An initiative to reward transport operators who demonstrate safe driving by waiving their insurance excess has won Innovation of the Year at the New Zealand Insurance Industry Awards.

The Safe Driving Rewards Programme is a collaboration between insurers NZI/Lumley and transport technology company EROAD.

EROAD customers who are also NZI/Lumley policyholders can sign up for the programme at no extra cost. EROAD‘s market-leading Leaderboard tool benchmarks drivers against others in their organisation and against drivers in the EROAD driving population. Companies placed in the top 25% of EROAD‘s driving population may qualify to have their insurance excess waived in the event of an accident.

The programme was launched in August 2015 and has been extended to August 2017.

“Our customers have so far saved more than $136,000 in excesses,” said EROAD CEO Steven Newman.

“We believe data analytics has the potential to revolutionise the heavy vehicle insurance industry and we‘re delighted that the innovative nature of this initiative has been recognised.”