The Insurance Telematics Podcast: An Introduction to the Future of Smart Insurance

Welcome to the first episode of the Insurance Telematics Podcast! In this introductory episode, hosts Yasmin and Harald (CEO and founder of Dolphin Technologies) set the stage for what promises to be an insightful and exciting journey through the world of insurance telematics. Broadcasting from Vienna, Austria, they share the mission behind Dolphin Technologies, introduce the key topics the podcast will explore, and explain why telematics is set to transform both driving behavior and the insurance industry.

Meet the Hosts: Yasmin and Harald

Yasmin kicks off the podcast with enthusiasm, introducing her co-host Harald, who is not only her conversation partner but also the CEO and founder of Dolphin Technologies. The episode sets a personal tone as they talk about their excitement and a bit of nervousness launching the podcast.

Harald shares that Dolphin Technologies is based in Vienna, Austria, and their mission is clear:

Prevent fatalities on the road
Promote ecological mobility
Use data and technology to improve driving behavior

What is Dolphin Technologies?

Dolphin Technologies operates in the field of insurance telematics. In essence, their goal is to make roads safer by:

Informing drivers why accidents happen
Reducing risky behaviors such as speeding and distracted driving
Offering real-time feedback based on behavior and conditions
Recommending safer choices, such as working from home during hazardous weather

Why Insurance Telematics Matters

Harald explains how insurance telematics benefits both drivers and insurers:

Fewer claims = reduced costs for insurers
Data-driven fairness: Young drivers, often overcharged, can prove they’re safe drivers
Better engagement: Insurers gain valuable customer touchpoints
Environmental impact: Safer driving often means greener driving

A Personal Story: The Accident That Sparked a Vision

Harald shares a life-changing story: as a young driver, he fell asleep at the wheel and crashed. He was lucky to survive, and the experience made him realize how technology could save lives. Today, he channels that insight into building tech that can detect and prevent accidents.

A Glimpse into Future Episodes

This episode also teases what’s to come:

What insurance telematics actually is
How the technology evolved from black boxes to smartphone-based systems
How AI and automation are transforming insurance
Driver scoring: What defines a good or risky driver?
Real-life app prototyping and UX best practices
Guest appearances from industry leaders

Why Insurance Isn’t Boring

Despite its reputation, insurance is at the forefront of innovation:

It’s intertwined with global events, climate change, and evolving technology
It protects everything we value: our health, homes, cars, even pets
New risks require new solutions—and telematics is key to meeting that demand

Stay tuned for Episode 2, where Yasmin and Harald dive deeper into what insurance telematics really means and why it’s reshaping the industry from the ground up.

Yasmin
So, welcome to the Insurance Telematics podcast. I’m super excited to be here today with Harald, the CEO and founder of Dolphin Technologies, who you’ll get to know more about throughout these episodes. And this is kind of the intro of the intro. So where we’ll introduce ourselves, or we’ll introduce the topics we’ll be talking about. I’m super excited to be here. I’m also a little bit nervous, and I’m sure Harald is nervous too. Are you nervous, Harald?

Harald
I’m absolutely nervous, but I’m more excited than nervous because I’m very happy that we finally make this happen.

Yasmin
Yeah, we’ve been talking about this for a while. Oh, and by the way, Harald is the CEO and founder of Dolphin Technologies. And we are currently in Vienna, in Austria, not Australia, Austria.

Harald
Yeah, no kangaroos.

Yasmin
Yeah, no kangaroos here. And we are super excited. Aren’t we?

Harald
Yes, definitely. And we hope we will make this as interesting as possible because insurance, when you hear the word insurance, many people fall asleep.

Yasmin
You think so? I mean, it does kind of sound like a boring thing, but I don’t think we’re going to make it a boring thing because we’re going to cover such a range of topics which are super futuristic and really interesting, going from behavioral economics to AI, to agentic systems and we’re really gonna introduce something that is new and actually super cool and people think is boring, which is insurance telematics. And wait, let’s go back to CEO and founder of Dolphin Technologies. I mentioned that. What even is Dolphin Technologies? Who are we? What is this company?

Harald
We’re a company located in Vienna, Austria, and we cover insurance telematics. And if you want to break it down in a nutshell what we do is we don’t want people to die on the road. And we also want them to move more ecologically.

Yasmin
Mhm.

Harald
And this is our mission actually. There are many ways you can do this and our edge is that we want to inform people about why accidents happen in the first place. This is actually because people make wrong decisions and have missing information. Like wrong decisions is like you’re driving too fast, you’re using your smartphone when you’re driving, you’re distracted by other means. We will be covering in future podcasts many other things that you might not know are actually risky. And we give feedback to your current behavior. We give feedback to potential future risks. And we’ll even tell you when it’s better to stay at home because of icy roads or severe traffic conditions or other situations that make it safer to work from home or use public transport, for example.

Yasmin
And how does this really benefit insurers and insurance companies?

Harald
Well, from a monetary perspective, less claims, less expenditure. So, insurance companies spend between, let’s say, 65 and 80% of their income of their premiums, they spend on claims. So this is the one thing. But in reality, we give insurance companies the technology to select clients, make fair decisions. This sounds discriminating, but it’s actually the other way around because think of a young driver, they are discriminated mostly in most countries by high insurance premiums, but actually 70 to 80% of young drivers are good drivers. And telematics gives them the opportunity to showcase to the insurance company that they’re actually good drivers. It creates customer touchpoints. So insurance companies can contextually communicate. They can use event-based interaction to talk with their clients. Which is extremely valuable because there are no touchpoints in insurance, right? You sign a contract, it goes through a drawer or a folder, you never touch it again. And only if something bad happens, you pull it out and you call them. So, there is a lot of value for customers. There’s a lot of value for insurance companies themselves. And also for the environment because there is a high correlation between safe driving and ecological driving.

Yasmin
And we’ll touch this in a later episode.

Yasmin
So we’re basically saving lives but also offering business benefits to insurers.

Harald
Absolutely. And this is the times we’re living in, right? You have to provide, let’s say, an economic benefit in order to change the world.

Yasmin
Yeah. So, I know you had a life-threatening accident and this is kind of what made you start Dolphin, isn’t it?

Harald
Yes, so it was one of the reasons that I thought about how we can help people in case of an accident. That happened to me many years ago. I was in my early 20s and I was driving by night and I was very tired and I fell asleep.

Yasmin
Wow.

Harald
Behind the wheel. And I was pretty fast, like I was on a highway. And I missed a left curve and I woke up in the middle of the curve going straight forward. I steered left, I steered right, so my car was slipping and I had a rollover accident and I rolled off the road. And I was not badly injured, but I was unconscious. It was winter, it was cold. And it was only by coincidence that I was found by a truck driver. And that was extreme luck. And if this wouldn’t have happened, I would probably not be sitting here with you.

Yasmin
I mean, you were extremely lucky. I know back then there weren’t really any smartphones. I’m not calling you old or anything, but I know that they didn’t exist. So, if, let’s say, this had happened to someone today and they didn’t have this technology that we were talking about, so insurance telematics, where you’re also able to prevent risk and help people stay safe on the road, this person, well, you in this case, could have ended up being dead.

Harald
Absolutely. If it’s cold outside, if you cannot move, if you’re stuck in the car, and nobody finds you, this is a life-threatening situation. And I don’t want to make it overly dramatic, but I’m blessed and I’m happy and I’m very thankful that I’m here today.

Yasmin
I’m happy you’re here too. Thank you. And I’m sure our audience will be happy too. I mean, fingers crossed.

Harald
Yeah, fingers crossed.

Yasmin
So, I kind of want to learn more about what insurance telematics actually is. I know that we’re going to cover this in our next episode, so we’re not going to give you too many details yet, but just give us a glimpse, like give us a little teaser to make us actually interested in learning more about this podcast because at the end of the day, our podcast is literally called The Insurance Telematics Podcast. And why would someone really even be interested in this?

Harald
Well, insurance is everywhere, right? So everything we have and everything we cherish and everything we love is insured. Our lives are insured, our health is insured, our cars, our homes, our dogs, we insure everything we love. And insurance seems to be a boring industry, but it’s actually not because insurance is on the bleeding edge of technology because new technology means new risks, and new risks need to be insured. Insurance is on the edge of geopolitical events like elections or wars like we’re facing right now. Insurance is affected by climate change because of floods, because of wildfires, etc. So, insurance is an extremely interesting industry. And insurance for a long time has been looking at fulfilling their mission of taking a premium from many to pay for the loss of a few. But insurance has become a little bit discriminating. And if you hear it whimpering down there, this is my dog, Tapo.

Yasmin
We’ll introduce him later.

Harald
We’ll show him probably. He’s thirsty. But we’ll make it short and feed him then. And discuss next time. So, we will be talking about the technology behind it. We’ll be talking about how the technology evolved from black boxes in a car to actually using the user’s smartphone. We will be covering how AI impacts insurance telematics and how impactful communication can be. So, there will be a lot to cover. I don’t want to spoil, but there are some things we will be covering. We will break down in future episodes what insurance telematics is today, what it was in the past, and what it’s going to be. I wrote it down because it’s so many things. We’ll discuss what risk actually means. So why do accidents happen in the first place? We’ll explore driver scoring. So, what makes you a good driver, me a bad driver, or vice versa. We’ll build prototypes together. We’ll show people how to build their own telematics app, in their own look and feel. It’s really exciting. And, we’ll look at AI, we’ll look at AI agents, we’ll look at automations, we’ll look at marketing automations, we’ll explore user experience, user interaction, how to keep these apps and this technology interesting. And we’ll bring also industry leaders to discuss with us and to learn from them.

Yasmin
That’s going to be super exciting and cool. And I’m looking forward. Thank you and we’ll see you in the next episode.

Harald
Thank you. Bye bye.