Advanced Telematics and AI

Solution providers are quickly advancing innovative approaches to the next generation of emerging technologies that are affecting both insurers and policyholders. SMA has acquired a unique historical view of how solution providers are innovating within insurance through our annual SMA Innovation in Action Awards – and we have seen how it has changed over the six years of the program. The two winners of this year’s SMA Innovation in Action Awards for Solution Providers are excellent examples of how the use of technology like telematics and artificial intelligence (AI) is maturing in the insurance industry. TrueMotion’s smartphone usage-based insurance (UBI) product combines mobile technology, machine learning and data science to help insurers better understand and mitigate risk, acquire more profitable customers and increase customer loyalty as well as giving individual users feedback on their driving habits. TrueMotion’s solution illustrates how solution providers are expanding the possibilities of existing technologies. Telematics is firmly established as an insurance technology and continues to spread from personal to commercial lines of business. TrueMotion’s innovation lies in the refinements it has made and how it is using telematics, sensors and mobile technology to effect measurable improvements to drivers’ behavior. Not only does TrueMotion use the sensors in a user’s own smartphone in place of an on-board device (OBD), the company can determine when a driver is actually behind the wheel based on the position of his phone. This solves a weakness in OBD-based telematics: how to link good or bad driving habits to a specific driver rather than a specific vehicle, while still excluding trips that driver makes as a passenger. See also: Strategist’s Guide to Artificial Intelligence   The sophistication in data collection and the advanced analytics on the back end allow TrueMotion to give drivers immediate feedback for more effective behavioral modification. TrueMotion also takes an innovative approach in monitoring how the user interacts with her phone while driving, allowing for real-time alerts if distracted driving reaches dangerous levels. Solution providers are also moving beyond emerging technologies in the physical domain, like connected vehicles and drones, to those of the virtual realm, like artificial intelligence, cognitive computing and blockchain. These technologies have been slower to gain a foothold in the insurance world, partly due to a slower development timeline and because their insurance applications were still to be determined. That is already changing. Today, interest in artificial intelligence and machine learning, in particular, has skyrocketed. Intellect SEEC’s Intellect Risk Analyst is an AI-based risk discovery and assessment software for the commercial insurance industry. It aggregates data from more than,800 structured and unstructured data sources and applies rules set up by the underwriter. Machine learning analyzes the resulting underwriting decisions and refines its data aggregation and analysis capabilities in response. This solution gives insurers an accessible way to apply big data and AI to their existing transactional processing – in this case, underwriting. Integrating big data with advanced AI technologies gives underwriters access to new information and insights on the proposed risk. These new insights for risk assessment and pricing, together with the continuous improvement of data aggregation with machine learning, are powerful assets for underwriting. See also: It’s Rush Hour in Telematics Market   In these continually changing times, it becomes critical for all members of the insurance ecosystem to collaborate on new ways of doing business. Technologies that are focused on improving risk and harnessing the power of AI and machine learning, for example, showcase how resources and technology are interacting to change the insurance landscape. Innovation is flourishing across the insurance industry, and there are still great opportunities ahead. As solution providers continue to grow their use of advanced technologies into new territory, the potential value of their partnership increases for insurers. We expect to see solution providers’ innovations play a key role in the transformation of the insurance ecosystem.