Why distracted driving means so much to Arity

While National Distracted Driving Awareness Month has officially concluded, the topic remains near and dear to us here at Arity and we keep it top of mind in our everyday lives.

Most drivers know that distracted driving is dangerous. Despite this awareness, distracted driving has become more prevalent as drivers increasingly rely on mobile devices. Alarmingly, research has found that talking on a cell phone behind the wheel quadruples a driver’s risk of an accident, and that risk doubles if the driver is texting.

For several years, insurers have struggled with the implication to insurance product and pricing.  We have had two major questions: What is the likelihood that a distracted driver will be in an accident, and what will be the costs of the incident?

To combat this, Arity incorporates insights on distracted driving into driver scores – making the Arity Drivesight® score a solution that jointly analyze drivers’ physical on-the-road mobile phone usage and corresponding claims data. This combination generates credible insight on how distracted driving increases risk of accidents on the road. Insurers can utilize these new insights to motivate and reward customers for more focused driving habits, making the roads both safer and smarter for everyone.

When it comes to the costs of these accidents, we’ve found after analyzing billions of miles of mobile driving data from hundreds of thousands of unique drivers that very few drivers take a trip without interacting with their phone. The implications to safety and insurers are distressing. Arity finds that the most distracted drivers have an average loss cost 160% higher than the least distracted drivers. Meanwhile the NHTSA reports that distracted driving costs the U.S. $129 billion per year.

Distracted driving is dangerous, and without accurate data, it becomes a more difficult behavior to analyze and discourage. Currently, the closest insurance offerings on the market can analyze mobile usage data to surmise at best that distracted accidents have occurred with specific drivers. But without the associated claims information, they aren’t able to accurately correlate phone usage with actual loss, and ultimately have to guess at accident severity and cost.

Insurers subscribing to the Arity Drivesight® score will be able to appropriately raise awareness about the dangers of distracted driving and incentivize safer driving habits.

Drivers know distracted driving is dangerous, but often that isn’t enough to encourage safer behaviors. By providing insurers the ability to reward safe, focused drivers, we’re inherently giving consumers a strong incentive to drive phone-free.  We take pride in arming companies and drivers with tools to make the roads smarter and safer for everyone. Knowledge is power, and this data provides drivers a unique personal opportunity to be aware of the precise impact and dangers of handling their phones on the road – and to take control of their safety.  This mission motivates us and the work that we do every day.

With Arity’s unique and unprecedented access to both claims data and cell phone usage, it is the first on the market to glean comprehensive insight into both sides of the story and accurately incorporate distracted driving into driver scores. Arity has now made this insight readily available to customers in its driving score solution.

Learn more about Arity’s Insurance Solutions and read our distracted driving research.