How to use driving data to empower your insureds with more benefits

A continued top priority for organizations, despite the pandemic, is how to effectively utilize resources. But the pandemic has put even more pressure on companies to do so, especially small and mid-sized companies that must compete with giants. It’s becoming more and more essential to remain relevant in this changing world, while at the same time it’s becoming increasingly difficult for smaller teams to imagine, build, and grow ideas.

Difficult, but not impossible, especially with the support and collaboration of companies that are set up to do just that: help meet customers where they are. With rising consumer expectations in today’s digital world, now is exactly the right time for “open” innovation; that is, finding new ways to collaborate with others to create new benefits for consumers. 

This is especially true for insurance companies. “Relationships among partners, insurers, customers, and channels are crucial” right now. Arity’s data shows that customer expectations and driving behaviors are changing, and customers are more willing than ever to share their driving data if that means saving them money.

Compared to 2019, consumers in 2020 are 49% more likely to share their distracted driving data and 34% more likely to share their driving speed with insurance carriers. Insurers have an opportunity to leverage real-world data and partnerships to connect with customers in new and meaningful ways. 

Top-30 auto insurance provider, Southern Farm Bureau Casualty Insurance Company (Southern Farm Bureau), capitalized on these opportunities by partnering with our team at Arity for technology and data analytics insights. Amidst the global pandemic, Southern Farm Bureau and Arity set-out to launch a deductible rewards program to offer to Southern Farm Bureau customers benefits in return for driving more safely.

To leap ahead of typical telematics-launch timeframes, Southern Farm Bureau tapped Arity for our telematics app, Routely, and our mobile driving score, Drivesight, which is fueled by billions of miles of driving data that is tied to associated claims costs, which saves insurers the long wait to collect this critical data themselves.

By collaborating closely with Southern Farm Bureau’s nimble team, Arity helped to launch the Southern Farm Bureau deductible rewards program to engage, retain, and provide benefits to its customers, all the while collecting much-needed driving data to fuel longer-term analysis on customer risk models. 

Driving behavior insights are especially important today when driving patterns are changing so rapidly due to the impacts of COVID-19. Insurers must stay on top of the trends, as they are happening, in order to prepare for their potential implication on loss trends and more. At Arity, we are already looking forward to our next upcoming customer launch and have enjoyed working with insurance companies with these forward-thinking mindsets.

So many recent conversations with insurance companies have been focused on limited resources as we work through our plans for 2021. At Arity, we completely understand the balancing act and have continued to make it easier for insurance to leverage our services. Effective launches can happen with a small group of talented people working together to develop new products to benefit consumers – like in Southern Farm Bureau’s case – which allows customers to better their driving behaviors and receive deductible discounts. Arity’s high-quality, massive driving data set and experienced loss modelers, product managers, and engineers can kickstart an insurance company’s need for an incentive program that’s based on specific business goals and real-world behaviors.   

If you’ve worked in corporate America, you’ve heard the phrase, “We do things this way because we’ve always done them this way.” The “old way” of getting things done was turned on its head in March 2020. The pandemic emphasized the necessity for innovation and adaptation because consumer expectations are always shifting based on current circumstances even if they’re out of our control. With a strategic collaboration, insurance companies can stay ahead of these expectations, even amidst internal resource challenges.

Read more in our Southern Farm Bureau case study.