Octo Telematics: Empowering Auto Insurance with Intelligent Telematics

Nino Tarantino, CEO

“Insurance is no longer simply about pricing, but about technology-driven advancements that increase policy holder engagement and improve driver safety,” begins Nino Tarantino, North American CEO, Octo Telematics. Having seen the market evolve rapidly in the past, he also remarks that today, innovation is the lifeblood of this industry, especially auto insurance. Consequently, insurance companies are embracing innovation and the latest technologies to change the insurer-to-insured paradigm. Taking these trends into consideration, Octo transforms insurance companies by helping them embrace the ever-growing trends in IoT, such as telematics. “With competitive pressures driving insurers to find new ways to cut business costs and improve both productivity and efficiency, the utilization of telematics technology is becoming increasingly popular”, states Tarantino.

Octo was founded in 2002 with a dedicated insurance telematics platform and was the first telematics company to provide ad hoc solutions for the insurance and automotive markets. It entered the US market in 2011 and in May 2015 moved its headquarters to London. Now, with the largest global telematics database in the world, the company’s telematics solution suite has completely transformed the auto insurance market by enabling insurers to more accurately assess and price risk, reduce cycle times and loss adjustment expenses for claims, and attract and retain profitable customers. Thriving on a powerful leadership and strong industry experience, Octo has witnessed gigantic growth around the world, especially in North America and Europe.

“With our innovative, end-to-end telematics platform, insurers can leverage IoT and data intelligence to analyze customer risk factors in real-time and improve their business productivity and cost efficiency,” states Tarantino. The company’s predictive algorithms seamlessly work across Smartphone apps, hardware devices, and connected cars, and continuously evolve through Octo’s continuous collection of telematics data from more than five million global connected users. Powered by a massive database, these intelligent algorithms order, prioritize, identify, and analyze the underlying insurance risks across numerous variables for each specific driver associated with a telematics policy.

Octo delivers superior telematics solutions with major investments in platform architecture, and constant innovation in the application of telematics for insurers

Octo’s solutions deliver end-to-end benefits across the entire insurance value chain, from device management, data collection and analysis, to product design, pricing support, and crash alerts. They also help to drive better policyholder engagement. This results in reduced cycle time, loss adjustment expenses, and fraud for claims as well as appropriate pricing and more accurate and granular risk assessment of policyholders. With such enhanced claims, risk, price management, and enhanced personal engagement, Octo enables ‘fair insurance for all’ by equally benefitting both insurers and end consumers.

Octo’s unique value proposition lies in providing superior services to its clients and thus, it closely recognizes the ever-growing market challenges and addresses them with advanced technologies. Tarantino points out that when an enterprise partners with Octo, it experiences unprecedented support all the way from management of data to complete training on how to launch and use the platform at every step. For example, the American Automobile Association (AAA) decided to incorporate telematics solutions to shape the infrastructure of AAA’s usage-based insurance program, AAA Insurance with SMARTtrek^®, and Online Garage^®, AAA’s website dedicated to providing personalized car maintenance help to members. Octo collaborated with the client’s leadership team and delivered a tailor-made solution for AAA’s requirements in improving roadside assistance and supporting usage-based insurance, while seamlessly integrating with AAA’s flagship connect repair facilities and services to help members maintain, recover and repair their vehicle in the event of a crash or a breakdown. Octo continues to work with AAA on highlighting the value of telematics to their members.

“Differing from traditional solution providers, Octo focuses on assisting consumers and insurers to mitigate the never ending challenges of automotive and road safety through perpetual innovations like our recently launched distracted driving scoring capability,” cites Tarantino. Octo’s telematics innovations have also aided in substantially elevating the crash detection and instant First Notice of Loss (FNOL) services for insurance companies, while promoting proactive relationships between these insurance companies and the policyholders. Octo continues major investments in its platform architecture, and constant innovation in the application of telematics for insurers – recently winning a Best Insurance Telematics Product or Service of the Year award from TU Automotive, a Most Innovative Insurance Vendor award from Insurance Nexus, and announcing strategic partnerships with companies like Guide wire. “Algorithms refined with global data means we are light years ahead of the competition,” says Tarantino.