The race to harness telematics data in commercial auto insurance is well underway. Some insurers have invested heavily in building proprietary integrations with telematics providers, while others are leaning on aggregators.
Though the core objective was to enhance decision-making, many intended to gain a competitive edge by owning the underlying data infrastructure. The logic was simple – if you control the pipeline, you can lock in customers and partners by making them reliant on your process. This retention strategy is not fundamentally wrong, but it’s unlikely to hold over the long term.
At Draivn, we believe that today, long-term partnership isn’t built on dependence, but on trust, transparency, and customer satisfaction. This kind of loyalty comes from partnership, not lock-in, which is possible with the ecosystem approach.
In this model, the real value doesn’t lie in owning every component of the data pipeline, but in owning the layer that turns data into decisions. The rest – data ingestion, transformation, etc. – can be sourced from those who do it best. What matters is how well you use the data, not just how tightly you hold it.
Where the real value lies
Consider the typical lifecycle of telematics data before it can generate value:
- Ingestion:Connecting to diverse sources and pulling raw data.
- Transformation & cleansing:Making it usable, standardizing formats, and filtering out noise.
- Enrichment:Adding context (e.g., geographic exposure and environmental information).
- Translation into outputs:Converting it into data structures that can be used in the process.
- Analytics & decision-making:The crucial stage for underwriting, pricing, risk control, and claims management.
Trying to control this entire stack, insurers are building proprietary end-to-end systems. But doing so comes with tradeoffs. Here’s an analogy:
Imagine if Boeing insisted on manufacturing every single component for its aircraft in-house, instead of partnering with specialized companies that excel in producing each particular element. The complexity would be staggering, innovation would slow, and efficiency would drop.
Similarly, when any party attempts to own the entire telematics data pipeline, they risk becoming less agile, overburdened, and more disconnected from other ecosystem players. In particular:
- Isolation creates friction in data access and collaboration.
- It drains the company’s resources on reinventing something that already exists (data ingestion, cleansing, and enrichment tools, etc.).
What happens when any party insists on controlling the pipe?
At Draivn, we partner with brokers, insurers, and fleets across the commercial fleet insurance ecosystem. When one party insists that data must be ingested and processed through their own proprietary process, it creates friction for the others:
- Fleets are burdened with multiple distinct data workflows– one for each party they engage with.
- Brokers lose visibility into the data flow, weakening their ability to advise and support clients effectively.
- Insurers slow down quoting, miss windows to win business, and weaken their risk selection capabilities.
The real moat: Permissioned access, rich insights, and ecosystem collaboration
The simple truth is: ETL infrastructure is not a unique competitive differentiator. The real moat is built on:
- Simple, permissioned access to fleet data.
- The ability to rapidly interpret and act on insightful data outputs.
As long as these outputs are high-quality, reliable, and compatible with your systems, the specific route they take to get there should be secondary.
But there’s another layer to this – perhaps the most important one.
Everyone involved in an insurance transaction – fleets, brokers, insurers – needs to be working from the same data. That’s only possible in an ecosystem-based model:
No 1:1 pipelines or isolated integrations creating data silos, but shared outputs and permissioned access.
This model doesn’t mean insurers lose control – they gain efficiency, reduce integration overhead, optimize IT investments, and become easier to do business with. The ecosystem model ensures everyone involved in a transaction is on the same page, using the same validated information – a cornerstone of efficient decision-making and strong partnerships.
The shift we’re advocating
If you want to win in the telematics game, here’s what we recommend:
- Don’t waste resources reinventing what others have already done well (ingestion, cleansing, enrichment).
- Don’t create isolated pipelines that block your partners or fragment access to the data your partners already have.
- Do invest in your analytics and decision-making layers – this is where your unique expertise creates true differentiation.
- Do insist on data output compatibility – focus on consuming rich, standardized, decision-ready data, regardless of the initial pipe.
- Do enable a shared-data ecosystem – that’s how deals happen.
How Draivn facilitates the ecosystem-based model
Imagine a scenario where:
- Any ecosystem participant– a fleet, broker, insurer, TPA, or law firm – can use Draivn to collect and submit information needed to support the insurance process, whether for quoting, claims, or ongoing risk assessment.
- Draivn Visibilitydoes the heavy lifting of harmonizing, normalizing, and enriching data from diverse sources to deliver consistent, decision-ready outputs.
- Any party(with appropriate permissions) can work from the same data without the need to change the existing workflows.
At Draivn, we’re building the infrastructure that powers the ecosystem, so every stakeholder can work from the same source of truth and move together.
Bottom line: The ecosystem wins
Companies that try to own the pipe slow themselves down – those who collaborate, share, and focus on interpreting outputs move faster, quote smarter, and win more business.
The pipe is not a moat. Access, insights, and collaboration are.
Want to see what this looks like in practice? Contact us at draivn.com to learn more.
