Vitalitydrive – Telematics based Car Insurance from Discovery

To fulfil their commitment to encouraging a nation of great drivers, Discovery Insure launched the Vitalitydrive program in 2011. The Vitalitydrive program enables Vitality to track their customers’ driving behaviour and rewards good drivers with a lower premium, a discount on gas and real-time emergency assistance.

Vitalitydrive uses a piece of hardware, DQ-Track, a telematics device that was developed in collaboration with Ctrack, to create a scientific measure of customers’ driving behaviour. All drivers using the system have the opportunity to review their driving habits and see where improvements can be made to reduce the cost of their insurance. The reward system encourages drivers to change their bad driving habits into good ones. Th

The reward system encourages drivers to change their bad driving habits into good ones. This behavioural change decreases the probability of accidents ultimately driving down the claims cost

is behavioural change decreases the probability of accidents and therefore ultimately drives down the cost of claims.

Discovery Insure has also pioneered a smartphone application that combines mobile technology and behavioural economics to create better drivers and improve road safety. The Discovery Insure app uses a smartphone’s accelerometer and GPS to provide a driver with detailed driving information, including harsh braking and cornering, distracted driving examples, speeding, personalised driving tips, and a leader board function that ranks a driver’s score against that of their friends as well as other drivers in South Africa. The Discovery Insure App is available as a free download from the App Store or Google Play Store – for both Discovery Insure and non-Discovery Insure clients.

Discovery Insure also run a smart social marketing and branding campaign “Discovery Insure Driver Challenge” – a challenge to South Africans to promote safer driving on our roads. The latest edition will run from Aug 2015 and will give away R1 million Rand in BP petrol vouchers as rewards to good drivers.

Vitalitydrive’s Benefits to the Customer

• A fair and more transparent price (including rewards)
• Peace of mind and changing behaviour to less risky driving habits
• 40% in fuel rewards when customers fill up at any countrywide BP service station
• Savings of up to 15% at Vitality’s local travel partners
• Customers can also get a range of passenger safety features to keep their family safe and protected on the road

Vitalitydrive’s Benefit to the Insurer

• Enhances driving risk assessment strategy
• Reduces claims costs by promoting safer driving
• Stay competitive by offering best premium
• Increase loyalty through value added services

Discovery’s Vitalitydrive programme and app is a great example of an insurer using rewards to incentivise changes in driving behaviour.  Based on the concept of the better you drive, the more points you earn, its holistic rewards programme is a comprehensive reward and loyalty programme that keeps customers engaged and incentivsed on an on-going basis.

One of the key benefits for Vitality is the amount of data it is able to collect on the consumer.  Not only does this allow Vitality to track and monitor the effectiveness of its programme but it also gives them access to masses of consumer data which it can use to profile and target customers more effectively.  It’s a replica of the supermarket rewards and loyalty scheme.  What will be interesting to see is whether Discoverydrive can do what the supermarkets have done and create targeted offers to keep them highly loyal and engaged and ultimately drive up the life time value of the consumer.

Some of the early data collected indicate that the programme is achieving its core goal of promoting safer driving, with Discovery Insure customers experiencing 1/3 of South Africa’s vehicle accident mortality rate – an impressive outcome by all accounts.

Vitality Drive Website
Vitality Drive car insurance from Discovery Insure
Vitality Drive – Telematics based car insurance from Discovery