Bitesize InsurTech: Accuscore
May 7, 2016 Chris Sandilands
Formerly known as Fleet Matrix and Acculitx, Accuscore is a fleet telematics company that raised a $1m Series A last year. It uses a smartphone app to continuously monitor and score driving behaviours.
Motor telematic insurance has in general been successful for individual drivers who have benefited from lower premiums. In the same way that a turkey would not vote for Christmas, poorer risks have resisted the move to usage based insurance and as such insurers have been willing to offer discounts to early adopters. Many insurers have yet to move to the next stage whereby data collected on the driving behaviours is used to calculate premiums and alter driving habits. The more advanced telematic insurers rely on three critical roles: (1) the ability to attract better risks; (2) the ability to price risks accurately, and; (3) the ability to effect a change in driving behaviour.
Accuscore prides itself on its ability to accurately assess how one drives, ranking for aggressiveness, distraction, driving tendencies and driving events. This can be fed back to drivers (even coaching programmes) in order to effect a change in the way that they drive. This feedback can also be provided to insurers allowing for a move from generic annual premiums to a much more flexible, tailored (and potentially cheaper) approach. By aligning driving behaviour scores with insurance premiums, Accuscore should be able to achieve two of the critical roles outlined above. What’s missing is attracting better risks.
We are proponents of Pay How You Drive insurance rather than Pay As You Drive insurance and the Accuscore offering certainly fits this mould. The test will, as ever, be in the pudding. The telematics market is getting busier – can Accuscore attract customers and build franchise fast enough? One small question that seems obvious: with constant monitoring how does Accuscore keep its data charges in check?
Others to look out for include Zubie which appears to be shifting its focus from personal to fleet customers; Driveway Software and DriveSpotter are already there and it’s only a matter of time before other startups currently focussed on motor telematics – like TrueMotion (previously Censio) – are applied to fleets.
