Ford and
Lincoln are working with Nationwide to offer an insurance program for connected vehicles designed to reward safe driving.
Customers can opt in and share driving data with Nationwide
using vehicle connectivity to take advantage of usage-based insurance benefits, saving drivers up to 40%.
Signing up is conducted on the FordPass or Lincoln Way app. The form is
prepopulated with key vehicle information to make the process easy and fast. The program is available in 39 states on 2020 modem-equipped models. Launches in other states are planned.
Ford
Insure and Lincoln Motor Company Insure policyholders consent to be enrolled in Nationwide’s SmartRide usage-based insurance program and will share their vehicle connectivity information with
Nationwide for the initial six-month policy.
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Once customers purchase a policy, the connected vehicle will track and share distance driven, hard braking and accelerating, idle time and night
driving to establish a policy rate for renewal. Data is shared with Nationwide through the vehicle’s embedded modem, eliminating the need for a special app or vehicle plug-in device.
This is the latest way Ford is improving the customer experience, said Elena Ford, chief customer experience officer at Ford Motor Company.
General Motors has a similar program called
OnStar Smart Driver, a system that tracks a driver's driving and records their habits and gives drivers a driver score, a monthly report and interactive graphs and maps.
There is no cost
for customers to join Smart Driver. All they need is the OnStar basic plan, which comes free for five years on new vehicles.
Progressive Insurance offers a usage-based insurance rating
program, called Snapshot, that allows customers to potentially save money based on their actual driving habits. Customers who enroll in Snapshot mobile use their smartphone to collect data
through the app. Progressive will use this data to calculate a driver score.