Digital insurance company ONE in July 2018 entered into a new joint venture with Swiss geolocation experts Axon Vibe, and Munich Re. The joint venture, called “ONE Coach,” is poised to use encryption technology, a novel approach, within the insurance domain.

ONE is based in Vaduz, Liechtenstein, and operates in the German market.

After launching in February 2018, ONE has become the fastest-growing digital insurance company in Europe. Using ONE Coach, customers will be able to monitor in real time how their individual lifestyle choices affect their risk assessment score.

Motion sensors and the mobile phone’s GPS-module are used as data sources. Clients with low-risk scores receive bonus points which can be converted into insurance rate reductions. In the mid-term, ONE plans to offer ‘real-time’ short-term insurances based on customers’ individual lifestyles.

“ONE has an insurance product architecture under construction, which will push experiences ahead of the entire market regarding features like adjustable short-term coverage, micro modularization of risks and real-time utilization of IoT-data. The joint venture with Axon Vibe and Munich Re enables us to put a remarkable footprint into this entirely new territory of geo-triggered insurance, also known as “UBI” (usage-based insurance). Clients will have seamless opportunities of proactive risk advisory instead of only being paid after unfortunate claim events,” says Stephan Ommerborn, CEO, and Co-Founder of ONE.

ONE offers cashback in case of no-claims. The ONE Coach is supposed to add to this, but won’t be implemented as a pure bonus system.

An overview-window within the app anonymously shows the evaluated points, e.g., points for lunches, vacations, risk areas the customers are frequenting or idle periods. The overview is further used for comprehensive data transparency. Also, ONE will offer tailor-made insurance packages for business or leisure trips soon. Taking the trip’s duration into account, a fully automatized offer reaches the customer via push-notification.

Today, the startup provides flexible policies that can be canceled on a monthly basis or edited any time via web and mobile apps (e.g., amount insured). Claims are reported via the ONE app and will be assessed within two hours. The joint venture is supposed to maximize individualization of the service, and turn location-based short-term insurances respectable.

And What About Employee Benefits?

ONE Insurance’s initiative may not be readily transferrable to employee benefits, but usage-based insurance might make sense for people working as contractors or ‘gig workers’. Couldn’t AD&D (accidental death & disability) and other income protection products have premiums modulated by usage (read, periods at work vs. idle time) and by patterns of behavior?