While it may sound impossible considering the complexity and aggravation baked into the insurance claims process, in the near future, a car insurance claim might look something like this:

You’re in line at a drive-thru to get a coffee. The person behind you mistakenly thinks you are pulling forward so they casually pull forward also. The problem is, you weren’t pulling forward, so they drive directly into the rear-end of your car.  It is fairly obvious who is at fault, right?  Since the speed was so slow, the damage to your car is minimal. You are driving a smart car with connected car data details. The driver who rear-ended you has a car equipped with next generation telemetry technology. 

The impact of the accident triggers your car to notify your decentralized insurance company that there has been an accident. A claim is set up, a claim number assigned, and you receive a notification on your phone asking you to verify you are ok and to acknowledge the claim. Based on the impact, accident location and details of your vehicle, your decentralized insurance company  is able to estimate that the damage to your vehicle will cost $1,000 to repair. 

The driver who hit you also has a decentralized insurance company. Her insurance company also sets up a claim and notifies her that based on the accident and the data received that it appears she is at fault. 

You get out of your cars to exchange information. Instead of trying to remember what information you are supposed to collect, you are able to scan the QR codes from each other’s devices, successfully linking the claims. Even more powerful, the technology in your cars and the technology driving the decentralized insurance companies are able to recognize each other and the claims are connected. 

You have both agreed to the details of the accident and the initial estimated cost of the claim. $1,000 is transferred to your digital wallet account from the policy held by the person who hit you. Of course, if it exceeds that amount a supplement can be filed. 

You are already well on your way to being indemnified, or “made whole”, which is the entire premise of insurance. The driver that caused the accident has already been given a premium estimate for the impacts of this at-fault accident. Even better, she is given a way to mitigate that increase and, perhaps based on other data [weather, past history, predictive analytics], there are ways to avoid any increase in premium. Both of you are back in your cars fast enough to avoid the embarrassment of all the other cars honking at you to move out of the way.

Of course this doesn’t feel like the insurance we all use today. It may very well feel like an insurance future that isn’t reachable in any lifetime. However, the technologies that will power this type of system are being used across many industries and are changing the landscapes of many traditional financial systems. 

Projects like DIMO are paving the way for a system that solves this unilateral data-sharing problem. While cars have become increasingly intelligent and jam-packed with smart sensors, drivers of those vehicles have traditionally not had access to the wealth of data being produced. DIMO allows drivers to control a digital twin of their automobile, monitoring driving patterns, vehicle health, service history, and more.  This “digital twinning” allows car owners to not only monetize the data being produced, but leverage it to make their daily lives easier. 

The insurance industry has long sought vehicle telematics to help collect data points to power a more cost-friendly rating system. While they have promoted their hardware devices to their drivers and their “Safe Driver” discounts, rates have continued to rise. Drivers are reluctant to share their data with their insurance carriers; lack of trust being one of the complaints of the industry. This data sharing becomes a one way street. The consumer provides unlimited access to the insurance company in exchange for the promise of getting a discount on rates that are already over-inflated. 

Consider programs like Progressive Snapshot. These are certainly a small step in the right direction, but implemented in a way that doesn’t respect driver autonomy. Granting complete, total, and unilateral access to sensitive driving data to a siloed and centralized corporation is not the most equitable path forward. While insurance discounts are always a pleasant surprise [read: a rare occurrence], the lack of autonomy is excessive and takes the decision making out of the hands of car owners.

In contrast, DIMO users maintain very fine control of what data they share and they have control over which companies they choose to connect with. The dataset goes far beyond metrics on braking, speed, acceleration, and other surface data points used by the insurance industry. Data regarding tire pressure, maintenance records, driving patterns, location, and more can be used for predictive insurance rating and lead the charge for a Usage Based Auto Insurance system. 

Usage Based Auto Insurance, or Pay How Your Drive, is a hyper-personalized rating method based on individual driving behavior and data. Traditionally, insurance carriers have used factors such as make, model, year, date of birth, and accident history to rate an insurance policy. While these models have helped the industry remain solvent and pay claims, they do not take into account differences in more nuanced data such as driving patterns, routes taken, times of day, or maintenance history. 

“The tried and true rating methods of year, make, model, date of birth aren’t good enough any more. I could be the exact same age as you, driving the same year, make, model vehicle with the same mileage but there are factors beyond these that could be used to create a predictive rating model that is more cost-effective and transparent”

-Adam Hofmann, CEO, Nimblr.

By integrating data from a network like DIMO into a decentralized insurance platform like Nimblr, consumers gain the benefit of rich data sets working for them to build better insurance models. This system incentivizes collaboration and is built on a transparent, immutable, and cryptographic blockchain platform. The cryptographic nature of the platform allows the insurance process, from rating to claims, to be objective and remove the subjective nature of the traditional process.  The transparency of data allows insight into how the data is collected, how it is used, and how insurance premiums are developed. This is further supplemented by allowing users to control how and where their data is shared. 

“The costs of car ownership have risen dramatically over the past decade, and it’s the drivers that are paying the price whether that be at the gas pump or a repair shop or an insurance policy. Data-driven insurance policies are a huge step towards personalizing the automotive experience and ensuring fair & transparent pricing.”

-Alex Rawitz, Co-Founder, DIMO

A system that is efficient, transparent, and built for the future is a radical paradigm shift from the traditional insurance system where consumers often relinquish control of their data to centralized and siloed corporations. A decentralized insurance platform built on blockchain can leverage the rich data available from DIMO to ensure the needs and interests of their community are not just met - but prioritized and incentivized. 

It’s also evident that large auto manufacturers will never cooperate on a standardized way to appraise the safety of an individual’s driving habits. In addition to this, the insurance industry hasn’t fostered a strong sense of collaboration with the data they are processing in their siloed corporate structures. An open & decentralized mobility network is the only way to give power back to car owners and establish a more equitable system. Couple this with an open & decentralized insurance system and you gain the benefit of major leaps forward toward a more equitable system. 

Next time you sit down behind the wheel to go for a drive, imagine a world where you are rewarded just for the act of driving . Maybe you are notified that a company is looking for driving data for the routes you drive every day. They’ll pay you for that data and you can share it anonymously. Maybe you enter your destination in GPS and are given three options to get there with insurance costs for each route. 

Or maybe you rear-end someone at a coffee drive-thru and confidently and quickly handle the claim with a scan of a QR code. And, maybe - just maybe - the next notification you get from your insurance company is:

Thanks for filing this claim. We know having an accident is hard. We see you’re at the coffee shop. This coffee is on us.

About Nimblr

Nimblr is an AI and blockchain-powered insurance platform designed to cover practically any need and connect all members of the insurance value chain to ensure a more efficient, fair, and profitable insurance process. Nimblr harnesses blockchain on the backend to replace broken insurance processes and AI on the front end to provide an experience that is simpler, intuitive, and more personal. Nimblr's foundation is rooted in the earliest concepts of insurance; infusing those concepts with lightning fast, digital-first technology. For more information about Nimblr, please visit our website at https://asknimblr.com/.

About DIMO:

By making it easy for drivers to access connected car applications built by the world’s best developers on an open platform, DIMO empowers drivers to be better car owners, putting their data to work to create more value from an asset that’s one of the most expensive things they own. DIMO establishes a digital twin of a vehicle, and gives car owners self-sovereignty over their automotive data. For more information, please visit our website at https://dimo.zone/.