Suncorp CIO Adam Bennett places a bet on gaming insurance for drivers

At Suncorp, car insurance is becoming a game and policyholders are seemingly happily playing along for a chance at a prize.

Suncorp has taken a gamble on the gamification of driving as the insurer looks to reward 'good' drivers with prizes and potentially reduced policies.

Insurance providers are testing whether the gamification of their policies and products can reduce the number of claims and accidents, and turn their customers into better drivers.

The industry joins a long list of others including health and dental which have turned to games that provide scores, rewards and often meaningless badges for customers who perform certain tasks under rules set out by a company.

The concept was quietly rolled out earlier this year by Suncorp’s AAMI which has developed the service within its mobile app.

Suncorp’s chief information office Adam Bennett says prizes are soon on the way for drivers who perform well, with a potential reduced policy on the radar.

The game in this instance is rather simple.

It’s single player, BYO vehicle and there’s no controller necessary.

Each player – or driver – is judged on five scoring criteria which includes the number of times they use their mobile phone while driving, their acceleration patterns, their braking patterns, cornering and their ability to stay within the speed limit.

While it’s still early days, Mr Bennett said about 50 per cent of drivers who initially scored low in the game had already improved. Over 70,000 drivers had already signed up and used the product.

“Of customers that had a lower than average driving score, 50 per cent have improved their performance,” he said.

“It’s relatively early days in terms of its full scale adoption but I think (the numbers) provide a good sense of confidence that this type of innovation is something that resonates with customers.”

The use of the game is also hitting another KPI for Suncorp.

“It has materially improved the engagement of those customers who use it ... there’s been a significant increase in the amount of times people access the mobile app,” Mr Bennett said.

The number of customers using the new game represent about 7 per cent of Suncorp’s total insurance customer base, which sits at about 1 million across all brands.

Suncorp saw a future where gamification could be applied across multiple policy offerings including home insurance, Mr Bennett said.

“The other obvious type of opportunities are the use of sensors in the home. Previously it wasn’t that economic to scale but now there’s potential to look at water, smoke detection, security breaches in the home,” he said.

While there would likely be rewards for a home-like game as well, the real prize, Mr Bennett said, was keeping your home safe when no one is home.

The future of insurance is already heavily reliant on tech, with Suncorp among others using geospatial data and imagery amid natural disasters to assist with claims. That data could identify about 80 attributes of a person’s home and was often better and more accurate than asking a customer, Mr Bennett said.

In some cases, customers who have not filed a claim but are eligible have been notified by Suncorp, he Bennett said.

Flyovers of disaster zones were also relatively easy to do and could be organised on short notice, with drones and other small commercial aircraft deployed shortly after an incident had taken place, Mr Bennett said. On average, flyovers took place three times per year.

“What we’ve already seen is the option to materially adjust our home insurance proposition. That overlay of the geospatial images helps us to understand the nature and extent of the damage,” he said.

Geospatial data and imagery also gave Suncorp an edge in the supply chain industry, Mr Bennett said. The company could, using weather data, prepare for natural disasters and pre-order certain supplies which its AI engines identified around the homes in a danger zone.

Originally published as Suncorp CIO Adam Bennett places a bet on gaming insurance for drivers