Commercial auto insurance provider High Definition Vehicle Insurance (HDVI) announced Wednesday it has secured an additional $40 million in funding from previous investors 8VC, Autotech Ventures, Munich Re Ventures and Weatherford Capital as the company looks to develop more data-driven solutions and discount programs for the trucking community.
The company has raised a total of $87 million since its founding in 2017 by Chuck Wallace and Reid Spitz.
As a part of this announcement, Spitz, former president of HDVI, will be moving into Wallace’s previous role as CEO. Wallace will continue to advise HDVI. Alexei Andreev, co-founder and managing director of Autotech Ventures, along with Jake Medwell, founding partner at 8VC, will also join the company’s board of directors as part of the deal.
In an interview with FreightWaves, Spitz, drawing on years of experience in transportation-related investments at 8VC, recalled recognizing the chance to leverage data to improve trucking insurance policies and products during his time there.
“I saw an opportunity to bring trucking and insurance together and provide real innovation,” he said. “The core methods used for pricing and underwriting trucking companies hadn’t changed. At the same time, there had been a tremendous amount of innovation happening in technology. Now, we are using telematics data to better price, underwrite and give fleets more flexibility in how they can control their own insurance costs.”
Spitz highlighted the increase in insurance costs for trucking companies, with a 45% rise over the past decade, driven by factors like inflation, nuclear verdicts and more distracted driving. Meanwhile, traditional insurance companies had not given trucking fleets full credit for the investments they had made in safety and equipment.
To address those challenges, HDVI operates a full-stack managing general agent to handle everything from writing policies to managing claims. The company then uses telematics data to provide discounts of up to 20% based on the safety performance of the fleet, Spitz said.
“We also offer dynamically priced policies, where fleets can earn monthly discounts based on their safe driving. We provide a fleet safety portal and dedicated safety professionals to help customers understand their data and improve their safety metrics,” he continued.
The goal, according to Spitz, is to transform the relationship between the insurance company and the customer from a pure financial transaction to a true partnership in risk management. He shared that 90% of HDVI’s customers had seen improvements in key safety metrics like speeding or harsh braking in their first year working with the company.
He explained that the fresh capital would be used to fuel deeper product development, including investments in data, analytics and analysis to provide even more tailored pricing and discounts.
Will Weatherford, managing partner at Weatherford Capital, said in the release: “HDVI’s innovative use of real-time telematics is reshaping commercial trucking insurance. This latest fundraise underscores the confidence we have in HDVI’s leadership and ability to deliver profitable growth.”
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