RESTON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--An increasingly popular form of automobile insurance, usage-based insurance (UBI) programs keep track of miles driven, time of day driven, speeding, hard breaking, and other events in order to monitor driver behavior, calculate risk and determine premium pricing for policy-holders. A new white paper published today finds that while UBI programs provide excellent insight into vehicle usage, they are unfortunately blind with regard to policy-holders’ cell phone use while driving, a very common and very dangerous set of behaviors that can increase crash risk by as much as 23 times.
The white paper, Beyond Telematics: Extending UBI Data to Include Mobile Phone Use While Driving, examines new opportunities for auto insurers to integrate vehicle usage data with mobile phone use policy controls to promote safe and legal use of mobile phones while driving.
“Several leading insurers, including Progressive, Liberty Mutual, Allstate and State Farm, are offering innovative usage-based insurance products that encourage people to drive less and drive more safely in exchange for reduced premiums,” said ZoomSafer CEO Matt Howard. “By incorporating cell phone policy technologies into their UBI offerings, insurers can help prevent distracted driving by providing a direct incentive for people to put the phone down while driving.”
“UBI systems are inherently rich with driving data and it’s logical that insurers would want to get as much value from this data as possible,” said Dave Huber, insurance telematics expert and co-author of the paper. “Using such data to help measure the effect of cell phone use on driving behaviors and crashes is a logical step toward further improved pricing and actuarial intelligence.”
To download a free copy of the white paper, please visit http://zoomsafer.com/distracted-driving-telematics-whitepaper/.
Additionally, ZoomSafer will be exhibiting and CEO Matt Howard will be speaking at the Insurance Telematics USA 2011 show September 8-9, 2011, in Chicago, IL.
About ZoomSafer
ZoomSafer is a leading provider of enterprise software to prevent distracted driving. FleetSafer® solutions enable employers and insurers to promote safe and legal use of cell phones while driving. For more information, please visit www.zoomsafer.com.