An Inside Look at Intellidrive, Travelers' Telematics Program to Encourage Safer Driving Behaviors
September 2, 2020 | Webinar
Distracted driving is a known contributor to traffic injuries and fatalities. A study conducted by Travelers in September 2020 found that more than a third of drivers (36%) reported shopping online while driving.
Technological advances, including Travelers’ own IntelliDrive smartphone application, hold great promise for encouraging safer driving habits. Ben Kotrc, Senior Data Scientist at TrueMotion, and Tom Torcia, Managing Director and Telematics Lead for Personal Insurance at Travelers, joined this episode of Wednesdays with Woodward® to discuss the intersection of technology and driver safety.
Watch the Replay
(DESCRIPTION)
Text, Wednesdays with Woodward (registered trademark) A Webinar Series. An Inside Look at IntelliDrive (registered trademark), Travelers' Telematics Program to Encourage Safer Driving Behaviors. Logos: Small Business Entrepreneurship Council, Travelers Institute, Travelers, TrueMotion, ACCION..
(SPEECH)
Good afternoon. And thank you for joining us for today's program. Before I begin, I'd like to take a moment to draw your attention to a disclaimer on the screen.
(DESCRIPTION)
Text, Disclaimer. This program or presentation is only a tool to assist you in managing your responsibility to maintain safe premises, practices, operations and equipment, and is not for the benefit of any other party. The program or presentation does not cover all potentially hazardous conditions or unsafe acts that may exist and does not constitute legal advice. For decision regarding use of the practices suggested by this program or presentation, follow the advice of your own legal counsel. Travelers disclaims all forms of warranties whatsoever, without limitation, implementation of any practices suggested by this program or presentation is at your sole discretion, and Travelers or its affiliates shall not be liable to any party for any damages whatsoever arising out of, or in connection with, the information provided or its use. This material does not amend, or otherwise affect, the provisions or coverages of any insurance policy or bond issued by Travelers, nor is it a representation that coverage does or does not exist for any particular claim or loss under any such policy or bond. Coverage depends on the facts and circumstances involved in the claim or loss, all applicable policy or bond provisions, and any applicable law. Please note that this session is being recorded by Travelers. The recorded session may be used, copied, adapted, distributed, publicly displayed and slash or performed as Travelers deems appropriate. Travelers Institute logo.
(SPEECH)
My name is Joan Woodward and I'll be your moderator for today's program. This is the sixth webinar in our Wednesdays with Woodward series, where I have the pleasure of speaking with thought leaders and important--on about important topics that impact us all, both on our personal and professional lives.
Over the next few months, every other Wednesday, roughly, through Thanksgiving, we'll host these free educational webinars, so we'll hope you'll join us. Visit the travelersinstitute.org to see recordings of our past webinars and register for the upcoming webinars. I want to say a special thank you today to our partner organizations who helped us make this program possible. TrueMotion, the Small Business Entrepreneurship Council, Accion, and today I'm excited to discuss an issue of particular importance to the Travelers family and communities, preventing distracted driving.
(DESCRIPTION)
Text, Every Second Matters, registered trademark. In a stopwatch, a red Travelers umbrella logo. A bar graph titled Historical Trends in U.S. Traffic Fatalities appears with years from 1975 to 2019 on the x-axis. On the left y-axis, Total U.S. Traffic Fatalities in intervals of 5,000 from 30,000 to 55,000. On the right y-axis, U.S. Pedestrian Fatalities in intervals of 1,000 from 0 to 9,000.
(SPEECH)
In 2017, the Travelers Institute launched our Every Second Matters campaign when we saw a shocking jump and roadway fatalities in that year. This chart shows a historical look at traffic fatalities going back to the 1970s. In the '70s and '80s, more than 50,000 people lost their lives in the United States on roads every year.
After that point, you'll see this gradual downward trend through the early 2000s, and then a significant drop-off around the time of the financial crisis. In 2019, more than 36,000 people died on our roads, and on top of that, more than 2.7 million people were injured.
(DESCRIPTION)
On the graph, a line indicates an upward trend in pedestrian deaths.
(SPEECH)
Increased seatbelt use and reduced drunk driving have substantially lowered fatalities over the years, as has vehicle improvements like airbags and electronic stability control.
The red line represents pedestrian fatalities, which are at their highest level in 30 years in 2018. There are a lot of variables at play and we understand that, not only distraction, but it's an important contributor. In fact, 77% of drivers that we polled in our Travelers Risk Index say that they make or take calls while driving, and more than 30% said they've had a near-miss because of their own distraction--
(DESCRIPTION)
Text, 31% of drivers say they've had a near-miss crash because of distracted driving, 2019 Travelers Risk Index, Distracted Driving. 77 Percent of drivers make or take call while driving.
(SPEECH)
and we find that number probably a little low because are you really going to fess up if you had a near-miss or a crash and you're going to tell your insurance company? So we think 30% probably is low.
But there's a silver lining here that we believe there's reasons to be optimistic. Over the years, we've seen shifts in thinking about drunk driving and smoking, even with belt usage. Technological advances show potential to improve safety. Changing thinking around distracted driving could be our next big opportunity, but we need to collectively change social norms about what's acceptable in our cars today.
Today we have the pleasure of--I have the pleasure of interviewing two experts in this field who are instrumental in encouraging safer driving behaviors for our Travelers customers through our IntelliDrive telematics app.
(DESCRIPTION)
In photos, three speakers smile. Text, Joan Woodward, EVP, Public Policy & President, Travelers Institute, Moderator. Ben Kotrc, Senior Data Scientist, TrueMotion, Speaker. Tom Torcia, Telematics Lead/Managing Director, Personal Insurance, Travelers, Speaker.
(SPEECH)
IntelliDrive is a 90-day program that uses a smartphone app to monitor your driving performance. It rates your driving based on certain high-risk activities and gives you a driving score.
Safe driving habits can lead to savings up to 20%, while riskier driving habits can result in higher premiums. So last month, Travelers announced an enhanced version of our IntelliDrive program with several improvements being made. Our speakers today will talk about how the app works, both from a technology side and a behavioral science angle and share what updates have been made in the most recent version.
So with that, I'm pleased to introduce our speakers today. Ben Kotrc is the Senior Data Scientist at TrueMotion. TrueMotion is a technology company based in Boston that provides the leading smartphone driving technology platforms, and TrueMotion uses smartphone technology and data to make driving safer. Specifically, it does power the Travelers IntelliDrive app. In his role with TrueMotion, Ben focuses on effective strategies for behavioral modifications focused on distracted driving.
Then we have Tom Torcia. Tom is the Lead Managing Director of Personal Insurance where he is the business owner of IntelliDrive, working closely with Ben and his team at TrueMotion to evaluate and enhance the app. In addition, Tom has responsibilities across national auto, emerging markets, and auto innovation.
So before I hand it off to Ben, a quick note about submitting your questions. So as you're listening to these two experts talk, I will take your audience questions towards the end of the program, but you can submit your questions while they're speaking. So just hover over the middle bottom of your screen and click on the Q&A function found at the bottom again. You can send your question using your name or check the box that says Send Anonymously if you don't want me to call your name out with your question. So, with that, I'm pleased to hand it off to our first speaker, Ben Kotrc.
(DESCRIPTION)
In a photo, Ben smiles. Text, Speaker, Ben Kotrc, Senior Data Scientist, TrueMotion.
(SPEECH)
Thank you. Thank you, Joan. So the mission of our company, TrueMotion, as Joan just mentioned in her introduction, is to make driving safer. And so if you go to the next slide, you'll see the picture--actually, the next one after that-- a picture of an installation in our previous offices in Boston that symbolizes the deaths and injuries caused by distracted driving.
(DESCRIPTION)
In a photo, a mountain of license plates in an office. Text, Using Data to Make Driving Safer, Distracted Driving Kills and Injures Nearly 395,000 People Every Year.
(SPEECH)
But TrueMotion was founded on the idea that smartphones can also be part of the solution to the problem. And so what we do is harness the power of modern day smartphones to understand how drivers drive and to help them drive more safely. So how do we do that? On the next slide you can see that smartphones today are just absolutely jam-packed with different kinds of sensors. They are incredibly sophisticated data collection devices. They have things like accelerometers, gyroscopes, magnetometers, and the GPS that you're probably familiar with.
(DESCRIPTION)
Text, Smartphone Telematics. Proximity sensor: Determines the proximity of the phone to nearby objects. Accelerometer: Identifies phone position with axis-based motion sensing. Gyroscope: Works with accelerometer to determine position of phone. Magnetometer: Measures magnetic fields. GPS: Identifies phone location with multiple satellites. Ambient Light: Measures the amount of light near the phone. Barometer: Measures air pressure. In a diagram, lines connect the sensor descriptions to areas of a cell phone. Text, Credit: Public Use, Copyright 2019 TrueMotion, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
(SPEECH)
And these sensors can yield incredibly detailed information about driving behavior, and that's the information that powers programs like IntelliDrive. So if we go to the next slide, you can see what the data from these sensors actually looks like.
(DESCRIPTION)
A line graph with many colored lines appears. On the x-axis, time (s) from negative 1.5 to 3.0 in intervals of 0.5. On the y-axis, acceleration (g) 0 to 14 in intervals of 2. The lines trend upward and downward with sharp peaks.
(SPEECH)
So it's kind of just a jumbled mess of lines, but if you know how to make sense of this, this data can be turned into valuable and objective information about how and when a driver is distracted by their smartphone, when they're speeding or braking harshly, how many miles they're driving, what time of day, and even when they get into crashes.
So in order to be able to do this, we use a whole suite of proprietary machine learning algorithms that we've developed at TrueMotion over the past few years. And these algorithms answer a series of questions when a person takes a trip. So what I'm going to do over the next few slides is take you through those questions one by one.
So the next slide, you'll see the first question that needs to be answered, and that's this one.
(DESCRIPTION)
Text, Are You in a Car? On a road, a car drives. Above the car, circles display a person walking, a bus, a car with passengers, a plane, a car without passengers, and a boat. The car without passengers highlights orange. Text, 99%.
(SPEECH)
The IntelliDrive app spends most of its time asleep. So it only wakes up and begins collecting data when it detects a change in location. And when a trip is completed, it goes back to sleep. And all this happens automatically without any action or intervention needed by the driver.
So once a trip is detected, we can distinguish car trips from other modes of transportation, like plane trips or public transportation trips, Very, very accurately. Now once we've determined that a trip is a car trip, if we go to the next slide, we'll want to answer this question, whether you were the driver or the passenger on that trip. And we're probably best known in the industry for our skill in automatically detecting this with a high level of precision.
(DESCRIPTION)
Text, Are You the Driver? In a car, a passenger and driver ride together at sunset. A circle with the text 93% connects to the driver with a dotted line.
(SPEECH)
How do we do it? Well, we look at a whole bunch of different features with our algorithms in the data. One of the things we look at is identifying the exact moment the car came to a stop at the end of a trip in the moment the person exited the car. And by looking at the signal that's created by the turning motion in that moment, whether the phone twisted to the left or to the right, gives a really powerful clue as to whether you were on the driver's side or the passenger side of the car when you got out, and that tells us whether you were the driver or passenger.
(DESCRIPTION)
Text, How Are You Driving? Hard braking, Speeding, Harsh acceleration, Time of day, Mileage. In the driver's seat of a car, a driver smiles.
(SPEECH)
So once we know you're the driver, we can begin to determine how you were driving. So here, we look at data from the sensors capturing the dynamics of the vehicle. So the inertial measurement unit, the GPS to determine things like braking and acceleration events, but also we compare the speed data to speed limits on the roads traveled, and that can tell us when a speeding events happened. And of course, we know how far you drove and at what time of day as well.
(DESCRIPTION)
Text, Are You Distracted? In a car, five photos of phone use. -- Text, Active, Passive, Handheld Call, Hands-Free Call, Mounted Use.
(SPEECH)
So moving on from the dynamics of the vehicle, we can also use algorithms that we've developed to detect interactions with the mobile phone. And so we're able to break these distracted driving behaviors down into five different categories that you can see here. And these different categories have different levels of risk associated with them. And we do this by combining signals from the operating system. So that's things like whether the screen of the phone was on or off or whether there was a phone call ongoing. Together with characteristic signal about the fine-scale movement of the phone and even things like the frequencies at which the phone vibrates as it's driving--as you're driving along.
And collecting this sort of data across the whole population lets us see what distracted driving patterns look like across a whole population of drivers.
(DESCRIPTION)
The average driver drives distracted 10 minutes every hour. In a photo, a driver holds a cell phone. A stopwatch displays highlights that correspond to 7 minutes swiping and typing, 2 minutes hands-free phone calls, and 1-minute handheld phone calls.
(SPEECH)
So in the next slide, you can see that if we look at those numbers in aggregate, they can be pretty shocking. So these are some aggregate numbers from a sample of about 4 million trips. Not from IntelliDrive, but this is from an app that we can offer directly to consumers called TrueMotion Family. It's an app that focuses on teen driving safety.
And the average driver in this sample of data spends about 10 minutes using their phone for every hour of driving time. You can see how that breaks down into different distraction types in the graphic there. But one thing to know is that distracted driving is pretty unevenly distributed in the population. What does that mean? Well, it means that there are a whole bunch of drivers out there who are only distracted some of the time. But there's a small number of drivers who are distracted a great deal of the time.
And the kind of promise of an app like driver program like IntelliDrive is to give those many good drivers an opportunity to be rewarded for their safe driving choices rather than subsidizing a few dangerous drivers out there with their policy premiums.
(DESCRIPTION)
Text, Distracted Driving Causes Crashes. The rate of distraction within 1 minute... 1X, No crash, 25,000 trips. 1 point 94X, Crash, 749 crashes. Credit: Public Use, Copyright 2019 TrueMotion, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
(SPEECH)
And so in the next slide, I wanted to just quickly show that this doesn't just matter because it saves consumers money, even though it does, but it can also save lives.
So it's sort of widely believed and that distracted driving is a risky behavior, but thanks to our clash detection technology, our data lets us look at individual collisions and see what happened in the moments right before a crash. And if we compare the amount of distracted driving in those seconds before a crash, and that's the red bar, to other times the trip--and that's that turquoise bar there--we can see the driver's interacted with their phones about twice as much in the moments before a crash than at other times. So this is really, really clear evidence that smartphone distraction substantially increases the risk of a crash.
(DESCRIPTION)
IntelliDrive Highlights Distraction. Three cell phone screenshots display feedback regarding driving performance. The feedback includes a performance gauge, individual driving performance for all drivers on the policy, and an individual's Distraction-Free Driving Streak and percentage of Distraction-Free Driving Time.
(SPEECH)
So what can we do to help? In this slide, you see three screenshots of the IntelliDrive app. And what this shows is that in addition to just measuring distracted driving, we can use this information to actually help customers drive more safely, help them put their phones down while they're behind the wheel.
So on the left panel, you can see that the IntelliDrive app gives feedback about a driver's overall score, but it also breaks that score down by categories. You can see hard braking and acceleration there. If you kept scrolling down, you'd see distracted driving as well. It shows you your individual driving score, but in the middle screenshot, you can see it also shows a score of other drivers in the same policies. So we think that's a great tool for starting conversations within a family.
And on the right, the screenshot shows that the app also surfaces streaks of distraction-free driving. So this brings into play some really well-understood behavioral mechanics from the world of gaming to incentivize distraction-free driving.
(DESCRIPTION)
Text, IntelliDrive Provides Distraction Feedback. On a phone, a map of a driver's completed trip displays. Next to the phone, two push notifications from IntelliDrive. Text, Congrats! We recorded your very first trip. Here's to many more! Whoohoo! You've hit 25 consecutive distraction-free trips! Thanks for being safe out there!
(SPEECH)
And there's one more screenshot on the last slide, and that's to show that this communication with the customer doesn't just happen within the app, but we also use this kind of carefully calibrated cadence of push notifications that engage a driver throughout their journey in the program.
So for example, at the top you can see a push notification they'll get when they take the first drive at the beginning of the program. Or when they hit certain milestones like in their streaks of distraction-free trips, for example, in the bottom. So if we go to the next slide, I'll just talk briefly about the fact that these approaches to using smartphone telematics for improving driving behavior that we just showed you are not just proven out in the insurance marketplace, but we've actually made these choices in how to communicate, how to frame the financial incentives or rewards and feedback with a--they're informed by a rigorous program of research that we've been conducting with partners in academia.
(DESCRIPTION)
Randomized Controlled Trial. A flow chart depicts a trial that begins with baseline driver data. Random cohorting sorts drivers into a Control Group, Social Comparison group, Weekly Reward group, and Etc. group. Further sorting indicates Distraction Reduced or Distraction Not Reduced. Credit: Public Use, Copyright 2019 TrueMotion, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
(SPEECH)
So what I'm describing here in this slide is a study that we carried out in collaboration with researchers at the UPenn Medical School. The study was funded by the Federal Highway Administration, and these folks treat distracted driving as a major public health issue. And so the study was set up according to the gold standard for clinical research, which is a randomized controlled trial.
So what we did there is we monitored drivers for a baseline period and then randomly assigned them to different experiences so we could measure which ones were the most effective at reducing distracted driving. And this study was the largest federally funded study of its kind to date, and the first set of results were presented at the Transportation Research Board Conference earlier this year and we expect to have further publications out later on this year.
(DESCRIPTION)
Text, Driving During COVID-19.
(SPEECH)
One thing that's delayed the publication of this research is that some of our collaborators are also emergency room physicians, so they've had other stuff to do in the last half-a-year that's related to the same topic I want to talk about next, which is how driving patterns have changed during this pandemic.
So I think we all know from watching the roadways this spring the driving volume obviously dropped during the lockdowns, but how did COVID affect other driving risk factors?
(DESCRIPTION)
COVID-19 Patterns. A graph appears.
(SPEECH)
So here in the slide I'm showing aggregated data from the Travelers IntelliDrive app, and it allows us to look at some of the changes in the first half of the year.
This specific plot shows the change in distracted driving relative to a baseline period of typical driving behavior during the very beginning of 2020. And what we're looking at specifically here is the in-hand active swiping and typing category of distracted driving behavior, which we think is the most risky of the five types that we can identify.
(DESCRIPTION)
Active phone Use, plus 15%.
(SPEECH)
And what we see is that distracted driving increased in March and April. And while the numbers have come down a little again since then, we're still seeing distraction value is significantly above the baseline. I can only imagine that the sort of stress of the pandemic, our desire to feel connected to one another while we're all apart has got to play a role here of some sort.
But other dangerous driving behaviors have also increased during the lockdown in the pandemic. So in the next slide, you'll see a view of how speeding changed over the first half of the year. Again, this is relative to baseline at the beginning of the year in January.
(DESCRIPTION)
Trips with Speeding 100+ miles per hour.
(SPEECH)
And during the peak of the lockdown, the number of trips with extreme speeding events--so these are trips where drivers drove over 100 miles per hour, more than doubled.
(DESCRIPTION)
Plus 122%.
(SPEECH)
The good news here is that as of May, these numbers are back down to normal.
Both of these things are kind of consistent with observations that you may have come across in the media, from the industry more generally, that collision frequencies seem to have been reduced, but the severity of crashes seems to be on the rise during COVID-19. So to sort of summarize this all, it's not good news overall, but to my mind, the silver lining here is that smartphone telematics and UBI programs like IntelliDrive, they give us both visibility into what's going on with driving behaviors, but also the tools to shape and influence that behavior.
And so to my mind, along with all the other things that COVID-19 has kind of cast into sharp relief in society, this crisis is also showing us that the time for usage-based insurance has come. And so with that, I'll hand it over to Tom.
(DESCRIPTION)
In a photo, Tom smiles. Text, Speaker. Tom Torcia, -- Telematics Lead/Managing Director, Personal Insurance, Travelers.
(SPEECH)
All right. Well, thank you, Ben. I think a great job summarizing the true value of TrueMotion, and TrueMotion has been a great partner of ours for a number of years now. So I'm excited and I appreciate the opportunity, Joan, to talk to this group about what we're doing in telematics, and our overall excitement.
I think it's pretty clear from Ben's presentation that the science is pretty amazing. And I think the value proposition is certainly one where we want to continue to invest in and really make some incremental gains over the near-term here. So if we want to jump into the presentation, I love starting on this slide.
(DESCRIPTION)
Value of Telematics. Travelers: Segmentation, Engagement. Customers: Control, Transparency. Agents: Competitive Offering, Sustainability. A bar graph titled U.B.I. pricing spread. On the x-axis, U.B.I. Decile from 0 to 10 in intervals of 1. On the y-axis, Combined Ratio from 0% to 160% in intervals of 20%. Bar heights increase from left to right. A double-ended arrow spans all bars on the graph with the label 300% spread. Text, Telematics allows us to attract and retain safe drivers. Telematics allows us to more adequately price high risk drivers. Telematics is impactful for Travelers, our customers, and our agents.
(SPEECH)
I think it's really-- it describes the true value of the data and how we see it.
And I like to summarize the value of telematics. It's really a win-win-win. And for us, it's a win for Travelers, it's a win for our customers, and it's a win for our agents. And specifically, from an agency perspective, where we see the value of telematics, it's about creating a competitive offering. We see the value of telematics as creating a more sustainable long-term product that we think will allow our agents to compete in a more challenging auto marketplace into the future, and we think telematics will absolutely provide an innovative way of doing that.
And certainly, long-term sustainability. We want to continue to invest in our auto program, and we think this is on the leading edge of where the auto marketplace is going. It's pretty clear in the middle of the slide here, the value as we see from an insurance perspective, and we think that's largely the reason of what we want to capture. We want to highlight that the value of telematics and the data that Ben and his team are able to collaborate with us is really about allowing safer drivers to pay less for auto insurance, and we think that's a great value prop.
We think customers absolutely appreciate that level of control and transparency. And we can see the demand for it. So we want to create products and we want to create a marketplace that allows that to thrive. And we can move to the next slide.
(DESCRIPTION)
A phone displays the IntelliDrive app. Text, Travelers Telematics Program: IntelliDrive. What is the IntelliDrive program? IntelliDrive is a mobile app program that captures driving behaviors. By enrolling, customers can earn an enrollment discount on their first term and up to a 20% savings on their renewal policy. Today, driving scores can be based on five variables: acceleration, braking, speeding, time of day, distraction (currently rolling out). Driving behavior during the 90-day monitoring period determines savings at renewal and for the lifetime of the policy. Telematics information shows large potential for valuable segmentation by incorporating real-time driving behaviors to more accurately measure driver risk.
(SPEECH)
And let's talk a little bit about our program. Joan keyed it up perfectly. IntelliDrive is a 90-day telematics program that we have available in 38 states. So we have a pretty wide spread of saturation across markets, and that's what excites us. We really want to get this capability out to as many markets as we truly can.
And recently, as Joan alluded to, we made some pretty large investments and changes in the program to continue to provide an incentive for our agents and our customers that we think aligns really well with the Travelers’ value prop overall. And some of those things are really tied to today's conversation around distracted driving.
I'm sure we don't need to go into too many layers of depth on the value of distraction. It's pretty evident, it's pretty evident we're all driving around on the roads today. And Ben alluded to it. It's a unique time that we're in, but we're learning a lot about the effects of COVID, not just about the frequency of driving, but also just as importantly, how we're all driving on the roads.
And we think that the conversation is probably more important now than it's ever been of how we want to make sure that our product is evolving, but also responding to the opportunity in front of us. And since we launched the mobile program in partnership with TrueMotion back in 2017, we've really been analyzing and providing incentives for our drivers, our insureds across four core variables.
From the very beginning we've been providing incentives around acceleration, braking, speeding, and time of day, all incredibly predictive and incredibly valuable. The fifth variable that we recently added in May of this year and we now have available in nine of the 38 markets is distraction. And our belief is that might be the most predictive and the most valuable of all the variables that we have currently in the IntelliDrive program.
So our enthusiasm and our level of investment in the program is to roll that out with a level of speed and efficiency, because I think that makes our program even better. And at the very top of the slide, I think it's really important to point out, there's got to be a real connection here to savings, and I think there is.
For most of the states today we're offering a 20% savings for the safest of drivers, well we've increased that. In the states where we've introduced distracted driving, we've moved that savings up to 30%. We think it's that valuable, it's that powerful, and we really want to make sure that our program connects to customers, connects to our agents, but also make sure that it's industry-leading from a segmentation perspective. We think that drives long-term value across the board. We can move to the next slide.
(DESCRIPTION)
The Value of Distraction. Distraction is very predicative of loss and we believe that strong education and incentives will reduce distracted driving for our customers. 1: Segmentation Power. All types of distracted driving have an increased risk of accident for the driver and greater chance of loss for Travelers. On a graph, an upward-trending line shows that 1.0 likelihood of an accident relativity for non-distracted drivers increases to 1.2 for the passive behavior of talking on a cell phone with Bluetooth, 1.5 for the active behavior of talking on a handheld cell phone, and 2.0 for active cell phone interaction. Source: TrueMotion, Study included 3,500 participants over 3 years from video, sensors, and vehicle. 2: Educate Customers & Influence Behavior. Positively impact driver safety by highlighting, informing, and reinforcing the risks of distracted driving. Two screenshots depict marketing campaigns to promote the Every Second Matters initiative and Travelers IntelliDrive Program. Text, 85% say driving while using personal technology is extremely risky, yet 25% of people who say they engage in distracted driving believe they can do so safely.
(SPEECH)
OK, distraction. And certainly, we've alluded to a number of slides here. You get the essence of the conversation, but certainly for one of the key items I wanted to make sure we highlighted is, how do we see the value from a Travelers perspective? I think Ben's conversation around the value of those seconds before an accident happens. It's pretty clear how predictive and how risky distraction is. And that segmentation power is why we're introducing deeper discounts for people that put their phone down while they're driving.
But it's the how that I think is just as important. And what we've done with IntelliDrive and our recent enhancements, not only to introduce distraction as a variable, but also provide more real-time content in the mobile app experience that we think will relate more positively to our customers.
And I love the visual. Ben stole my thunder on the slides of the mobile app experience, and our team spent a considerable amount of time working with customers and getting agency feedback about how can we evolve our app experience? And it's a really unique experience when you think about our ability in real-time to give customers feedback.
And we think the enhancements that we've made are a continuation of our want and I think our overall need to be more proactive and more responsive to customers. And what we've done with the IntelliDrive program and the IntelliDrive product is we've taken that content that we've put together from Every Secondary Matters in the Travelers Institute and it's now directly integrated into our app experience. It's a real-time content that's dynamic for customers.
And the idea of gamifying the experience. And we're all very familiar with mobile apps, and I'm sure we all have our favorites. But I think one of the things that we've learned is that experience needs to be positive, because what we want you to do is not think of IntelliDrive like a black box. We want you to think of IntelliDrive like an integrated experience. And if we can capture that customer's attention, and we should drive great content to them, and that content should resonate.
And certainly, the focus of our updated mobile app experience is focused mostly on distraction. While all variables are very important, we know that unique variable is so actionable, and we should do our very best to make sure we provide as much feedback and as much content as we can for our customers, and also hopefully they have a little fun with it, too, right, Ben? And next slide.
(DESCRIPTION)
Adoption of Telematics. We've seen growth in adoption...IntelliDrive adoption has shown great improvement. A graph titled IntelliDrive Program Adoption Trends shows upward growth from 2018 to Now. Text, Early results of 2020 program enhancements showing additional lift to adoption rates. But there is still opportunity. 54% of customers would be extremely or very interested in a digital telematics offer, which aligns to the adoption we've seen in TRV direct sales, as well as another significant direct carrier. Sources: ERM Study of 1,461 Online Survey Completes (Dec. 2019). Progressive 3rd Quarter 2019 Investor Event, PGR Direct Channel Results. Offer It: it's as simple as giving customers the choice to opt-in.
(SPEECH)
Scorecard. So maybe this is a good way of describing where are we on our journey. And I will say, we feel great about the progress that we've made in the adoption of telematics. The left-hand side of the slide depicts, I think, certainly positive momentum. And we are absolutely encouraged by the direction and the early success we've seen since we launched the mobile program.
And you can see year over year and kind of half of the year to where we are today forward momentum and certainly some really great adoption rates. But there's still opportunity. And I think that's the most important piece. And are we done? By no means. And what we really want to do is continue to demonstrate the value of telematics, but also make sure that we're providing the right type of education and awareness so our agents are well-informed, they have the tools and resources that they need to sell the program.
And also our customers. And we obviously have received a lot of really great feedback. And some critical feedback, too. And to be fully transparent and be balanced, we've learned a lot. We had a program in market for just over three years now. We've tallied a lot of feedback, and I think our objective for the program is to continue to refine and enhance. It's certainly not done, and we think of it as a continuation over time of how we want to put a really strong program and product together that resonates with customers.
We did a study just about a year ago and asked customers, generally, how interested are you in telematics? I don't think it was a surprise. We did it internally, I know we've seen similar statistics in other forums, but over half of customers we asked are extremely or very interested. They want a digital telematics offer, and that's exactly what IntelliDrive is.
So we're seeing a response rate that I'm excited and encouraged about, but I can confidently tell you, we still have opportunity, and we want to make sure that this is a partnership not only for Travelers' interest, but also for our agents, brokers, and obviously our customers, too. And we think it's simple. I think there's a part of this that is-- it's about offering. And we've tested that idea little bit in the marketplace and some small case examples. We're hyperactive in offering the program. The response has been excellent.
And it shapes up really well to some of the survey data that we've compared in the past. So it's always an opportunity. Make sure we're offering the program and give customers the ability to make the choice if it's a program for them. We can go to the next slide.
(DESCRIPTION)
Benefits of Telematics. In three photos, a document titled Top 10 Reasons to Sell IntelliDrive, a screenshot of IntelliDrive Program resource material, and a photo of a cell phone with an open IntelliDrive app.
(SPEECH)
The benefits of telematics. I spoke a lot about most of the bullet points on the left-hand side. But I think as a quick summary, we absolutely think that this allows us to attract more safe drivers, and that's certainly, I think, a long-term value proposition certainly for our customers and certainly for our agents.
Enhance our value prop. This is about innovation. This is no longer, I think, thought of as a niche type of offering or program. We think of this product as ready for scale, and that's important. We need to have the right type of program that can do that, and we think we do. But it's that important, I think, to the overall value proposition certainly of our agents to innovate, and to innovate in the agency channel that we see some real long-term opportunity.
Give a competitive quote. It's all about, like I mentioned before, offering the program, but there's incentives. And there's incentives to do that around discounts. And we think that that combination provides a more competitive quote and more sales, too. And I think that's a huge win in this type of environment certainly.
(DESCRIPTION)
Text, Increase Conversion. Improve retention for safe drivers. 2 out of 3 drivers score well enough to save with IntelliDrive.
(SPEECH)
And the proof is in the results. Overall, what we've seen so far is two out of three drivers that have signed up and gone through the IntelliDrive program are saving real dollars because they participated in IntelliDrive. The 90-day program, you have the opportunity to opt out if the program is not for you. But for those customers that see it through, two out of three are saving real dollars at the end of the day, and we think that's-- we think that value prop alone is worth a try in the IntelliDrive program. And the social awareness and social good, of course.
(DESCRIPTION)
Help reduce distracted driving.
(SPEECH)
Our pivot to add distraction was a meaningful moment for our program, and I think a meaningful moment as we describe the program certainly at this level of enthusiasm and excitement across the country, really. And we're going to continue to advance that conversation, and that's about reducing distracted driving. And if IntelliDrive can do that, if it can change behavior, that's saving real lives at the end of day as well.
Just quickly as a summary, I wanted to make sure I cover two other pieces of content that we've created, because it's important. And we continue to evolve the marketing message, we continue to evolve the tools and resources. We have more social campaigns today than we ever did for the IntelliDrive program.
So we want to make this a digital experience, and a got to give you the tools to sell it like that. So I'm excited about what our marketing and design teams have been able to create, and it's really allowed us to be more targeted in our marketing efforts and really be more knowledgeable and have the expertise to navigate some really thoughtful questions that I think customers have. And these types of programs warrant that conversation and we encourage it.
So we want to make sure the resources and the capabilities are in your hands. And as our program evolves, so should our content. And hopefully what you've seen in our resources and our toolkit, our dashboards, some really fresh creative content that we've brought along with the brand new app experience that Ben and his team were able to design and implement for us through all the markets that were available today. So it's been an absolute pleasure to work with Ben and his team. It's a journey that we are on, and it's and I think it's a worthwhile one. So thanks.
All right. Well, Tom and Ben, thank you so much. It's really, really fascinating data, and we are just so pleased to have launch this whole campaign three years ago around Every Second Matters to raise awareness. And you guys are actually making it happen to encourage these safer driving behaviors.
So I'm going to ask a few questions, then we'll get to our audience questions which we have a ton coming in-- thank you all. If you don't know how to do it, just scroll to the bottom of your screen and go to Q&A and type in your question. I'll get to as many as we can. But Ben, you mentioned something I want to poke a little further, which is the research you're doing around behavioral modification.
So you're actually looking with academics, which I think is fantastic. You're working with the academic community around behavior modification related to distracted driving. So what works? Tell us what works.
Well, first of all, one thing that I think we've learned in doing this over a number of years is that it's actually not as easy as you might think to change driving behavior. So I think that's worth mentioning, because at first blush you might think that it's a relatively straightforward thing to do. But especially when it comes to cell phone addiction, which are our partners in the research world really think of right alongside smoking, right alongside opiate addiction, it's an a behavioral psychological challenge that's on par with those public health issues, and also the number of related deaths, of course, are an order of magnitude that are not far off.
So I think one thing we found that I'll say is there's probably no one silver bullet. There isn't an easy do this, then distracted driving is gone. But what we found is that the most effective thing is probably combining a variety of approaches together. And I'll say that the things we found to be most effective in our research kind of broadly fall into two categories. One is rewards. That includes financial rewards. And especially if those rewards are smaller and more frequent, those tend to work better.
And it's important to get the amount, the frequency, and the framing of those incentives and those rewards just right. So very, very small tweaks we found to the phrasing of a message or the exact amount-- the amount of reward that you give over a 90-day period could have a totally different effect depending on whether you dole it out once a week or whether you give it out once a month. So getting that just right is very important.
The second category is gamification. I think you see this in the IntelliDrive app. Two examples of things that we found to work well are leaderboards, and that activates this well-known behavioral principle of social comparison. We as people are hardwired to care about how we compare to others. And the second one is streaks, and that activates another behavioral principle, which is loss aversion.
So we actually as humans are hardwired to dislike losing $100 more than we like gaining $100. And so streaks kind of activates--is one technique that can be used to activate these kind of really core behavioral principles.
All right. Thank you, Ben. And just follow up on that, so feedback is really important and changing behavior, you're saying, and the streaks, which you can see on the app. I've been doing this now for several months, and as soon as I have a trip, I stop in my garage and I look to see how I did. So it is addictive to-- it's like your golf handicap. You want to know how you did relative to others, relative to what you did last week.
So tell us about the timing of the feedback. Is the timing important? Or how do you think about timing of feedback?
Yeah, absolutely. And I think you answered the question in your question there with your own experience. The more timely the feedback is, the more effective we found it to be. So you want to have the feedback as close in time. So if I tell you what you did right after a trip, that's much better than if I give you that feedback a month later.
But it also matters how we tell you. So positive framing we found in our research is a lot more successful than negative framing. And again, to put the kind of framework of the public health research on this, doctors and researchers will talk about efficacy and acceptability of a treatment. So as an example, if you think of there could be a smoking cessation treatment that uses really powerful electrical shocks to stop you from smoking, that may be really effective. If you go through that treatment, you will never smoke again 100% of the time.
But guess what? Nobody wants to do that treatment because they don't want to have powerful electric shocks done on them. And so this would be like an example of a very high efficacy but a really low acceptability treatment. And so in terms of our messaging, there's a very close analogy there. We want to very carefully craft the framing, the frequency, the timing of these messages so that rather than making drivers turn off their notifications, or worse, uninstall the app or drop out of the program, we want to keep them engaged and keep them retained in the program.
OK. So that's great, Ben. So then Tom, how did Ben's research inform the content that we have now available in IntelliDrive? I mean, how were those decisions made about what to include, making it positive versus negative?
Yeah. And it's so important for us, when we introduce a new mobile app experience, move away from black box, because that's truly, I think, how telematics programs were designed from the very origination. And that mentality of stick in your vehicle, continue as you normally do, send back to insurance company and rate appropriately, we're trying to break that stigma.
And it's a challenging one to get over, no doubt. And we haven't solved it yet, but I think data and analytics that Ben have described is the important foundational point that we're trying to better understand. And the idea of streaks is certainly one that we collaborated on for some time with Ben's group. I think it's a perfect way of leaning into this experience and trying to learn the magnitude of behavioral influence that it could essentially have.
And we are out in 38 states today with the brand-new app experience. And we made a decision, even in states where we're not rating on distraction as a variable, to push streaks and that gamified element across all of our markets. We think it's that important and that impactful. But even if we're not yet rating on distraction, we should provide that carrot for customers to engage with.
And I think have the same experience you did, Joan, when I had the IntelliDrive app on my phone, it becomes this level of wanting to better yourself and wanting to compete, and the family opportunities certainly exist for multiple driver households where you're having this competitive battle back and forth.
And that momentum, that energy, we want to capture that. And we've never had the chance to do it before. And what a fun way of bringing it into our app experience and providing that real-time feedback. So it's been early learnings. A couple of months in the marketplace we've got great agency feedback where we allowed a number of agents across the country to test drive our IntelliDrive app for themselves, even if they weren't Travelers-insured. And the feedback has been resoundingly positive.
So the idea of moving from black box into this more engaging, more hopefully rewarding experiences is certainly one, I think, of many investments we're going to make in the IntelliDrive program.
Great. So what happens after 90 days are up? I'm getting this question a lot coming in on the chat feature here. So after 90 days, Tom, can they continue to use this app? They're just not rated on their driving after the 90 days? How does that work?
So today it's just 90 days. And we've gotten more of that feedback going recently than we ever have before. So we're doing something right. What I hear resounding is something is working, and something is connecting, because the years of which I've been working on this program--no one's asked us to go to day 91 in our old mobile app experience.
So it's certainly one-- high on our team's radar is, what do we do at day 91 and beyond? Because today it's really just a snapshot of time that the IntelliDrive app is essentially working. And after that, it isn't anymore. So I take that feedback, and it's not the first time we've heard it. So I think that's an encouraging signal, that we need to rethink some of that 91 days and beyond, because there's certainly something, I think, customers-- and certainly families, too, I think we've heard that as well, want that level of engagement and want that level of insight into how they're driving.
OK. So the proof's in the pudding, Tom. Tell us, I got a number of questions on this. Do we have results that might indicate this is improving driving behavior?
It's early. It's certainly early in the partnership with Ben and his team. I think it'll allow us to make some pretty conclusions I think in the near-term here. But we've been in the market with the new mobile app since May. So it's early days. The engagement, I think, has been great. The adoption rate is certainly higher than we were expecting.
So we've seen a nice bump in the last couple of months in eagerness to participate and eagerness to go through and see the program out, too. That's the health of the--the health of the program is really what we look at across the funnel. So we want to make sure that adoption at the top is very strong. And we also want to make sure people are going through the program as well.
And if you're in the program longer, it's a greater opportunity that we can influence. So still early. Hopefully we'll be able to come back on and share those results with the group. We're certainly encouraged. And I think some of the work that Ben and his team are doing independent of IntelliDrive I think would give a signal that there's certainly potential here to really change behavior for the good.
(DESCRIPTION)
Joan returns to the webinar title slide.
(SPEECH)
OK, let me get to a couple of audience questions and mix them in with mine. We have one coming in from Laurie Thompson, and Laurie is up in the New England. And she's asking--I got a number of questions similar to this. She's asking, why would a bad driver want to sign up for this? I mean isn't it just self-selecting--or is everybody thinks are good drivers and everyone thinks that they can do this and get a discount? And what about those that aren't such good drivers?
Everyone thinks they're a great driver. I think the important thing of IntelliDrive and programs like it, I think you have to learn for yourself what kind of driver are you. And I can certainly say with confidence from IntelliDrive, if the program's not for you, we have the opportunity to opt out. And we give you that kind of free trial in the program. It's 90--
How long is a free trial?
Yeah, 45 days. So the program in most states, you have 45 days. And if you decide it's not for you, for whatever reason, you can opt out of the program and there's really no penalty for opting out. So I think it's worth every driver to at least attempt or try the program to see if you fall in that two out of three. And if you do, that's absolutely, I think, a reason to participate and a reason to sign up for the program.
I'll chime in there just a little bit. We've done some qualitative research of our own where we identify drivers with very high levels of distraction. And we do very in-depth qualitative interviews with them. We actually bring them into the office for a couple of hours and really try to understand how they think about what they do when they're behind the wheel in their distracted driving behavior.
And I'll say that this isn't true for all of these drivers, but some of them are aware that they're doing this and they actually would really like to change their behavior. They're not happy about how much they're using their phone. In a lot of ways, a lot of drivers feel at the mercy of something that they're not-- like a smoking addiction, something that they wish they could not do and they're actually looking for tools and help and strategies for how to change their own behavior.
And I'd say for drivers like that, even if they are distracted or not-- or struggle with other driving behaviors, if that's a desire that they have, this can actually be a really great product for them.
OK. So actually, Ben, let's talk about where phone technology stands today. So you gave us a good overview. What can't phones tell us today that they might in the future? Like what are you thinking about is on the horizon for this technology?
I guess the best way--it's so hard to look into the future. I guess the best way to answer this question is to kind of look back.
(DESCRIPTION)
In a photo, an audience raises their hands. Text, Questions?
(SPEECH)
I've been at TrueMotion for over four years now, and just in that time I've seen a huge growth in the variety of sensors that come in smartphones. So for example today, most phones have barometers that can measure air pressure. So the phones use this for determining altitude you know how high up you are or what floor of the building you're on. But that can also be used for detecting whether an airbag was deployed or not during a collision.
Another example would be infrared point cloud sensors. So many new phones have these features that are used for the face ID on iOS that can measure the 3D shape of your face and can be used to identify which person is using the phone. So to answer--I saw there was a Q&A in there about if someone picks up the phone and uses it during a drive, can you tell whether it's the driver or the passenger? That's a sort of application of a new sensor. If that data were made available by the phone-makers, that could be used to answer questions like that.
But you can also imagine that sensor, if the phone is mounted on the dashboard, tracking the driver's gaze or attention. So based on what I've seen so far, what I would expect over the next few years is more and different kinds of sensors to become available on smartphones, more sophisticated proximity sensors and so on, and ones that you can't even imagine now.
The end result is going to be the more sensors we have available on the phone, the more detail we'll be able to deduce about driving behavior from that data. Yeah.
OK. Great.
Maybe the one thing I would add there is even in the near-term, what we want to continue to do is add more context. I think that's the other piece where we can add even more value for customers, if we can add more contextual elements. So we talk a lot about speeding, but speeding has a lot of context around it. Not just simply a high rate of speed, but we can provide customers with a little bit more texture on speeding by roadway.
Like there's so much information I think we can bring that provides an even more robust picture of driving performance that I think would overall continue to enhance how we think about driving behavior.
Great. OK. We have a Big Brother question coming in from Christie Smith. Christie says, occasionally I'll hear that customers and consumers have concerns that we're selling the data around their trips, in particular where and when they're traveling. And so can you both comment on that, please?
Yeah. I mean, I think to the Big Brother element, the question there is really, what do you tell a customer, I guess, who's concerned about that? I think there's two reasons why I think you should feel OK about that. I mean, I'll let Tom talk to data security and retention. Obviously, we as TrueMotion don't own the data, we're not in a position to sell it or use it in any other way than it's intended to by our customer-- by Travelers.
But I think one of the things Tom's already mentioned is this is an entirely optional program. So if this is data that you're uncomfortable sharing, then you don't have to opt in. And so I think the thing that--people tend to associate Big Brother with this, and if you remember back to the book 1984, George Orwell's Big Brother, his surveillance was not optional. That's what made that so, so scary.
So I think this is a different--it's a different flavor of data sharing. And I think that brings me to the second reason, is that just like any other online service we use today, there is a give-or-take with privacy it's done in exchange for some benefit that you receive as a customer. So we share our photos and our thoughts with Facebook, and we do it because we feel that it's worth the connection with friends and family that we get in exchange.
And I think there's some similarity here with customers a choosing telematics program to say, OK, I am giving up a little bit of my privacy here by sharing that data with Travelers, but in exchange, I'm giving this to a very careful steward--maybe that's where the analogy with Facebook breaks down. I'm giving I'm giving this to a very careful steward of my data, and I feel that it's easily worth that significant financial savings on my policy program.
Yeah. And to Ben, your point there, we don't sell any of the data to third parties. It's a very specific use case and it's specific to the IntelliDrive program. And really, the only thing we do at the data is, other than for pricing, is to enhance our product. And that's the true research and development that internally we use. We take great confidence in TrueMotion's ability from a privacy and security perspective, and we have the utmost attention to it, security and privacy.
So it's really important to the confidence in the program for our customers, for our agents. But obviously, to be really clear, we don't sell, or we don't use it for any other third-party reason.
OK. Another good question coming in from Roberta Givens here. With the advent of the COVID era, how is the information being gathered when drivers may not leave their home for days or even weeks at a time? And how does the lack of driving impact the IntelliDrive scores overall?
Great question. Yeah, it's certainly a unique time during COVID for sure. And while we saw a change in the amount of miles traveled during the period of time, what we're seeing is that trend is changing. And we can still have, I think, a really good overall view of an individual's driving behavior even during COVID, and we've absolutely seen that.
And an interesting trend that we've also seen during the last couple of months is the interest-- the eagerness for customers to want to sign up for IntelliDrive. It's this, I think, a level of connection with driving and driving behavior that I think is resonating really well with customers during this period of time.
So we weren't anticipating an increase in adoption in the last couple of months, but we've absolutely seen it. And I think the conversation the discussion agents and customers are having now is, I want that deeper look into how I'm performing. And I don't think it's a surprise that other folks in the industry are marketing their programs more aggressively in the last couple of months, and I certainly think we're seeing some of the benefit of that.
But I think early on it, certainly what Ben described, is, we want to be really thoughtful, too, of how we're driving. And the roadways may be a little less congested for sure, but that may also have an impact where maybe we're driving much faster. Maybe we aren't paying attention as much as we were. So I think it's providing a lot of value in making sure that we are continuing to be safe drivers, even in this period of time.
OK. Couple of questions coming in about speeding and about hard braking, and how does the app really detect? So what do you consider speeding? Is it 5 miles over the limit? Is it 10 miles? And how is that kind of factored into whether I get an excellent score or a good score for that trip?
Yeah. Tom, I can let you answer the specifics of the scoring, but in terms of our general detection, we tend to treat speeding of 10 miles per hour over the speed limit as a speeding event. And then there's usually also a high-speed threshold above which we consider all speeding events-- all driving to be speeding. But in terms of how that affects the score, I'll probably let Tom take that.
Yeah. Ben's describing where we are and where we want to go all in one. Where we are today is that is a threshold around speeding. So think high rates of speed are a event or a penalty in your score. So if you're doing it for a long duration of time, that's obviously worse and that's riskier. So it's really the duration of time that you're speeding at very high rates.
What I described before is, as we continue to evolve the program, we add distraction and we bring contextual elements in, we want to do what Ben's describing around creating a little bit more of a speed threshold. So depending on if you're on secondary roads or on highways, maybe a different opinion about the rate of speed relative to the speed limit on posted roads.
OK. A question coming in from Andy Stapor. Andy, I hope I pronounced your name correctly. If a driver opts out, will the rate increase sharply by default? So after 45 days they realize, uh uh, not a good driver, I'm opting out of this, is there a penalty?
So in those situations--so if you're beyond that opt-out window and you decide, not for me, don't like how I'm doing, what we advocate is a retry. And we allow customers to retry as many times as they would like. And in that retry, it's basically like a clean slate. And I think that's a really important part of the retry capability, is we're not looking back at the other 50 days or 90 days that maybe were OK. It's really a clean slate.
And that works both ways. If you want to try again, just because you're hyperaggressive person and you want to better yourself and you want a perfect score on the test, that's great. We allow that capability. And if you think something has changed about yourself. So if your situation has changed, you can absolutely retry the program. And we'll always use your latest results as you're going--your go forward IntelliDrive score.
OK. Excellent. Another question coming in from Chris Jerry. As TrueMotion or Travelers used or consider using telematics data to assess factors such as unsafe driving, for example, on intoxication or disability?
I'm not familiar enough with any research on that within TrueMotion to comment on that. I don't believe so.
But there's no detection on intoxication at the moment, correct?
Not in IntelliDrive, no.
OK. Alright. Lots of questions coming in from our friends in New York State. When is this going to be available? So I don't know, Tom, you want to comment on that. But I assume we're trying to get the 38 to 50?
Yes, yes. 38 states today. New York is one of the states where we have our new auto product but not IntelliDrive. So that mismatch doesn't occur too much. New York is a state where we're having conversations about how we do it. It's certainly a little bit of a challenge from a regulatory perspective but know that our team is working hard to figure that out.
OK. Last question is going to be a tough one, so I'm going to put it to either of you. Is telematics information currently discoverable in claim litigation?
Well, it's not today. It is not. We do not use it in any claim discovery process at all.
OK. Terrific. Listen, we are coming towards the end of our program. So I just really want to thank both Ben and Tom for taking time to share more details about this IntelliDrive app. We have a number of questions coming in about where are the 38 states. So obviously ask your Travelers contact for that. And is it available somewhere on a website, I assume, as well?
Yeah. You can go to travelers.com/intellidrive.
OK, great. Well, we appreciate you both, Ben and Tom, for the work you're doing to encourage safer driving behaviors. Our next webinar coming up is going to be September 16.
(DESCRIPTION)
Wednesdays with Woodward, A Webinar Series. Woodward on Washington: An Economic and Political Outlook for 2020 and Beyond. Wednesday, September 16th, 1:00 to 2:00 pm EDT. Learn more at Travelers Institute dot org.
(SPEECH)
As some of you may know, I personally spent 12 years working on the House Budget Committee and Senate Finance Committee on Capitol Hill. So for this next webinar, my colleague is going to turn the tables on me and interview me and my take on the economic and political outlook. So for all of you TLC agents out there, this is kind of my economic and political presentation.
So, go to travelersinstitute.org to register for that program. And
(DESCRIPTION)
Watch replays of past webinars at Travelers Institute dot org. Life After Shelter in Place: A Conversation with Stanford University School of Medicine Dean Lloyd Minor MD, Liability Issues for Businesses in the Time of COVID-19, Emotional and Social Reintegration in the Age of COVID-19, PATH to Reopening Your Business, Return to Work with Cybersecurity.
(SPEECH)
Also, all of our past webinars, we've had a number of terrific ones--you'll see them on the screen right now, including my interviewing the Dean of Stanford Medical School last Wednesday, and he talks about the outlook for vaccines and therapeutics in COVID and the FDA approval process, so that was a really fascinating one. Also, about liability issues and the liability shield for businesses, that's also an excellent one.
So please go to the Travelers Institute website to view those replays. This particular one will be replayed as well, and that will be available in a few days, so check those out. And thank you again for joining us, all. Stay safe, my friends, put those masks on, wash my hands, and I will hope to see you soon, especially on these webinars. Take care.
(DESCRIPTION)
Joan smiles.
Summary
Unlocking Smartphone Data
According to Kotrc, smartphones today are packed with sensors like accelerometers, gyroscopes and magnetometers, which can yield detailed data about driving behavior. TrueMotion is harnessing this data to help understand how people drive and to help them make safe choices behind the wheel.
Kotrc shared that, on average, drivers are distracted for 10 minutes of every hour, and that in the moments before a crash, drivers interact with their phones almost twice as much as during other points of their trips. In 2020, during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, TrueMotion found that drivers substantially increased speed and active phone use behind the wheel.
How Does The IntelliDrive App Work?
Torcia described Travelers’ telematics app, which utilizes TrueMotion’s technology platforms. IntelliDrive is a 90-day program offered to customers in most states, which scores driving performance. Safer drivers may be eligible for 20% or 30% savings on their auto insurance premiums, while riskier driving can result in higher premiums. The result – incentivizing safer driving – is a win-win-win, according to Torcia. Customers have more control over their auto rates, agents are able to offer more competitive products and insurers can more accurately price risk, all while making roads safer for society.
Whenever an IntelliDrive app user begins a trip in a vehicle, algorithms answer a series of questions:
- Are you in a car? The application spends most of its time asleep but “wakes up” when it detects a change in location.
- Are you the driver? The app differentiates between drivers and passengers by examining which direction they turn getting into or out of the vehicle.
- How are you driving? The IntelliDrive program captures braking and acceleration events, for example.
- Are you distracted? The app detects active and passive smartphone usage, as well as handheld and hands-free calling.
Depending on the state in which you live, driving scores can be based on:
- Acceleration
- Braking
- Speeding
- Time of Day
- Distraction
Promoting Safer Driving
To help encourage safer driving habits, Kotrc and TrueMotion dug deep into academic studies on behavior modification – the science of how we change our bad habits. It’s not easy, Kotrc shared, but small, frequent rewards as well as social comparisons (e.g., are you a better driver than your sibling?) have been shown to help people change behaviors. The IntelliDrive app now includes a new feature to compare the driving performance of each family member to promote safe driving habits, as well as gaming elements like distraction free ‘streaks’ that encourage users to put down their phones, and reduce distracted driving.
Torcia noted that because distracted driving is a dangerous and common occurrence on today’s roadways, many of the newer enhancements in the IntelliDrive program rightly focus on reducing distraction. The app not only gives personalized feedback on how often a driver is distracted, but also offers Travelers Institute® educational content from the Every Second Matters® distracted driving campaign.
Speakers
Tom Torcia
Telematics Lead / Managing Director, Personal Insurance, Travelers
Ben Kotrc
Senior Data Scientist, TrueMotion
Host
Joan Woodward
President, Travelers Institute; Executive Vice President, Public Policy, Travelers
Join Joan Woodward, President of the Travelers Institute, as she speaks with thought leaders across industries in a weekly webinar.
FULL DETAILS