Telematic devices help insurers offer targeted benefits
Floow, which claims to design the world’s most advanced, lowest-cost and insightful telematics systems, has stated that smartphones are generally as accurate as professional devices. The UK start-up, which works with insurers looking to increase the fairness of their pricing and reduce the probability of an accident, said it is also using the technology to understand why people drive and where they are going, which allows insurers to offer customers targeted benefits such as discounts at shops they visit regularly.

Big-data startup The Floow knows how good a driver you are, and wants to use this information to help save you money.

The Floow gathers data from phones and in-vehicle ‘black boxes’ to help make insurance premiums more accurate and even reduce the likelihood of a driver ever having an accident.

“Insurers are looking to telematics to increase the fairness of prices,” the founder and CEO of The Floow, Aldo Monteforte, told the audience at WIRED Money. When it comes to gathering data, Monteforte considers every single element which influences road safety. The Floow monitors smoothness of driving, weather conditions, other road users and multiple other data points to tailor insurance premiums to each individual.

Smartphones have been able to track telemetric data for a while – the same technology lets us play motion-controlled mobile games – but the insurance industry is only just waking up to the usefulness of that data. “There is now a confidence in the industry where insurers are seeing smartphones as one available sensor,” Monteforte says.

Of course, if you’re cruising around in a Ferrari then it makes sense to invest in a pinpoint-sharp telemetric device that costs hundreds of pounds to install and buy, but after tracking 700 million miles driven, The Floow has found modern smartphones are often just as accurate as professional devices.