State Farm and Ford announced the launch of Drive Safe & Save Connected Car for customers with eligible connected Ford or Lincoln vehicles to benefit from usage-based insurance (UBI).

State Farm customers with eligible connected vehicles can opt into the State Farm UBI program, Drive Safe & Save, which adjusts premiums to an individual vehicle’s mileage and customer driving behavior.

State Farm will debut Drive Safe & Save Connected Car in Alaska, Idaho, Montana and Oregon for policies effective on or after Feb. 27, 2022, followed by a rollout across more states, excluding California, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

As a result, State Farm customers who drive an eligible Ford or Lincoln vehicle can better manage their overall vehicle ownership costs by benefiting from their good driving behaviors or learning to improve their driving habits and, in turn, reducing their premium.

Eligible 2020 Model Year and newer connected Ford vehicles, with the consent of the vehicle owner, can share information directly with State Farm to enable Drive Safe & Save. The more customers improve their driving behaviors, the greater the insurance discount they may obtain.

***

Nirvana Insurance, a technology-driven platform that modernizes commercial fleet insurance using data from sensors on trucks, announced the public launch of its services to make roads safer and aid the truck industry.

The company uses telematics data with the aim of transforming truck insurance to help fleets mitigate risk, improve driver performance and drop costs. Nirvana gives up to a 20 percent discount upfront to the safest fleets.

The Nirvana platform connects billions of data points from telematics and artificial intelligence-powered dash cams, as well as public sources like the DMV and the department of transportation, to provide instant quotes. Location, speed, video, erratic driving, weather and traffic are all factors that are assessed by Nirvana’s machine-learning algorithms. Nirvana also gives regular recommendations to its clients, including specific coaching for drivers, as well as routes to avoid.

The policies are usage based, so customers only pay for how much they drive.

Led by former employees from IPO Samsara, Rubrik and Root Insurance, Nirvana also recently closed a $22 million Series A funding round, bringing the total raised to more than $25 million.

The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners with additional participation from General Catalyst, Elad Gil, Instacart CEO Fidji Simo, Newfront CEO Spike Lipkin, Vouch CEO Sam Hodges and more. Nirvana will use the funding to scale its operations, grow its team, and invest in research and development efforts to expand products and services.

***

Everspan Insurance Company, part of Everspan Group, announced a partnership with Branch Financial. Branch, which uses data, technology and automation in an effort to make home and auto insurance less expensive, will offer these products in select states throughout the U.S.

Branch launched in 2019 by Steve Lekas and Joe Emison and is headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. It is underwritten by the Branch Insurance Exchange, Everspan Group and General Security National Insurance Company (GSNIC) and backed by SCOR SE.

Everspan Group is a specialty property/casualty insurance platform that operates nationwide on an admitted and non-admitted basis. The companies that comprise the Everspan Group are wholly-owned subsidiaries of Ambac Financial Group Inc., a financial services holding company.

Sources: State Farm, Nirvana Insurance, Everspan Insurance Company