Not a statement that you often hear between friends, but the launch of AAMI’s new Safe Driving App has drivers pitting themselves against each other in a bid to be the safest driver.

The brilliance of course is not in the fact that drivers are rewarded for their ‘skills’ as safe drivers, but in what AAMI as a company get out of this initiative themselves. Hiding behind “game-ification” of an everyday experience such as driving to work (earning 50 points for your efforts) is the attempt to change the driving behaviour via a ‘fun’ experience.

Insurance is a pretty dry business but the overall objective is to strike a balance (in the insurers favour of course) between premiums that come in to be insured, and payments that get made out to everyday folk as claims. Doing whatever they can to tip the balance in their favour is the goal of an insurer. Making someone drive more safely and thereby reducing their chance of an accident, and in turn making a claim is a genius step. Everybody wins.

Innovating beyond the traditional lines of price and cover, AAMI has been able to create awareness in their brand, differentiate themselves as the fun one in the bleak insurance business and help their bottom line in the process. With over 22,000 downloads and counting, AAMI might very well be onto something.