4 minute read
How Our New FloowTag Solution Can Help Insurers to Take Advantage of the Recent Changes We’ve Seen Across Mobility
Article written by Michael Rose
At The Floow, we want to ensure that the solutions we offer fulfil the needs of our clients and end-users, now and in the future.
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As mobility patterns change - through natural evolutions in our urban centres, younger adults choosing not to own a car and consumer opinions regarding the monitoring of driving becoming more accepted or, as a result of large scale global events such as the COVID-19 pandemic - the potential for telematics adoption is rapidly evolving. At the same time, the introduction of new sensors helps to provide abetter understanding of driver behaviour and more predictability, whilst enhancements to vehicles and assistive driving technologies are altering driving behaviours. All of which impact on the type and likelihood of incidents occurring which affects traditional risk modelling.
These changes have led many insurers to consider smartphone-based solutions which reduce time to market, allow insurance to be provided only when required through pay-as-you-drive (PAYD) solutions, and help create engaging insurance propositions. As a result, we believe there will be a significant expansion of the telematics sector in the next two years.
Driver installing FloowTag to their windscreen
The Impact of COVID-19 on Mobility
As mentioned above, the COVID-19 pandemic is currently having a large impact on mobility affecting how, where and when we move. Over recent weeks, we have seen a dramatic reduction in the number of vehicles on the roads in countries across the world as lockdowns have been introduced, keeping people at home and limiting movement to essential journeys only.
With fewer journeys being recorded, we would expect risk levels on our roads to fall but this has not been the case as some of the drivers still on our roads partake in a number of unsafe driving behaviours including speeding (as there are less vehicles on the road holding them up on their journey) and distracted driving, by increasingly using their mobile phone behind the wheel in an attempt to keep communication channels with friends and family open using technology.
All of this is highlighted in the research which has been conducted over the past couple of months by our Chief Actuary, Andy Goldby. The insights from this research have been beneficial for the insurance market and they have allowed us to look to a post-lockdown world and the changes which COVID-19 has brought about which may end up having a permanent effect on mobility and motor insurance.
We believe this will lead to an acceleration in the adoption of telematics technology to track journeys undertaken by drivers, understand driver behaviours and lead to increased demand for PAYD motor insurance propositions. As people drive less, PAYD propositions will allow drivers to only pay for motor insurance when it is required, saving them money in the long-term.
FloowTag being installed into a driver's windscreen
Introducing FloowTag
Our recently released FloowTag solution is a great option for a PAYD proposition as it ensures that only journeys from the insured vehicle are monitored and analysed so drivers are not incorrectly charged or unfairly penalised for journeys taken in another vehicle such as a bus or taxi.
Available for use alongside our FloowDrive solution, FloowTag is a small Bluetooth Low Energy device which is self-installed to a vehicle’s windscreen. We developed FloowDrive as a flexible smartphone application to make telematics cheaper and more accessible for all insurers by removing the cost and complexity barriers to this technology. The addition of FloowTag to our FloowDrive platform is optional but it provides insurers with further added value, and another customisation option when deciding on the type of proposition they want to offer to their policyholders.
While our FloowDrive app identifies the driver, FloowTag identifies the vehicle and makes the association between a driver and multiple vehicles possible. FloowTag also allows for vehicle specific risk scoring and mileage calculations, paving the way for a wide array of features such as crash detection and improving the quality and accuracy of driving events.
Due to its capabilities and cost-effectiveness, Floow- Tag offers a range of benefits for insurers looking to create an engaging and valuable connected insurance solution. Whilst for drivers, they can easily view tag related information, such as battery levels, directly in their FloowDrive app, where they can also manage the connection between the tag and their phone.
By using FloowTag together with the smartphone, we can also effectively monitor driver behaviour and add distraction insights into mileage-based pricing to help significantly differentiate risk and support an insurer’s pricing analysis.
Creating Flexible Products to Meet Ever-changing Market Needs
When we first started to develop FloowTag, we could never have foreseen the circumstances in which the finished product was launched to the market at the end of April. Luckily, due to the capabilities of FloowTag and its flexibility, there was an obvious place in the market lined up for FloowTag despite the rapidly changing attitudes to mobility which were brought about by COVID-19.
Although, we can never fully predict what will happen in the future, we remain laser-focused on the horizon to ensure that we are developing the best future-facing products to help insurers gain competitive advantage and remain customer-focused whilst fulfilling the needs of drivers and making best use of the new technologies being introduced to the mobility market.
We look forward to continuing to release further innovations, whether new products or developments to our current solutions, throughout the course of 2020 and beyond, to continue to meet the evolving needs of personal and commercial lines insurers, their customers - whether drivers or fleets, and the mobility market as a whole.
