Business News: Progressive, Doan Group, Verisk, Penn National and One Inc.

Progressive Group of Insurance Companies has released a new smart phone app that consumers can use to learn before they purchase a policy whether they can save money by purchasing usage-based insurance.

“With Snapshot Road Test they can see if they will receive a discount on their auto insurance based on their driving habits, before they buy,” stated Jim Haas, Progressive usage-based Insurance business leader, in a press release. “The easy-to-use mobile app provides near real-time feedback and timely driving tips aimed at making roadways safer for everyone.”

Consumers can download the Snapshot app by registering with Progressive online and use the app while driving for 30 days. Drivers can check their progress in the app at any time and, if the data confirms good driving habits, they could qualify for a discount, the carrier said.

The Snapshot app can be downloaded via Google Play or the Apple App Store.

Woodland Capital Holdings had completed the acquisition of The Doan Group, a franchised network appraisal company that specializes in property and heavy equipment.

The Doan Group was founded in Buffalo, N.Y. in 1981 by Ronald Doan, who died in 2015. Doan’s wife and business partner, Sally Doan, took over operation of the company.

“It was hard continuing after Ron’s brief illness and subsequent passing,” Sally Doan said in a press release. “As I was working toward retirement, I knew Doan needed a partner that would continue to grow and nurture the company just as Ron had. I know that the future of The Doan Group is in very capable hands with Woodland Capital Holdings.”

Tim and Paula Davis family, who own Woodland Capital, also own SCA Appraisal Co, a national claims shop headquartered in Burbank, Calif.

Verisk has released a cyber risk modeling platform that provides both individual and aggregation risk models that can simulate losses from ransomware attacks such as WannaCry and NotPetya in 2017.

“The economic loss from a major systemic ransomware attack can exceed 15 billion USD, causing significant damage to the global economy, thereby making modeling such attacks critical to the insurance industry,” the Jersey City, N.J.-based data analytics provider said in a press release.

The Analytics of Risk from Cyber tool includes a financial model that models insurance terms specific to cyber, said Prashant Pai, circa present of Verisk Cyber Solutions.

The ARC tool taps into a stochastic catalog with tens of thousands of ransomware events of varying severities, the company said. The model focuses on points of aggregation (including operating system, geocoded internet infrastructure location, poor cyber hygiene, and industry), stochastic probability of infection, and downtime duration to understand the potential spread and severity of these events.

“The probabilistic ransomware model covers systemic ransomware events, that is, widescale events that affect more than one organization at a time,” stated Scott Stransky, vice president and director of emerging risk modeling at AIR Worldwide. “However, unlike an event that takes an entire cloud provider down and all the companies using that cloud with it, these ‘partial’ aggregation events only impact a percentage of organizations that are vulnerable to that particular method of attack, a problem that is particularly well-suited to stochastic modeling.”

Penn National Insurance has selected One Inc.’s Claim Pay product to digitize outbound payments and enhance customer engagement, the Folsom, Calif.-based insurtech said in a press release.

Penn National decided to use ClaimsPay as part of a companywide modernization initiative, One. Inc. said.

“By shifting a portion of our outbound payments online, ClaimsPay reduces our dependence on checks, thereby minimizing the need for on-site processing,” Penn National Frank Benedek stated in a press release. “The platform also enables remote communication through a variety of digital channels, providing yet another safeguard for the health and well-being of our staff and policyholders alike.”