Desjardins usage-based auto app now available on Apple Watch

Desjardins General Insurance Group Inc. announced Monday its mobile app for usage-based auto insurance is now available on the Apple Inc.’s recently-launched computerized wristwatch.

Levis, Quebec-based DGIG announced in May the availability of an Ajusto app for devices running Apple Inc. iOS and Google Inc.’s Android operating systems.

Now the Ajusto app is available on Apple Watch – launched last April – which keeps time, lets users make phone calls and runs mobile computing programs.

Ajusto is the brand name of DGIG’s usage-based auto insurance, which the firm launched in 2013. Until last May, Ajusto clients needed telematics hardware to plug into their vehicles’ diagnostic ports.

With Ajusto, clients of DGIG – and its subsidiary The Personal – can have their rates reduced, based on behaviour such as sharp acceleration, braking, cornering speed, time of day and distance travelled.

“Apple Watch owners who download the app will be able to see their driving score, view information on their most recent trip, get notifications and find out their Ajusto community ranking,” DGIG stated July 6 in a release. 

DGIG announced earlier that the mobile app will be available to State Farm clients in Ontario by the end of 2015. Desjardins Group acquired the Aurora, Ont.-based Canadian operations of State Farm and is now writing property & casualty insurance in Canada, using the State Farm brand, through DGIG subsidiary Certas Home and Auto Insurance Company.

Other Canadian insurers offering usage-based insurance include Intact Financial Corp., The Co-operators Group Ltd., Industrial Alliance, the South Central Ontario arm of the Canadian Automobile Association (CAA) and Pilot Insurance Company. Pilot, a subsidiary of Aviva Canada Inc., writes usage-based auto insurance in Ontario through Ingenie Canada Inc., both direct to consumers on the Ingenie.ca website and through brokerages. Ingenie’s parent company, Quindell plc, has an agreement with Independent Broker Resources Inc. (IBRI), a subsidiary of the Insurance Brokers Association of Ontario, to provide telematics in Ontario. For commercial fleets, IBRI announced last January that Unica Insurance Inc. is endorsing IBRI’s commercial telematics offering, called fleetadvisor.