Hagerty gets nimble, launches Digital Labs initiative

Digital Labs, a new initiative from Hagerty, Inc., bridges two worlds – marketing strategy and product development – to roll out ventures like its mileage-based auto insurance pilot and more.

To verify mileage for the company’s insurance policies, written to cover classic and collectible cars, Hagerty had been using a platform that wasn’t as capable of adding more extensive data, according to Kelly Smith, the company’s chief strategy officer. Digital Labs developed a Mileage Verification app that started out by collecting policyholders’ photos of odometer readings at the beginning and end of each policy term. 

To attract and increase participation, Smith says, Hagerty offers a fixed discount for using the new app. As users provide GPS data on their travels in their vehicles, Digital Labs will be able to use this information to get a more precise picture of how little or how much the car is being used and figure out appropriate and more accurate rates. 

“Simply providing a modest discount to participate in a telematics program may not be enough,” he says. “We’re here collecting data but observing that there must be other aspects to this that are required to drive customer interest at scale. We’ll keep iterating to find the sweet spot.”

Getting scale through greater participation provides more data to justify the investment in building out capabilities on something like the Mileage Verification App, adds Smith.

In a similar fashion, Hagerty Digital Labs transformed the company’s Valuation Tools product, which offers 15 years of pricing data covering 40,000 vehicles, including classic cars, trucks, vans and motorcycles owned by collectors. Digital Labs also updated Hagerty’s DriveShare carsharing platform and administration of its Concours classic car events.

The philosophy behind Digital Labs is to pursue a product-led rather than an IT-led approach, according to Smith, who joined Hagerty in 2019 after serving as a digital technology executive at MGM Resorts, Starbucks and other major companies.

“The future is getting a thousand little things done really well, so your customer becomes a proponent by virtue of how that experience makes them feel,” Smith says. “When you have an idea, you don’t really know if it will work or add value. Figuring that out quickly is part of what a product culture is all about, rather than a waterfall approach.”

Hagerty’s Digital Labs is making it possible to test product ideas like the ones it has launched – Mileage Verification, Valuation Tools and DriveShare – and react to customer response with adjustments to these products. Smith emphasizes three steps: minimizing time to value, solving real problems and being exceptional at change.

For succeeding in changing products on the fly, as Digital Labs aims to, Smith says, “sometimes in a traditional corporate bureaucracy, the structure doesn’t play well with [the first two steps].” With Digital Labs, “when data comes in, when the customer speaks, you can gather those signals and iterate quickly.”

To that end, Digital Labs looks for “polymaths” when recruiting staff, according to Smith. “In a shift to a digital product-led organization, you look to develop a culture of makers and builders. They can be a product manager but also the person building the product.”