By Don Canning, Microsoft

DriveCam takes the risk out of driving. For their insurance partners, that means they have a new way to help their clients be better clients. One of the challenges an insurance company faces is being able to identify the right clients to target and retain in their portfolio. They’d like to be able to work with clients who have a low frequency and severity of accidents. Traditional methods of predicting the degree of riskiness and managing it are unreliable. Enter DriveCam. DriveCam offers a new way for their insurance partners to attract, retain, and profitably underwrite business by improving the way their clients drive.

Recently we spoke with Eliot Feldstein, DriveCam’s sector general manager for insurance. According to Feldstein, the issue of risk management is a growing concern. The risks that businesses have to contend with are ever-increasing, and range from catastrophic events to developing laws and statutes to terrorism. At the end of the day, the combination of these factors with normal business risks is leading companies to take a more advanced and proactive look at how they can manage risk.

The risk manager has a new seat in the boardroom, and is now, more than ever, called upon to provide counsel. This gives DriveCam a unique opportunity to address risk at the highest level.

DriveCam’s work with insurance partners revolves around the tenet that insurers share in the risk of their policyholders. By reducing the risk of fleets, DriveCam can have broad-based positive effects on risk. DriveCam has been fortunate to have insurance companies appreciate the value of its behavior-based risk mitigation solution.

A successful partnership involves collaboration. Companies that are customer-oriented and proactive managers of risk make for the best partners. At a tactical level, DriveCam has a flexible program.

DriveCam’s program works for two reasons.  First, the focus is on the driver rather than the roads or the vehicle.  Studies have proven that 95 percent of accidents are caused by the driver. Second, DriveCam manages the program for its clients to ensure consistency and ongoing success. If you take the program out, the risky behavior returns.

DriveCam’s dedicated cross-functional teams analyze event recordings to be used in ongoing driver coaching to improve driving and mitigate risk. The comprehensive program consists of:

• Event capture and download, which includes patented video event recording technology, hindsight 20/20 software, a consolidated data repository and hosting and system maintenance.
• Event review and scoring – certified DriveCam driving behavior analysts review and score each risky driving event.
• Program management and monitoring – dedicated DriveCam program specialists work with the client to ensure successful program and resource management.
• Results and performance reporting – DriveCam program specialists analyze reports to measure fleet driving improvement, keep clients up to date and provide them with insight into program effectiveness.
• Implementation and training.

The final step in the process is that the client logs into the system in order to sit with the driver and coach them on their risky driving patterns.
 
DriveCam is working with Microsoft to help scale and address the needs of all of its clients. Its client base consists of insurance partners with large and small fleets all the way to some of the world’s largest fleets who are self-insured. It even supports consumers through consumer-focused insurance partners such as American Family. That means its program and interface must be easily accessible and simple to understand.

Microsoft’s scalability ensures DriveCam reaches a depot manager with details of a driver’s recent risky driving behavior so the manager can provide the necessary coaching to improve behavior, prevent an accident and save lives. Similarly, the system makes it easier to relay to a parent when his or her child has made poor driving decisions before it is too late and the child’s risky driving behavior results in an incident.

At the same time, Microsoft reporting services enable DriveCam to deliver data, including video clips, analysis and risk scores, to customers – both commercial and consumer – on a regular basis in a secure format that is easy to understand and in line with their unique data requirements so customers can take action quickly.