There is a conversation being held around telematics at almost every level of the insurance industry these days. One place where the conversation began over two years ago is at Zurich, where Jim Noble, line of business director, motor fleet, for the risk engineering group of Zurich Services Corporation, has seen benefits for both his company and its customers using Zurich Fleet Intelligence.

“It's definitely beneficial and the benefits have come in many different forms,” he says. “The insurance product will evolve as the technology evolves. We've gone from clunky black boxes to smaller, more agile units to pocket size units to smartphones. Who knows what the technology evolution will provide us. The trick for insurers is to be agile and react to quick changes in technology and understand what value we can get from telematics and how we can help our customers achieve that value.”

Noble is on the fleet side of Zurich's commercial lines division, but he believes there is as much if not more going on with personal lines.

“What I think is happening is the technology is moving very rapidly and the insurance markets are seeing the information they've been waiting for,” he says. “[Zurich] looks at our fleet offering as a way to capitalize on [the technology]. The Zurich Fleet Intelligence (ZFI) proposition is value add. It's much more about how we can gain synergy between the operational side and the lost prevention side to maximize a telematics unit.”

Noble points out there are telematics units that are used just there for logistics that offer a certain value to a customer. A product on the vehicle that just does emergency calling, he adds, offers a certain value, and one that measures driver performance has a certain value.

“If you put them all together you are maximizing what telematics can do for a customer,” says Noble.

There are serious differences among the telematics products that are on the market, explains Noble.

“Everybody has a niche of what they can do depending on customer needs,” he says. “Some telematics providers do a good job of measuring driver behavior. At various stages in the product line you go until you get the complete mobile resource management solutions and they do a lot of different things for a customer operationally and from a safety standpoint.”

From a carrier standpoint, no one wants to be married to a single technology, explains Noble, because customers have a wide range of needs and carriers need to be able to respond to those needs.

“That's why our system offers multiple vendor solutions,” he says. “The ZFI product is almost completely hardware agnostic. Our only requirement is it reports on the basic standards we need in order to measure and engage risk.”

Noble maintains that having an end-to-end product enables Zurich to identify risk and then determine what the insured is going to do with the information.

“We are working with customers to create action plans and drive risk out of the business,” says Noble. “That has been beneficial for the customer and for Zurich.”

Much like carriers, insureds are just now learning what they can do with the telematics technology.

“For us, it's more about how we can educate the customers to use the technology and what are their hot points,” says Noble. “Where in this use do they look at the technology and go, 'That's a perfect application for me?'”

That's not to say the carriers aren't learning from their customers as well.

“To a certain degree they are educating us,” says Noble. “It's a give and take with the customer. Who is leading and who is following depends on the customer and the needs they have. It's interesting in a new marketplace.

Noble points out Zurich is pushing its customers to understand what the telematics data is telling them and how they can create action plans for continual improvement cycles based on the data.

“Where that will go on the commercial side and even on the personal side, it is still in its infancy,” he says. “I don't think we've begun to scratch the surface of what telematics can do for us from an insurance standpoint and from a customer value chain standpoint.”

As with any type of change, there has to be a value for the customer over and above a single point, explains Noble.

“There are various single points with telematics, so integrating those values together makes it something that becomes attractive to the customer when they say they can go to one spot and manage operations or manage risks,” he says. “That becomes attractive to the audience we are talking to.”

On the operational side there are different points that create a return on investment for the customer and it varies depending on what their operation is.

“As integrated as we can make that on the risk management side, the easier it is to manage for the customer and the more value they actually get from telematics,” he says.

(Noble will be presenting at Insurance Telematics USA Conference and Exhibition on Sept. 4 and 5, at the Radisson Blu Aqua Hotel in Chicago. The event is expected to attract over 500 executives from across the insurance, automotive, wireless, and telematics industries. PropertyCasualty360.com has secured a $100 discount off ticket prices (a total discount of $200 if you book before Aug 3). Just enter the discount code '2104P360' when you book at insurancetelematics/register.)

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Telematics: The Latest Conversation Starter Among Insurers

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