Comparative Effectiveness of Financial Incentives and Nudges to Reduce Cellphone Use While Driving Among UBI Auto Policy Holders

Comparative Effectiveness of Financial Incentives and Smartphone-based Nudges to Reduce Cellphone Use While Driving Among Auto Insurance Policy Holders With Usage Based Insurance Policies

The investigators are proposing an experiment to help a national auto insurance company test behavioral economic strategies to reduce the amount of time policy holders actively use their cell phone while driving. Interventions include financial incentives, social comparison, and nudges, and survey data will also be collected. Data collected from this internal trial will be shared with the Penn research team and analyzed

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Automobile Accident
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Weekly feedback; Behavioral: End of intervention period incentive; Behavioral: Loss-framed weekly incentive

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 2108
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Pennsylvania
    • Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, 19104
      • University of Pennsylvania

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 16 years and older (ADULT, OLDER_ADULT, CHILD)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Progressive Snapshot Users with policy activated within recruitment period
• Progressive Snapshot policy holder in one of the following states and regions: MI, PA, TX, FL, TN, OR, GA, NE, OK, OH, MT, MO, NV, CT, WI, MD, KY, MN, NH, NJ, AZ, ME, LA, SC, CO, MS, IN, IA, AL, ND, UT, RI, WV, WY, IL, AR, DE, KS, SD, NM, VT, ID, and the District of Columbia
• Has an email address

Exclusion Criteria:

• Progressive Snapshot Mobile App not updated to enable push notifications
• Customer's residential address is in a state in which phone use while driving is factored into insurance rating
• Customer's Snapshot Mobile App does not collect trip data with all sensors active
• Customer in Snapshot program for < 30 days or more > 70 days

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: PREVENTION
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Interventional Model: FACTORIAL
• Masking: SINGLE

Number of Arms

6

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
NO_INTERVENTION: Control (monitor only); Continue in monitoring only mode
EXPERIMENTAL: Social comparison feedback; Report user's handheld phone use/ hour of driving for week. Compare this week's performance to distribution for driver cohort.	Behavioral: Weekly feedback; Send push notification reporting user's handheld phone use while driving compared to distribution for driver cohort (age, geographic area) each week.
EXPERIMENTAL: End of rating period incentive; Monitor throughout intervention period and compare overall use to distribution for cohort. Notify participant at end of intervention period regarding the amount they have earned.	Behavioral: End of intervention period incentive; Notify participant about potential incentive at the end of the intervention period, but do not provide weekly feedback about performance.
EXPERIMENTAL: End of rating period incentive + social comparison feedback; Monitor throughout intervention period and compare weekly phone use to driver cohort distribution. Send weekly push notification to provide feedback. Notify participant at end of intervention period regarding the amount they have earned.	Behavioral: Weekly feedback; Send push notification reporting user's handheld phone use while driving compared to distribution for driver cohort (age, geographic area) each week.; Behavioral: End of intervention period incentive; Notify participant about potential incentive at the end of the intervention period, but do not provide weekly feedback about performance.
EXPERIMENTAL: Weekly loss-framed incentive + social comparison feedback; Monitor throughout intervention period and compare weekly phone use to driver cohort distribution. Send weekly push notification to provide feedback. Notify participant weekly regarding the amount they have earned.	Behavioral: Weekly feedback; Send push notification reporting user's handheld phone use while driving compared to distribution for driver cohort (age, geographic area) each week.; Behavioral: Loss-framed weekly incentive; Send push notification reporting user's handheld phone use while driving compared to distribution for driver cohort (age, geographic area) each week. Pay participant weekly according to where they fall on the distribution each week.
EXPERIMENTAL: Larger weekly loss-framed incentive+social comparison feedback; Monitor throughout intervention period and compare weekly phone use to driver cohort distribution. Send weekly push notification to provide feedback. Notify participant weekly regarding the amount they have earned. Incentive amount is higher than "Weekly loss-framed incentive + social comparison feedback" Arm.	Behavioral: Weekly feedback; Send push notification reporting user's handheld phone use while driving compared to distribution for driver cohort (age, geographic area) each week.; Behavioral: Loss-framed weekly incentive; Send push notification reporting user's handheld phone use while driving compared to distribution for driver cohort (age, geographic area) each week. Pay participant weekly according to where they fall on the distribution each week.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Seconds of active phone use per hour of driving	Percentage of driving time engaging in active handheld phone use (also measured as seconds of distracted driving/hour of driving)	150 days

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Seconds of passive phone use per hour of driving	Seconds of passive handheld, non-call use per hour of driving	150 days
Hard breaking events per 100 miles	notifications turned off, drop out of study, app uninstall	150 days
Hard acceleration events per 100 miles	Hard acceleration events per 100 miles	150 days

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Pennsylvania
• Collaborators: U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Loewenstein G, Brennan T, Volpp KG. Asymmetric paternalism to improve health behaviors. JAMA. 2007 Nov 28;298(20):2415-7. doi: 10.1001/jama.298.20.2415. No abstract available.
• Klauer SG, Guo F, Simons-Morton BG, Ouimet MC, Lee SE, Dingus TA. Distracted driving and risk of road crashes among novice and experienced drivers. N Engl J Med. 2014 Jan 2;370(1):54-9. doi: 10.1056/NEJMsa1204142.
• Delgado MK, Wanner KJ, McDonald C. Adolescent Cellphone Use While Driving: An Overview of the Literature and Promising Future Directions for Prevention. Media Commun. 2016 Jun 16;4(3):79-89. doi: 10.17645/mac.v4i3.536.
• French B, Small DS, Novak J, Saulsgiver KA, Harhay MO, Asch DA, Volpp KG, Halpern SD. Preference-adaptive randomization in comparative effectiveness studies. Trials. 2015 Mar 18;16:99. doi: 10.1186/s13063-015-0592-6.
• Halpern SD, Ubel PA, Asch DA. Harnessing the power of default options to improve health care. N Engl J Med. 2007 Sep 27;357(13):1340-4. doi: 10.1056/NEJMsb071595. No abstract available.
• Halpern SD, French B, Small DS, Saulsgiver K, Harhay MO, Audrain-McGovern J, Loewenstein G, Brennan TA, Asch DA, Volpp KG. Randomized trial of four financial-incentive programs for smoking cessation. N Engl J Med. 2015 May 28;372(22):2108-17. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa1414293. Epub 2015 May 13.
• Hayashi Y, Russo CT, Wirth O. Texting while driving as impulsive choice: A behavioral economic analysis. Accid Anal Prev. 2015 Oct;83:182-9. doi: 10.1016/j.aap.2015.07.025. Epub 2015 Aug 13.
• Lahrmann H, Agerholm N, Tradisauskas N, Berthelsen KK, Harms L. Pay as You Speed, ISA with incentive for not speeding: results and interpretation of speed data. Accid Anal Prev. 2012 Sep;48:17-28. doi: 10.1016/j.aap.2011.03.015. Epub 2011 Apr 9.
• Patel MS, Asch DA, Rosin R, Small DS, Bellamy SL, Eberbach K, Walters KJ, Haff N, Lee SM, Wesby L, Hoffer K, Shuttleworth D, Taylor DH, Hilbert V, Zhu J, Yang L, Wang X, Volpp KG. Individual Versus Team-Based Financial Incentives to Increase Physical Activity: A Randomized, Controlled Trial. J Gen Intern Med. 2016 Jul;31(7):746-54. doi: 10.1007/s11606-016-3627-0. Epub 2016 Mar 14.
• Reagan IJ, Bliss JP, Van Houten R, Hilton BW. The effects of external motivation and real-time automated feedback on speeding behavior in a naturalistic setting. Hum Factors. 2013 Feb;55(1):218-30. doi: 10.1177/0018720812447812.

Helpful Links

• Center for Insurance Policy Research. Usage-Based Insurance and Telematics. National Association of Insurance Commissioners.
• State Farm. (2014). Distracted Driving
• Richtel, M. Phone Makers Could Cut Off Drivers. So Why Don't They? New York Times. September 2016.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (ACTUAL): May 7, 2019
• Primary Completion (ACTUAL): October 30, 2019
• Study Completion (ACTUAL): August 30, 2020

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: September 7, 2018
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: February 5, 2019
• First Posted (ACTUAL): February 6, 2019

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (ACTUAL): September 10, 2020
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: September 9, 2020
• Last Verified: September 1, 2020

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: smartphone application; behavioral economics; distracted driving automobile; usage-based insurance; auto insurance; automobile
• Other Study ID Numbers: 693JJ31750012

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO
• IPD Plan Description: PI will not own individual participant data

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No