and DoorDash, are focusing on physical tasks.