Newsletter Sign-up

Line of Business Director
Zurich Financial Services

Painting a Fuller Driver Portrait

Telematics reporting tools track driver behavior and develop a preventative approach, not a punitive one, to lower claims frequency and severity.

James Noble had an idea he'd been mulling since the early 1990s. Three years ago, he decided the time was right to bring his idea to the table.

"From a risk management point of view, we've always looked in the rearview mirror, looking at accidents and violations as measures of performance," Noble said. "You were using failure to gain a view on failure."

The updated method he proposed melded new telematics technology with a range of other data, including motor vehicle record data and the customer's own internal records to create a preventative approach. "Telematics allows a real-time look, which combined with historical data, creates a fuller portrait."

Noble, who is a line of business director at Zurich Financial Services and has been with the company for 10 years, shared the idea with his colleagues and it soon created a lot of excitement within the organization.

An 18-month development process ensued. Colleagues and outside experts joined in a rigorous creative process that generated numerous drafts.

"It got to be a bigger product than we thought it was going to be initially because there is so much data that we could gather,'' Noble said. "Every time we turned the page we found something new. Part of that whole process was sifting through what was real and what wasn't from a telematics capability standpoint."

The process resulted in the 2010 soft launch of Zurich Fleet Intelligence (ZFI), a system that combines vehicle telematics systems with extensive reporting tools to turn raw data into insights that help customers with a variety of tasks. Those tasks include reducing fleet operating costs, frequency and severity of vehicle crashes, and carbon footprints, along with increased fuel economy and insurance costs and improved employee driving skills.

Following this soft launch of ZFI, Noble and colleagues talked about the product with risk and insurance managers and at conventions, and let customers know it was coming. The product received its official launch earlier this year with announcements, advertising, and promotion through distribution channels. Zurich is rolling out the product to its customers around the world.

"There are several telematics offerings in the insurance business, and motor fleet insurance in the future will be built around some of the matrices that come out of telematics,'' Noble said. "It's going to be very widespread. But no one is doing this as a total risk package.

"What I was stressing in the development process was that we wanted to do this, not to skim the surface, but to dig down into what the customer was doing,'' Noble said. "That's part of what we do and what sets you apart."

Noble said that the effect ZFI will have on how people drive for a living will be dramatic, as it "does completely change the playing field.''

"We know that telematics is a solid and a very effective tool for both reducing the frequency of accidents and reducing overall operating expenses," said Jim Breitkreitz, vice president of corporate client services in risk engineering. "The secret to making it work is that you've got to have management involvement. That is one of the things that separates what we do with telematics as to the way it is sometimes implemented.''

Though not a "silver bullet,'' fleet managers who use the tool for "continuous improvement,'' and companies in which management is engaged and giving drivers feedback will see this telematics innovation have an effect on lowering accident claims, Breitkreitz said.

"It's not there to be used in punitive ways, and you need to explain this to employees,'' he said. "When employees see that the reason this monitoring is taking place is that the company is concerned about their safety, then their attitude changes.''

"It's very gratifying to see it out there, to see it working, and to understand that it has the potential to change the insurance industry and how we do things and change people's lives and how safely they operate their vehicle,'' Noble said. "When I think about my role in that, it's a very gratifying feeling."

-- Lynn Rosen