Behavior – The New
Frontier in Driver
Classification
presented by
Don Bashline
RightFind Technology
If behavior is the answer,
what’s the question?
• Why do crashes happen?
– Is it because the driver missed a
mortgage payment?
– Because the driver is a man?
– Lives in a city?
– Is young?
Correlation vs. Causation
• All the standard classification criteria
correlate highly with claims
• None of them represents causes of
claims
What Causes Crashes?
• “The most important factor
influencing traffic safety is individual
human behavior” - Leonard Evans
• More than 90% of crashes linked to
road user - Indiana University study
What Types of Behavior
Matter?
• Risk-taking behavior
– speeding
– running red lights
– aggressive driving
• Alcohol use
• Errors of judgment or perception
Can we predict these
behaviors?
• Doing so would give us a way to
predict crash (and with it, claim)
frequency for a driver
• We could then classify and price this
driver more accurately
Yes we can!
• Personality traits linked to crashcausing behaviors can be measured
using standard techniques
• More than 50 years of research
demonstrates connection between
personality and crash frequency
How We’re Making it Work 1
• Affiliated with academic behavioral
psychologist to develop test
questions
– survey of literature
– administer questions
– evaluate questionnaire results
How We’re Making it Work 2
• Initial Results were Encouraging
– certain personality traits correlated
highly with insurance claim experience
– these traits were not always those
intuitively associated with aggressive
driving
How We’re Making it Work 3
• First Market Research Co.
administered revised questionnaire
across country and held focus groups
– results of first survey largely confirmed
– focus groups were particularly revealing
How We’re Making it Work 4
• Retaining exam construction expert
– will use proven items and new ones
measuring same traits to develop tests
– these tests should be robust, capable of
validation
What’s next for RightFind
• We expect approval of our business
method patent in 1st quarter of 2003
• end of 1st quarter 2003 will have array of
exams available for licensing
• We’ll also license technique to developers
How will the tests be used?
• Refining classes with large “between
variance” - find good risks among young
drivers, bad records
• “Bad things happen to good people” improve predictability of driving record
What will they look like?
• Can be given on phone, as part of
application, by agent, or on internet
• Length from a few questions (1-2 minutes)
to 10-15 minutes.
• Questions directly related to personality
attributes
Why they’ll work
• Classification refinement key to profitability
• Equity - enable individual drivers to be
rated on causative factors
• Claims are infrequent - bad drivers will
often have good driving record (and vice
versa)
but what about...?
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•
•
•
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Change is difficult
Will regulators or consumers object?
Can the tests be “gamed?”
Dose/response problem
How well can we measure this?
Down the road for RightFind
• Continue refining driver tests
• Med Mal? Patients likelier to sue Docs
with bad attitudes
• Workers’ Comp? Management attitudes
toward work and workers mean a lot
• Commercial auto? Truck and taxi drivers
Down the Road for Risk
Classification
• Eternal conflict: insurers want to use
relevant information, but is it “socially
acceptable?”
• Genetic markers?
• Brain mapping?
Questions? Discussion?
Thanks for your attention and for
the invitation!
Visit us at
www.rightfindtech.com