Q&A WITH IAN SWEENEY, GM OF TROV MOBILITY
Trov’s platform ingests a wide variety of data to arm mobility partners with details specific to their mobility use case.
Powered by Sentiance motion intelligence
Trov leverages the Sentiance platform for its capability to provide unique real-time data and insights. This intelligence allows Trov to understand an end user's real-time behavior and risk context, so they can provide tailored insurance coverage through their Powered by Trov applications.
Trov's Mobility Insurance Platform
Trov’s Mobility Insurance Platform enables emerging mobility services by providing context-sensing insurance to reduce the total cost of risk through data. While you may have heard of Trov’s work with Waymo and Free2Move, you may be less familiar with Trov’s technology and how it works. In the following Q&A, Ian Sweeney (VP & GM, Mobility at Trov) offers a look under the hood of Trov’s mobility solutions.
Ian Sweeney (VP & GM, Mobility at Trov)
Q: Insurance has been provided for hundreds of years without integrated technology. What’s changed and why should mobility services care?
A: Pressure on mobility platforms to get to profitability quickly has increased radically. One of the biggest expenses for those emerging mobility businesses is their cost of insurance. If they can reduce that cost quicker than their industry peers, they have a competitive advantage. The ability to manage risk and optimize insurance costs, however, relies exclusively on having the data.
The second change is the widespread availability of that data from vehicles, the environment and humans. Trov’s integrated technology platform ingests the data to enable context-sensing insurance. Knowing the context, or “risk state,” of every vehicle in the fleet allows us to right-size the coverage continuously -- down to the millisecond, resulting in our customers paying the true cost of their risk.
Trov’s platform also provides incident management tools for when things go wrong, from personal items left in a vehicle to more serious accidents that result in insurance claims. Trov’s technology combines the two datasets; the real-time risk state of every vehicle, and the precise data on where in the fleet risk is occurring to provide our customers their own unique risk profile. With a known risk profile our customers can act to mitigate and eliminate risk, and hence cost.
Q: What factors does Trov’s technology consider in its mobility risk assessment?
A: Trov’s platform ingests a wide variety of data to arm mobility partners with details specific to their mobility use case. This is a key consideration for mobility companies given the inherent differences between fleet types. For example, an autonomous vehicle provider requires drastically different data collection – in terms of both type and scope -- than, say, an e-scooter fleet.
Generally, the data can be summarized in three categories:
- Real-time vehicle data – describes what the vehicles are doing, and where they are doing it. For instance, a vehicle is parked, or being driven by a reliable driver.
- Risk data – describes when something bad has happened. For example, when a vehicle’s window has been smashed, or when an automobile has been in a collision.
- Environmental data – supplements the picture of risk. Traffic data, for example.
Q: Give us a sense of how Trov’s algorithm would adjust insurance premiums to reflect the current state of risk in a carsharing service.
A: Our context-sensing insurance is quite sophisticated in that it can handle an infinite number of risk periods, or states of risk in which a vehicle can exist.
In a simple example, a vehicle that is known to be parked has a low level of risk, and hence a minimal insurance cost. When that vehicle is in a driving risk period, it is more vulnerable and requires a higher level of coverage.
The Trov Mobility Insurance Platform tracks every vehicle in our customers’ fleets in real-time, to consistently adjust the level of coverage. Most of our customer’s fleets have at least five risk periods.
Q: Does Trov’s technology offer automated risk analysis or predictive analytics to help fleets avoid risk?
A: Yes.
Traditional insurance amasses sufficient data over multi-year horizons to understand a fleet’s risk. Trov’s Mobility Insurance Platform builds datasets for our customers. In fact, data collection begins the very second Trov is deployed.
Our algorithms continuously apply pattern recognition to said data – offering key insights to identify issues like high-risk drivers and vehicle misuse.
For example, when someone rents a carshare vehicle tagged for personal use, Trov can easily identify if the vehicle is actually being leveraged for commercial operations. In such an instance, the misused vehicle is essentially uninsured -- meaning the vehicle provider is liable. With this insight, a mobility company might respond by expanding coverage for their use case or cutting ties with irresponsible drivers.
Q: How does Trov collect real-time data? Do you insert hardware into partners’ vehicles?
A: Trov works with mobility providers offering transportation via digitally enabled platforms. We simply “piggyback” the data collection system that’s already integrated into our customer’s vehicle or app, to get a clean digital signal describing the vehicle’s risk context.
This method negates the need for us to insert any hardware in the vehicle – and avoids additional equipment costs!
Q: How does the claims process work?
A: Many of our partners are not used to dealing with clients calling them about insurance. Take our OEM customers for example. They’re used to selling cars and are evolving their business model to sell mobility directly to consumers -- which means they can expect to provide customer service related to incidents.
Trov provides our customers with the tools to operationally manage their risk from handling a small incident, like a lost item, or a more serious occurrence that results in an insurance claim.
While the claims process is operationally important, it also has tremendous value from a customer service perspective. Some customers need lighting fast automated claims resolution, while others need a white-glove approach to ensure every last detail is handled correctly. Trov’s claims tools are configured to match our customer’s customer-service goals.
Q: Trov works with auto fleets, but can its technology be applied to other use cases?
A: Yes, absolutely. We work with many different types of fleets -- from Waymo’s autonomous vehicles to Groupe PSA’s traditional car-share vehicles -- and the approach is applicable to many use-cases where context sensing insurance is needed.
The sharing and gig-economies have created a limitless number of scenarios where varying levels of insurance are needed for assets. Our model can be adapted to provide protection to a scooter for the duration of a ride, or a person as they assemble IKEA furniture in someone’s home.
The opportunities are truly endless -- and we can’t wait to show you what’s in store for 2020.
About TROV
Trov is a world-leading insurance technology company whose software enables the new ways people live, work, and move. Its white-label insurtech products empower financial institutions, insurance incumbents and leading consumer brands to rapidly deploy modern insurance applications designed for homeowners, renters, motorists and small businesses. Additionally, its Mobility Insurance Platform combines powerful software with bespoke insurance products to solve the complex risk management challenges facing companies in emerging mobility and gig work. Trov's customers include global enterprises such as Waymo (an Alphabet Company), Groupe PSA, Lloyds Banking Group, Sompo, Suncorp, and Hyundai, amongst others.
Founded in 2012 by serial entrepreneur Scott Walchek, Trov is backed by leading VC's and strategic partners. The company is based in the San Francisco Bay Area and maintains offices in New York, London, and Tokyo.
About Sentiance
Sentiance is an intelligence-driven AI company that turns motion data into insights for companies to create contextualized and personalized products and services. Sentiance powers the world’s leading companies through ethical AI for personalized engagement, increased safety and healthier lifestyles.
Sentiance converts smartphone and wearable sensor data into driving behavior intelligence for fleet, driver-centric assistance, driver scoring, driver coaching, and UBI (usage-based insurance) programs. We create impact through real-time driver behavior profiling to attract and retain safer drivers, lower fleet and claim costs, to increase overall profitability. Our mobile-first solution combines ease of use and low-cost deployment with instant and broad scalability.
For further information, contact either mobily@trov.com or info@sentiance.com.
