results in reduced loss costs. Remember we’re providing Teen Safe Driver free of cost to our customers and we would expect that improved driving experience will pay for some of these upfront costs. At this point in time, we don’t have enough data to draw a firm conclusion on the impact of Teen Safe Driver on loss costs. Preliminarily, we’re seeing improvement in some of the insurance coverages and not so much in some others.
American Family will continue to evaluate the impact and the costs effectiveness of this pilot program as we gather more data. From a technology perspective, we’ve made several adaptations along the way. We initially piloted Teen Safe Driver at two high schools in 2006, with cooperation and support from the schools. These first pilots relied upon the same USB and WiFi technology that DriveCam uses for commercial fleets.
That technology requires students to regularly pass near a fixed WiFi hotspot, ideally positioned on the high school grounds. You can imagine the limitations imposed by that technology. We would need a significant infrastructure at each high school; huge gaps in data would exist for periods when school is not in session. The first pilots proved the concept was a winner, but that it could not move forward with the existing Wi-Fi technology.
As wireless networks matured, the timing was right to look into third generation or 3G wireless technology. By using cellular data transmission, coverage was no longer an issue. DriveCam invested a great deal of effort to reconfigure the device and their business model. Now we are able to transmit large amounts of rich media purely over 3G existing networks. Without this advancement and investment the program wouldn’t have been feasible.
A second technology issue we faced was creating a Web-based application that allowed parents and teens to access and review their unique information securely, as well as an application that was easy to use and reliable, meaning that parents could access their video clips with limited bandwidth. This was new for DriveCam as well. In the company’s commercial application of the technology, users were required to download software from the vendor. We knew that we could simply not ask thousands of Teen Safe Driver families to download software, and the Web-based application took care of that issue.
Downloads of video from the camera to the system have had a success rate of 98%. Parents have been able to access the application, including the capability to view the videos, 99% of the time. We are highly encouraged by our progress this far and we are working our way toward a sufficient amount of data to draw final conclusions.
With that I’ll turn it back to Rick to conclude our presentation.
FEATHERSTON: Thanks, Bill. The issue of disproportionate fatalities and injuries caused by teen driving is certainly not new. It’s been around a long time. Nor are attempts to correct the problem by other insurance companies and the car manufacturers. Everybody’s been trying to do a lot of good things. These attempts have included other technology systems that monitor where a teenager is driving, how fast they’re driving and when they are driving, but by providing actual video footage, the scorecard, the coaching tips, Teen Safe Driver is unique and innovative.
It gives parents powerful information they can use to teach their children and help them stay safe during the riskiest time of their life: behind the wheel, that first year of unsupervised driving. It encourages young drivers and their parents to discuss real world driving incidents and distractions – what’s really happened and to set expectations for improvement. While Teen Safe Driver is still in a development stage, we are very much intrigued by the early results that Bill talked about. Teen Safe Driver is an extension of American Family’s tradition of providing excellent value for our customers and we do that by providing a combination of products, service and competitive Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11