Being unafraid of imperfection is a fundamental tenet of an entrepreneurial spirit. Indeed, from the perspective of entrepreneurs, it can often be the quest for perfection that sounds the death knell for innovation.
The need for a long-term orientated view on telematics and its role in the insurance ecosystem is a call for entrepreneurism and innovation alike, noted ThingCo CEO Mike Brockman (pictured), as telematics is the key to understanding the full range of dynamics at play in the market. Without telematics, you’re in the dark at the point of an incident and you’re not taking advantage of the significant amount of quality data available from drivers.
“Telematics allows you to see patterns,” he said. “You can see what sorts of roads people are driving on, what speeds they’re driving, etc., and you can see that really quickly if you’ve got the right data. That’s the thing we’re focusing on at ThingCo. And it’s a double-edged sword because to get the best data and best understanding of risk means that the devices that produce the data have got to be slightly more complex.
“And when you’re dealing with connectivity and GPS and mobile telecoms companies, it’s not a perfect world there either… Anything with connectivity is a problem. So, you’ve got this ‘chase’ to get the best technological solutions with the devices to produce the right, more complex data that gives insurers and brokers the edge. It’s a continual spiral of improvement and investment, and it’s something the insurance industry is a bit impatient on because they don’t like risks, they want everything to be perfect, and nothing ever is.”
Brockman, who founded InsureTheBox, highlighted that he has been an entrepreneur throughout his life and so tends to always look to the future. He performs calculated risks, he said, but part of that is embracing that things going wrong is a learning period that brings with it the opportunity to improve. Every setback should leave you one step closer to success, and industry players have got to be in it for the long game if they want to help build a better insurance market.
Part of being entrepreneurially minded is recognising the appetite for innovation wherever it may be found, and ThingCo recently made headlines with the news of its expansion into Northern Ireland through a deal with Provincewide Ltd, the region’s largest independent broker association. Brockman highlighted that, as an umbrella organisation looking after the joint interests of its independent broker partners, Provincewide’s structure allows the firm to offer telematics services to its panel of brokers in a highly efficient manner.
“A lot of the brokers are quite small and, therefore, not always, technologically advanced. So, I think to be part of a sort of consortium that gives them more access to technologies is a great idea,” he said. “And in Ireland, it tends to be a bit more of an old-fashioned approach to broking which is good, it’s more face-to-face and about local people and who knows who etc.
“From a telematics point of view, that’s a good channel because you can match the needs of the customer with the product offerings, rather than it all being digital online or aggregator – all of that faceless stuff. It’s actually really good […] for telematics. Aggregators can take away some of the product differences that you can offer with telematics as it’s just lumped in with everyone else, so people just buy it because it’s cheap, rather than buying it because of the extra benefits.”
With its move into the Northern Irish market made, Brockman is hopeful that ThingCo will also move into the Republic of Ireland at a later stage. The Irish market is interesting, he said, in that though it has been looking into telematics for a while, it’s never actually seen the resulting data. And Irish roads are very different from GB or English roads, because they tend to be smaller and more rural, which produces different driving behaviours.
It’s always interesting to see how this comes out in the telematics driving data, he said, and that’s the beauty of telematics – it myth busts preconceptions about operating in certain markets. With telematics you can show the truth, you can map out what driving behaviour in an area looks like and match it to other places so that insurance players know exactly what they’re up against and how they can manage the risks associated with that.
“What’s great for me,” he said, “is that I’m able to arm brokers with a lot more information around this so they can go back to the insurers and say ‘ well, this is what we’re doing here, do you want to be a part of that?’ And that is already changing the game.”
