Ever since writing Living Systems and The Information First Company last Fall, I’ve been citing Earnest, the financial services startup, as a poster child for what I mean by an “information-first” company. But earlier this month I met with another perfect exemplar: Metromile, a company that is already upending industrial-age assumptions about what “insurance” should be.**
I’m fascinated by the idea of “potential information” – flows of information that are locked away and unused. Potential information flows live in the imagination of every NewCo – once tapped, they create all manner of new potential value. Metromile is a stellar example of a company that has found a vector into a treasure trove of potential information – the automobile – and is busy turning that information into a new kind of customer experience, one that has the potential to completely retool the utility and value of the insurance business.
But I get ahead of myself. Let’s back up, and start at the beginning. Metromile began as the brainchild of David Friedberg, co-founder and CEO of yet another information-first insurance breakout, Climate Corp. Climate opened up reams of new information flows for the farming industry, and along the way was acquired by agribusiness giant Monsanto for more than $1 billion. Friedberg realized that the lessons of Climate were applicable to consumer insurance, and Metromile was born.
I met with Metromile CEO Dan Preston in his crowded and humming San Francisco headquarters (pictured above). I had heard about Metromile, but my knowledge was limited to their headline: car insurance you pay for by the mile. But I figured the company was up to more than just a cheaper insurance product. On that hunch my chat with Preston did not disappoint.
Metromile does have a deceptively simple premise: those who drive a lot tend to have more accidents, those who drive less, fewer. Simple, no? But it turns out, the way insurance products currently work spreads the risk of those high mileage drivers across the entire pool of the insured. Put another way, if you drive less than 10,000 miles a year, most likely your insurance premiums are higher than they need to be. That’s because insurance companies average out the costs across their entire base of customers, forcing the less risky drivers to cover the costs of those who drive more.
Metromile is the only insurance product on the market that charges by the mile on a retroactive basis – it tracks your miles driven, then calculates your monthly premium in arrears. To do so, it needs access to your vehicle’s diagnostic port – the same access point used by mechanics when they service modern cars (every car since 1996 has such a port). When you sign up, Metromile sends you a “Metronome” – the same kind of device made famous by Progressive Insurance’s Snapshot, which uses them for data-driven discount products.
If you drive less than 10,000 miles a year, and live in a city environment, chances are you’ll save a lot of money using Metromile. But saving money is just the start of the company’s ambitions. After all, once the Metronome is installed, Metromile begins to collect data about your car and your driving habits. And any good information-first entrepreneur knows that the true value of an enterprise lies in mapping potential information flows. And that little Metronome is a hidden goldmine of such data.
Preston and his team doesn’t see Metromile as just an insurance company. Instead, Metromile is “your friend and ally in owning a car.” An ally with sophisticated data science and a friendly app that delivers much more than monthly savings. From the company’s website:
We aim to make the urban experience of having a car as simple as it can be, by taking our deep understanding of data and transforming it into information and services that make having a car less expensive, more convenient, and simply smarter….With the Metronome in place, the free Metromile app functions as your personal driving dashboard. Use it to track and optimize your gas usage and trips, monitor the health of your car, and locate your car if it’s missing. You can even use it to get automated street sweeping alerts.
And there’s the difference between Metromile and the rest of the insurance business – Metromile sees itself as a services company in the business of helping drivers make more informed choices about their cars. It starts with insurance, but it quickly becomes the voice of your car. Metromile’s app opens a window into the previously opaque world of automotive data and helps you understand all manner of things about your car – if it’s close to breaking down, for example, or if you’re using it in ways that might cause unwanted expenses down the road. When you think about it, Metromile is a fitbit for your car. And that’s pretty darn cool. One to watch, to be sure.
**Because I believe so much in the company, I am considering a small investment in MetroMile. Anytime I write about a company where I am or might be an investor, I will make a practice of noting it – so far, this hasn’t happened yet. As I point out on my disclosures page, I am a fairly active angel investor.