Our business goals were to motivate inert, non-shoppers to take control of their insurance rate by getting their own, truly personalized rate through a test-drive experience - before they switch.

Behaviorally, we needed to create an experience that consumers would understand easily, engage with and return to often, and build a compelling, personalized savings story to motivate them to shop.

One challenge we faced was that the UBI rating process was a black box to the end user. We partnered with our client’s IT team to define the data model, and translate it to a consumer-friendly, front-end experience that was useful, engaging, and began to educate users on what behaviors translated to a good rating (and discount).

Tools included a prototype built in Ruby on Rails, a Web service provided by Progressive IT and the limitless data provided by the Xirgo device. The data hungry prototype was primarily used to test the device data stream, a cloud server and storage system but eventually served as the foundation for the resulting site experience.

Here’s how test-drive works – Progressive sends each enrollee a proprietary device that plugs into the onboard diagnostics (OBD) port in their vehicle. The Snapshot device records data from the onboard computer while driving and transmits the summary back to Progressive. The data is then run through several algorithms to scrub, summarize and measure, producing a quantitative driving score for each trip. Key data components collected include mileage, time of day, hard brakes, and fast accelerations. On a real-time basis, Progressive lets users know about their performance through a creative Web interface that shows a car driving between quality bands and a detailed view of their score. At the end of a 30-day "test drive," sampling period, Progressive lets uses know whether they qualified for a driving discount.

Early results reveal that funnel trial metrics look good. Most notably users of the experience are showing higher engagement than other Progressive communications (which have impressive benchmarks):

• E-mail open rates are 40% higher

• Click-through rates are 3 times higher

• Participants are 9 times more likely to share on social media

With over 1,000,000 participants Snapshot has begun to re-establish Progressive as the technological leader in insurance. It has also redefined customer engagement while dramatically increasing its scale. And importantly, Snapshot has helped Progressive convert prospects into policyholders across its entire portfolio.

In the near future, we plan to add features to the Snapshot user experience in order to tighten integration with Progressive’s other offerings. A secondary goal is to use the data collected to garner more insight into driving behavior. Collectively we feel an understanding of data collected by Snapshot can be used to improve aspects of people’s lives outside of the insurance sphere.

The long-term objective is to make Snapshot an ongoing focus of consumer awareness, demand, and advocacy while fostering a better relationship with customers. We are continuing to assist with scaling the program via a new mobile app experience, new campaigns, and value-added services.