Insurance User Based Insurance (UBI) users will be invited to participate in a randomized control trial where they will be randomized into 1 of 4 arms: (Arm 1) standard UBI, (Arm 2) Standard UBI + Free phone mounts (Arm 3) Commitment + Habit Tips, (Arm 4) Gamification + Social Competition,(Arm 5) Contest Financial Incentives. Each successive arm will experience all of the elements that the lower-numbered arms will.
Insurance company will invite User Based Insurance app users with more than 2 minutes per hours of handheld phone use in their first month of the insurance program to participate in a study to help them reduce their phone use while driving. Email invitations will include max insurance discount amount for the safest drivers in the customer's demographic group receive for not using their phone while in the User based insurance app. Participants that enroll into the study will be randomized to 1 of 4 arms: (Arm 1) standard UBI where they will continue to be monitored and receive educational material about distracted driving in the enrollment period; (Arm 2) Free phone mounts Arm, this arm will be monitored through standard UBI and receive educational material about distracted driving in the enrollment period, and free phone mounts (Arm 3)+ Commitment + Habit tips, this arm will receive educational material about distracted driving during the enrollment period, be sent a free phone mount with installation instructions, sign a personalized commitment contract to reduce their phone use, set personal phone use reduction goals, and be sent personalized habit tips framed to help them reduce their handheld phone use while driving; (Arm 4) will receive all treatments assigned to arm 2, plus social gamification feedback, where each week participants are told if they've reach their weekly handheld phone use while driving reduction goal, and receive or lose points based on whether or not they met their goal. Based on their points participants can either move up or down a level. Each week the participants will also be sent a leader board of their ranking within their group. (Arm 5) will receive all of the treatments of arm 3 plus be entered into a financial incentive contest where they can either finish in the highest level and split the prize money amongst all participants that reached that level, or the safest driver (driver ranked #1 on the leader board of their group) will receive a small weekly financial prize.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
NONE
Enrollment
1,668
Participants will receive free phone mounts
Participants will develop and sign a personalized commitment contract where they will create their own weekly goals for phone use reduction, and plan potential future obstacles that may hinder them from reaching their goal and how and plan to overcome that obstacle.
Participants will receive weekly habit formation tips by text message. These messages will be tailored to encourage use of phone mounts, setting up do not disturb while driving, and include their personal obstacles and plans they developed to overcome.
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Seconds of active handheld phone use per hour of driving, using smartphone hardware sensors collected via Snapshot telematics app installed on phone
Seconds of active handheld phone use per hour of driving, or percentage of active phone use, including tapping, swiping, and typing. This does not include hands-free phone calls or voice texts. Measurements will be collected using the smartphone's internal hardware, such as an accelerometer gyroscope, and more.
Time frame: 120 days
This platform is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional.
Each week of the intervention period, the participant will be notified whether they met their prior week's goal, stayed about the same, or backslid. Participants will all start with 100 points, and can gain/maintain/lose points each week in the intervention period. Levels are as follows: Copper: 0-40 points Bronze: 50-80 points Silver: 90-120 points Gold: 130-160 points Platinum: 170-200 points Social competition: participants will be placed in groups of 10 based on similarity of baseline phone use. Weekly leaderboard reports will be sent via email, with SMS reminder. In the leaderboard they'll see themselves as "You".
Participants who finish in the platinum level will receive equal share of a prize, or a small amount will be awarded each week over the course of the intervention period to the weekly "Safest Driver" in each of the social competition cohorts.