Back before Uber I used to blog about biz dev ideas. Primarily this was done for the purpose of showing a potential employer that I could think creatively around deals and opportunities for startups. Turns out, I still do it even though I'm not looking for a gig. Sometimes you just see natural synergies and go, OMGWTF this would be awesome if...
Last night I was reading an interesting
article in Fast Company mag about the auto insurance industry beginning to offer data driven insurance quotes. This "innovation" is a big move for an industry that has provided their product based on very high level demographic data for years.
"The insurance industry is a very slow-moving, boring business," says Gregory Locraft, an insurance analyst with Morgan Stanley. "Snapshot and usage-based insurance are the bleeding edge of underwriting trends."
Essentially, what they do now is install a device in your car that tracks things like avg speeds, braking behavior, and acceleration patterns. Other companies are tracking this information through On-Star partnerships (could write another post on On-star), but either way they collect the data they're providing you insurance based on personal driving data vs. demographic information. Traditionally an insurance quote is determined by age, city, vehicle type, and year. The move towards personalized rates is a HUGE move even though it kinda seems obvious. This is driven (no pun intended) by Progressive (ironically).
A while back when I was driving more, I experimented with the app WAZE. It basically works as a GPS navigation system from your iPhone, but all the data is crowd sourced. As more people drive, more data is collected and provided back to users. They collect street information and speed information and potentially driving patterns. It kills a battery because of all the geo-data it's pulling but if plugged in, it is pretty sweet. Because a large barrier for insurance co's is collecting this data, what if Progressive were to partner with WAZE to help collect this data. Progressive could then tie an individuals Facebook profile (standard demographic data) with someone's driving patterns (Waze) and have the best possible personal profile.
There are multiple incentives to use the app for Waze (saving money on your car insurance <insert Gekko here>) and contributing back to the Waze data collection process. Not to mention Waze has a number of gaming mechanics built in.
Anyway, I'm not looking for a gig, but I wouldn't turn down shares. ;)