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What is Root Car Insurance and how does it work?

Mitch Avatar By: Mitch | Last updated July 12, 2021

Hand protecting toy car


Introduction

Car insurance is a necessity. With all the possibilities that may happen on the road, you can never really be too sure. This, along with the fact that it is legally required to have one means that every new driver and those with expiring insurance should always subscribe to one.

Traditionally, car insurances are handed out through long hours of phone calls, paperwork, and appointments which not many may have the time to do. This, partnered with the higher costs that you may get from this type of insurance makes it less recommendable.

What is Root Car insurance?

Root Car Insurance aims to be the modern approach to car insurance. The company aims to do all of the work only through your smartphone. This includes registration, test driving, signing up, and even reimbursement. It is built smartly to be used by all users regardless of their phone knowledge. They aim to remove all the hassle usually involved with car insurance including discrimination based on profiling, higher rates because of bad drivers, and the overall hassle of having to do everything traditionally. Root Car Insurance offers a lot of coverage options for its users.

How does Root work?

Basically, everything with Root Car Insurance can be done through their mobile application. It can be downloaded for all units above iPhone 5 along with mid-tier to the latest Android Phones. Users simply need to download it through the Apple Store or through the Google Play Store. Upon installation of the application, it will guide you through the whole process. It also follows the traditional set-up in the sense that it will ask for registration where you will provide license, personal information, and others. With the app, you can lessen human interaction and can do it from the comfort of your own home.

The difference with the service starts after the registration process. After this, you will have to do a driving test. For this, the application will measure your performance when driving on the road through the application in your mobile phone. Users simply need to bring along their phone while they drive normally on the road. Through this, the technology of the app will be measuring your average speed, your caution when making turns, and others. The application advises you about this beforehand to let you know that it will be keeping track of your activities for a while. We tested out their services in our full Root Insurance Review and really were impressed. 

How does it measure your driving performance?

Being a new technology, many would naturally be wary about this driving performance test made by the application. This is only natural. After all, there should still be some human element when measuring driving performance.

However, the developers of the application continue to improve the driving performance testing by adding and removing factors, balancing their statistics, and always updating it.

In general, the driving test would take about 3 weeks. During this time, the application will measure the user’s performance using the factor below.

Smartphone usage

While driving in the car, the user should ensure that their focus is only on the road. Those who are prone to answering calls, typing, and generally being distracted while driving would of course get lower scores. This is to ensure that you will focus all your attention on the road.

Braking

Next, the application will test how careful you are in breaking. This is because those who tend to brake too abruptly may cause accidents with other drivers. Be sure to keep track of the other vehicles on the road to ensure that you will not have any accidents.

Turning

The application will also measure your performance when turning. It will favor those who take their time when doing turns, making sure that other vehicles will be properly warned whenever you do. Through this, users can ensure that they will have fewer blind spots and less chances for accidents.

Driving hours

Lastly, the application will check the times when you usually drive. It will favor those who tend to drive during brighter hours as accidents usually happen at night. This will ensure that your driving will be safer based on statistics.

With all of these in mind, the application will try to see if you are fit for their services.

Is Root expensive or will it actually save you money?

One of the best parts about Root is that they have one of the most affordable insurance prices. The main reason for this is that they do not expect many of their drivers to actually be involved in accidents which is proven by their use of a driving test. In contrast, other car companies are naturally vulnerable to bad drivers as they only base their acceptance on prior records and may not always see their performance on the road. Because of this, they have to pay for more reimbursements compared to Root Car Insurance.

With Root Car Insurance, bad drivers will not be accepted to their service at all.

What are the pros and cons of the Root?

The main pro with the service is their hassle-free service. With everything available in their application, users can expect fast reimbursement, customer service, and more. With everything being in the app, the developers have created a very good interface and design for the it that makes it modern, simple, and intuitive. It is compatible with many devices. Users can also easily learn how to use it for the registration, driving test, and more. The application is also continuously developed to ensure that it will have the best updates.

The only con to the service is the special circumstances for some people which it may not be able to accomodate. Some may not always drive and may carpool with others. They cannot tell the application about this as it will always measure their performance during the test drive duration which means that the test accidentally measure someone else’s performance. Aside from this, those who drive for a living may also be tested unfairly. The company takes note of this but currently have no direct solutions for this as stated in their website.

Conclusion

Root Car Insurance is a modern insurance that does everything through its application. It is a hassle-free, affordable, and modern way for insurance which can be used entirely through a smartphone application.

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