Website drivewaysoftware.com Founded 2013 | Headquarters San Mateo Type of business Private | |
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Industry Mobile Telematics
Big Data Founders Igor Katsman & Jake Diner Key people Michael S Simmons (CEO)
Igor Katsman(CTO, Founder) | ||
Driveway Software is a telematics company that provides a smartphone-based platform for the usage-based insurance (UBI) industry. The company was co-founded in 2013 by CEO Igor Katsman and Jake Diner. It is headquartered in San Mateo, California.
Contents
The Driveway app is the first telematics solution in the auto insurance industry to offer automatic trip detection, to function with no hardware dependency, and to bear no significant impact on the performance or battery life of user smartphones. Within the first six years after its introduction, the app had been downloaded by over 200,000 drivers and had collected more than 500 million miles of driving data.
Platform
Driveway is a cloud-based telematics platform deployed via drivers’ smartphones. The mobile application detects vehicle signature, location, mileage, trip date and time, acceleration, braking, cornering, speeding, and day and night garage location. It scores the data using a customizable formula and transmits it to the insurer in real-time through an insurer admin portal. Insurers may use the solution to view data on individual drivers; they may also view combined data grouped by driver demographics such as age or geography.
The Driveway app also sends real-time feedback to drivers, including individual driver score, tips and optional value-added services. It functions from anywhere within the vehicle (the driver’s smartphone does not need to remain in a fixed position when collecting data), and it consumes less than 2 percent of the smartphone battery.
For a white-label solution, it takes approximately 90 days for an insurer to roll out a usage-based insurance offering using the Driveway telematics platform.
Benefits
Insurers may use Driveway to calculate driver premiums based on behavior. Users who drive safely may pay 10-25 percent less than drivers with higher-risk habits. Behavior-based premiums have been shown to improve public safety by incentivizing safe driving.
For insurers
The actuarial data that Driveway collects is more accurate than proxy factors, such as credit score or vehicle color, that have traditionally been used by insurers to assess risk. Better data equips insurers to drive down loss ratios. By rewarding customers who drive safely, it also helps insurers retain best-performing drivers.
For drivers
Driveway gives drivers an opportunity to make insurance more affordable. Users may reduce the rate they pay for coverage by modifying their behavior; of the first 250,000 drivers enrolled in the program, 89 percent lowered their premiums. The app also offers driver coaching, scoring and gamification with which drivers may compete against themselves and each other to improve their skills.
Investors
Driveway Software has received over $11.6 million from multiple investors, including AltaIR Capital, IMI.VC and Kernel Capital, with $10 million from Ervington Investments in July 2015.
With its first round of funding, the company established a customer base of mid-sized insurers. Driveway Software spokespeople have expressed an intention to use subsequent funding to sell telemetry to ride-hailing services (such as Uber) and eventually to move into the data market surrounding driverless cars.
Role in IoT
In the auto insurance industry, telematics is associated with the Internet of Things (IoT). Driveway Software has been vocal in urging insurers to embrace IoT by moving into UBI telematics.
Industry involvement
Driveway Software has been featured in industry publications including CIO Review, Insurance Innovation Reporter, IoT Evolution, Property Casualty 360, Insurance Technology Association (ITA), Insurance & Technology and Insurance Thought Leadership when dealing with the importance of UBI, the differences between OBD- and mobile-deployed telematics solutions, real-time data, user privacy, telematics fraud detection and the ways in which UBI can improve customer retention.
In 2015, Driveway Software partnered with the insurance analytics firm Pinnacle Actuarial Resources to offer a coordinated UBI solution based on driver scoring.