The app uses sensors in your phone, which are found in all smartphones today. With these sensors, the app creates your driving score. With a better driving score, your premiums will be lowered every month (the average score is 76, so anything above that reduces the premium).
The app uses the following sensors:
Accelerometer: Used to assess how aggressively the car takes off, brakes, or rapidly changes lanes. We don’t see the exact speed of the vehicle, but we can observe its driving behaviour 🚗💨
Gyroscope: Used to detect if the phone is being held while driving, for example, to answer emails or text messages.
Proximity sensor: Can detect if the phone is being held near the face, as when someone is talking on the phone while driving.
Magnetometer: Can be used to assess the vehicle's acceleration into and out of turns.
Screen unlock: Helps determine if the person is using the phone while driving.
GPS sensor: Measures where the vehicle is driven, how long the journey lasts, and how fast the car gets there.
These sensors are used to create an overall driving score and five different sub-scores: Smoothness, Speed, Focus, Time of Day, and Rest.
Verna has partnered with the British company Floow, which specialises in interpreting smartphone data into driving scores. To ensure privacy, Verna only stores limited driving data in its systems, i.e., your overall driving score and sub-scores (such as smoothness, speed, focus, time of day, and rest). Verna does not receive or store any data about your individual trips (e.g., scores for each trip, what caused a low or high score, or map data showing where you drove). These data are only stored in an anonymised form on customer devices.