In this week’s IoT For All Podcast, Dan Davis, Director of IoT and Emerging Markets at LexisNexis Risk Solutions, joins us to talk about the intersection of IoT and the insurance industry. We discuss how IoT and insurance companies can work together, what consumers think of these new applications and where they stand to benefit, and some of the biggest challenges facing IoT in massive, well-established industries like insurance.

To start the conversation, Dan gave us a little background on what LexisNexis does and what role IoT plays in that service. LexisNexis leverages IoT to quickly gather information on users’ insured assets like a car’s model and year or a roof’s installation date. This saves users from having to dig through an archive of paperwork to find information to file a claim or request an estimate. This also helps insurance companies make better and more informed underwriting decisions when taking on new customers or adjusting deductibles and rates. 

The newness of this application of IoT in the insurance industry means that companies are “waiting on some critical mass” of data to be able to fully utilize it, Dan said. And to get to that critical mass, Dan said that consumers have to be willing to share – insurance companies can’t do anything without consent from consumers, even if they’re anonymizing that data.

“There are so many layers of our ability to tell the story of IoT data and smart home data in an insurance context. One of those layers is consumer consent, we can’t do anything with this data without consumers giving us and their insurance company permission. We’ve got to get really good at engaging customers in a way that they know what they’re doing, they know the consent that they’re providing. And that’s really the first hurdle in proving that this data matters.”

But why should consumers give consent at all? Dan says it’s a matter of savings. When consumers give their insurance company access to the sensors in their cars and smart homes, they leverage those companies’ insights to identify inefficiencies in their home or improve driving behavior, leading to savings not only on their insurance deductibles but on the maintenance and upkeep of their home or car. 

As to consumer’s willingness to consent, Dan spoke with us on some of the insights of LexisNexis’ recent consumer study. Including that, of the 2,500 US smart home device owners surveyed, 78 percent said they would be willing to share their data with their insurance provider.

To wrap up the conversation, we asked Dan how he foresaw the partnerships between IoT companies and insurance companies evolving as smart home device adoption continues to rise and Dan gave us some predictions for the IoT space for 2020.

Interested in connecting with Dan? Reach out to him on Linkedin!

About LexisNexis Risk Solutions: LexisNexis® Risk Solutions harnesses the power of data and advanced analytics to provide insights that help businesses and governmental entities reduce risk and improve decisions to benefit people around the globe. We provide data and technology solutions for a wide range of industries including insurance, financial services, healthcare, and government.

Key Questions and Topics from this Episode:

(00:58) Introduction to Dan Davis

(02:56) How does LexisNexis’ relationship with insurance companies work?

(06:47) How has IoT changed the insurance industry, what was it like before?

(08:40) With IoT still being a very new technology, what has the industry reception been?

(13:23) For consumers, what’s the incentive for opting into data collection?

(19:09) What were the findings of LexisNexis’ recent consumer study?

(26:32) Do you have any insights on how IoT companies and insurance companies might partner?

(29:59) What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve seen in the IoT ecosystem?

(34:05) What are your predictions for the IoT space in 2020?