New Program Brings Ease and Efficiency of Telematics to Budget Conscious Human Services Businesses
Human services organizations have unique customer and business needs, and ensuring the safety of clients and the drivers tasked with transporting them is critical.
For many of these businesses, keeping a close eye on fleet vehicles and driver performance can boost business performance and reduce costly interruptions, but there are often barriers to managing these responsibilities efficiently. For example, the technology needed to track vehicles and driver safety in real time can often require significant investment and multiyear contracts, putting these tools out of reach for budget-strapped business owners.
That’s why Nationwide established a telematics partnership program to reduce the cost barriers associated with exploring telematics and fleet management solutions. Recently launched in New York, New Jersey and Texas, the Vantage 360 Premium Partner Program offers comprehensive fleet management and GPS tracking for qualifying human services organizations at little to no cost.
“Employee and customer safety are top priorities for any business, but for those managing fleet vehicles, the cost of telematics equipment can often prohibit implementing solutions to monitor safe driving and vehicle efficiency,” said Pete Frey, director of Commercial Telematics and Connected Business at Nationwide. “By helping to ease the cost burden for telematics solutions, we feel business owners can more realistically embrace telematics and fleet management and learn from valuable insights that will ultimately help them boost performance and improve the safety of both drivers and customers.”
Nationwide has partnered with leading telematics solution providers, Azuga and Zubie, to offer customers advanced telematics systems with fleet management and GPS tracking capabilities.
With the partnership program, human service organizations can:
- Track fleet vehicles in real time
- Find the closest driver to respond to client needs
- Monitor vehicle health and receive immediate notifications of engine or battery issues
- Measure mileage and vehicle utilization
- Monitor driver performance, including hard braking, speeding or rapid acceleration
- Verify arrival and departure from client sites
“At a time when many carriers are limiting insurance coverage, limits and services for human services businesses, Nationwide is elevating its solutions by making it easy to prioritize driver and client safety with telematics,” said Cheryl Tamasitis, associate vice president of Human Services at Nationwide. “We want to give business owners and fleet managers peace of mind with a solution to ensure the safe and efficient use of their vehicles so they can continue to focus on serving those in need.”
Based in Silicon Valley, CA, Azuga is a global provider of connected vehicle and fleet technologies. Azuga’s safety-driven telematics solution uniquely impacts fleet efficiency and driving behavior improvements. Through the company’s work with insurance companies, Azuga has proven the value of telematics by reducing frequency and severity of accidents by as much as 50%.
“Azuga has been focused on supporting our large human services base of customers for many years now,” said Tom Erdman, president of Azuga. “We have a deep understanding of the unique needs of these special organizations and have built out a specific set of supporting tools and custom reports to serve their needs. Our human services programs have had proven impact in improving driver and patient safety while positively impacting operational efficiencies at the same time. We look forward to leveraging our experience to help Nationwide’s human services customers achieve their safety and efficiency objectives in this exciting new program.”
Zubie, based in Minneapolis, MN, is a telematics provider committed to providing smart, easy and simple solutions for businesses with small and medium-sized fleets. Since 2012, the company’s end-to-end connected-car technology has delivered real-time information about vehicles and drivers to help businesses manage and optimize their fleets.
“Safety and efficiency, all in a simple-to-use package – those are the pillars of what makes a Zubie implementation successful,” said Gary Tucker, CEO of Zubie. “Our driver scorecards and insights are simple to digest, which means solutions are quick to implement – customers report that Zubie helps them reduce idle time by upwards of 50%. Combine that with insights about driver behavior and vehicle health, and a Zubie implementation makes everyone safer and makes the business more efficient. The Premium Partner Program is a landmark program in the Insurance space, and we’re eager to help Nationwide customers improve the safety of their drivers and patients.”
Nationwide’s Vantage 360 Premium Partner Program builds on its Vantage 360 suite of telematics products. Vantage 360 Fleet, launched in July 2019 and currently available in Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana and South Carolina, is a mobile app telematics solution available for small market customers. Nationwide plans to expand the new Vantage 360 Premium Partner Program and Vantage 360 Fleet to additional states and industry segments in the near future.