By Joe Dunn, Angel Mendez, and Scott W. Dunn

 

Agribusiness clients are acutely aware of the high premiums they pay for workers’ compensation, premises liability, health insurance and the steps they can take to mitigate those costs. On the other hand, automobile liability has historically been a low-cost, low-visibility afterthought. Not anymore.

The risk associated with catastrophic vehicle-related losses is on the radar of underwriters who insure agricultural operations.

Many have seen loss ratios spike to 90 percent or higher on their auto liability book of business and are alarmed by the skyrocketing frequency and severity trends. In an informal poll, agricultural insurers expressed concerns that the market for auto coverage is seriously underpriced, and some are considering rate increases as high as 30 percent. Said one underwriter, “If you can’t get enough rate, you just have to walk away from some accounts.”

Consider the following scenarios:

  • As he does every day, a California farm labor contractor transports employees to and from job sites. One evening, while driving six workers home, the contractor drifts off the highway. He overcorrects, causing the van to flip several times. All six passengers, including two underage girls, are ejected from the vehicle. Three men are pronounced dead at the scene and one of the underage girls later dies from her injuries.
  • After inspect-ing a field to be harvested, a farm labor contractor employee stops at a bar and consumes five shots of whiskey and two 22-ounce beers in a three-hour period. He subsequently climbs into his truck and, while texting, rear-ends a car stopped at a red light. A four-year-old boy in the rear-ended car is killed instantly, while his mother and sister are injured.

Catastrophic vehicle losses have a significant impact on the agribusiness industry and create turmoil for both insureds and insurers. The emotional and financial toll in the case of a death or severe disability resulting from a vehicular accident can affect victims and their families forever. Employers dealing with vehicle-related claims involving their employees also face the devastating financial consequences of insured and uninsured costs increasing exponentially.

The insured costs most likely to be impacted arise from automobile liability, umbrella/excess liability, workers’ compensation and employers’ liability policies. Insureds typically have deductibles, or self-insured retentions and claim costs will need to be paid. In the longer run, a poor motor-vehicle or employee-injury-loss history can result in premium increases, mid-term cancellations, or worse yet — the unwillingness of any carrier to quote the account. Uninsured costs, including the following, are frequently overlooked but can be even more costly:

  • Lost production time;
  • Damage to crops/other products;
  • Increased overtime for existing employees;
  • Loss of experienced staff;
  • Need to hire and train new/temporary labor;
  • Damaged employee morale;
  • Investigation and legal expenses;
  • Governmental agency audits/fines;
  • Loss of management’s time; and
  • Negative publicity.

The risk associated with catastrophic vehicle-related losses is on the radar of underwriters who insure agricultural operations.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 2016 was a deadly year on the roads with 37,461 deaths — a 5.6 percent increase over the number of deaths in 2015. In addition, vehicle crashes are the leading cause of work-related deaths, accounting for 24 percent of all occupational fatalities, according to the National Safety Council.

The silver lining in the NHTSA study is that more than 94 percent of accidents are caused by human error and are thus preventable with proper training.

For employers, the best preventative tools are careful driver recruitment and comprehensive driver and fleet safety education. The “gold standard” of driver training is the National Safety Council’s Certified Defensive Driver Courses, which are available in either a classroom setting or online. For employers that are unable to commit their workforce to the time and expense of an intensive certificate program, insurers and broker loss control and claims consultants can tailor short “tailgate talk” training sessions that focus on, amongst other things, the following topics:

  • Driver-selection tips;
  • Drug-and-alcohol testing protocols;
  • MVR-review policies;
  • Defensive-driving techniques;
  • Cell-phone usage;
  • Vehicle inspection and maintenance;
  • Accident response and investigation procedures;
  • Post-loss claim-mitigation strategies;
  • Driver-incentive and discipline programs; and
  • Mock DOT and OSHA audits.

Employers’ negotiating positions on auto liability, umbrella/excess and workers’ compensation program renewals are strengthened when they can demonstrate to underwriters the tangible steps they have taken to become a better-than-average risk. The potential return on investment? Objectively, a well-designed safety program that has achieved meaningful reductions in auto and employee injury claims can yield the following financial benefits:

  • Increased competition for the account as underwriters vie for quality risks.
  • The ability to effectively counter upward premium pressures.
  • The confidence to increase deductibles or retentions, thus lowering premiums.

Subjectively, employers will have a safer workplace and more contented workforce.

The farm labor contractor from the first scenario did not have a driver’s license and ended up being sued by multiple parties. He filed for bankruptcy and ultimately went out of business. In addition, the U.S. Department of Labor sued the grower that hired him for violating worker safety and transportation laws.

The alcohol-impaired driver from the second scenario was sentenced to a mandatory 16-year prison term for gross vehicular homicide. His employer’s auto and umbrella liability coverage ended up paying out a multi-million-dollar settlement.

 

This whitepaper was featured in Insurance Journal’s Workers’ Compensation Newsletter on March 1, 2018 and published as an eMagazine on February 19, 2018.

Joe Dunn is the claim services manager, Mendez is a senior loss-control consultant, and Scott W. Dunn is vice president/risk advisor specializing in agribusiness, all of Pan American Insurance Services, a Relation company.

SF Biz Times Exclusive: Startup Zendrive to triple workforce at new San Francisco headquarters

Transportation data company Zendrive this month moved into a new office to expand its San Francisco operations and says it wants to triple its workforce here.

The company analyzes mobile phone data to predict driving behavior and helps insurers identify risky drivers. Its customers uses these analytics to manage their vehicles, drivers and liabilities.

Zendrive charges enterprise customers a fee per driver monthly and earns commissions through its insurance agency ZD Insurance Services, LLC. The affiliate acts as an agent for its insurance partners.

By using smartphones to track cars and driver behavior on the road, Zendrive works with insurance companies and transportation planners to lower their costs and collisions using data analytics. It is building out a new headquarters with 7,500 square feet on the third floor of 929 Market St. to triple its workforce. The company has 61 employees in San Francisco and Bangalore, India, with most of the anticipated growth here.

Distracted phone use causes a quarter of car accidents in the U.S., according to the National Safety Council. Zendrive said its technology and data can improve driver safety by collecting data on behavior, like speeding and hard braking, and phone use. The company said it is amassing data on tens of millions of drivers and tens of thousands of crashes but keeps the data anonymous and does not share with anyone.

These insights could affect how auto insurers set their prices and help transportation businesses learn more about what causes accidents, where they happen and types of drivers who cause them, Zendrive said. However, the startup said it doesn’t directly report data to insurance companies, and it cannot identify drivers, their companies or insurance from their data.

Zendrive has raised about $20 million in funding, backed by investors including First Round Capital and BMW iVentures. It was founded by Jonathan Matus and Pankaj Risbood in 2013 to focus on using data analytics to improve road safety. Matus, who spent several years at Google then Facebook working on mobile products, said he felt responsible for working on smartphone technology that added to people’s distractions on the road.

“I didn’t feel that was a meaningful use of the people around me and the use of my time,” said Matus, founder and CEO of Zendrive.

Smartphones were killing people, but they could also be used to save their lives, Matus said. So Zendrive has created a developer platform for companies to analyze driver behavior in order to prevent accidents and develop insight on their fleets.

Using smartphone sensor and GPS technology, it captures data around collisions, distracted driving and aggressive driving and then sends driver coaching insights and recommendations through its dashboard, an API, emails or text alerts. The app scores drivers’ performance and sets goals for them.

Zendrive said its driver coaching, which costs $4 per driver per month, can help reduce crashes by up to 49 percent, and the tool will get better as it accumulates more data. On average, the company analyzes more than 15 billion miles of data every two months, totaling about 50 billion miles so far.

That’s compared to Progressive Insurance, for example, which in 2017 reported collecting 15 billion miles of data over 18 years, Matus said.

“We’re going to hit 100 billion (miles) soon,” he added.

Zendrive will continue growing its team in India, which occupies a large building with two floors and will add two additional floors. The company has also been working with autonomous vehicle partners to research safety and road conditions in that upcoming market.

Using insightful data to determine prices has caught on in the business. Insurance company Metromile, also based in San Francisco, is using a small GPS device installed in customers’ cars to bill based on usage, and the company raised some $150 million in 2016 alone. It now has more than $200 million in funding, according to Crunchbase. It is available in seven states and expanding service to New York, Texas and Florida.

Tom Pataluch, director of software development at Walnut Creek-based Relation Insurance Services Inc., said these technological changes have enabled insurers and businesses to look beyond aggregated data, which traditionally included information like driving history and deductibles. Now they can collect more personal history and data in real-time to come up with more accurate rates.

“Data is becoming increasingly important. I can definitely see cases where it can help companies with fleets and the trucking sector to manage risk,” Pataluch said.

But not everyone will see savings on Zendrive. Rates are still tied to driver behavior: Drivers going slower on shorter trips will see rates go down, and drivers going faster over longer distances might see rates go up.

“It will lower the rates for some and increase the rates for others,” Pataluch said.

 

This article, authored by Antoinette Siu, originally appeared in the San Francisco Business Times on January  22nd, 2018.