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We made some major upgrades to our smart driving app, so we asked our Director of Product Design, Matt Stein, to share the inspiration behind everything.

I’m excited to see the newly redesigned Metromile app in the wild today, now available on iOS and Android. The primary goals of the redesign were to create a foundation that could be built on in the future, delight our growing user base, and provide the best experience possible for getting a holistic view of everything to do with your car.

A key component of the redesign process was understanding how the current app was being used. We ran a focused qualitative user study as well as a broader quantitative survey to give insight into what was working well and what could be improved. The primary theme was that our users want to have peace of mind about their car. They want to know where they last parked, what an engine light means, and the ability to dig into the details on a recent trip.

The Metromile app can be used by either our per-mile insurance customers or people who use the free app version. The app will track your trips, show you where you’re parked and alert you to street sweeping (select cities). For insurance customers, it decodes engine code warnings and allows them to contact our in-house mechanic.

All of the aforementioned features are fairly distinct, and one of the challenges in designing the app was coming up with a consistent pattern for the user to consume information, such as viewing trips, decoding warnings, or understanding how to get roadside assistance.

The following three principles guided the design:

1. Create a scalable framework
2. Provide information at a glance
3. Make it fun

Create a scalable framework.

The app itself is split across four distinct areas: Car Health, Parking, Trips and Insurance. These four areas are displayed on the app’s main view via separate cards that allow the user to drill into a more detailed view. Because most of the app’s features are distinct and don’t overlap (e.g. Trips won’t overlap with Car Health), this design choice gave us the most flexibility when considering new product capabilities. Although our app contains a hamburger menu, it is mostly supplementary because 80% of the app’s functionality can be accessed through the overview. Settings and vehicle switching are the two exceptions.

One of the biggest challenges was ensuring the same design framework could be used across each view. After exploring various options, the team arrived at a card pattern that is fairly prevalent today. Users understand how to interact with cards, and they are easily accessible. Each of the primary views has a “hero” section highlighting the most important information as well as child cards that allow the user to dive deeper into an area. …

We are finally all settled into our new San Francisco home and ready to show it off. Thanks to our friends at Geremia Design, we were able to transform an empty industrial space into a warm, open office with ample lounge areas and conference rooms. All with a Metromile touch to really make it our own!

Photo: Cesar Rubio

Just like our customers, the majority of the SF Metromilers use public transit to get to work, so it was important to find a location convenient to multiple bus stops and train stations. And of course, it also needed to be easy to bike to. We were able to find a location that satisfied these requirements (bike racks and all!) and had a special surprise: a futuristic-looking facade that changes color at night.

One of our goals at Metromile is to shake up the age-old insurance industry, so we wanted our interior office decor to reflect just that. This inspired us to include a few nods to old-school automobiles, but with a twist. We have a small antique car with a plant growing in it, a coffee table that doubles as a matchbox car display, a rearview mirror art installation and a conference room table that sits on car pistons.

We wanted to tip our hat to our friends in the Tempe office, so we installed a large mural of a Route 66-esque road in the southwest. Other murals around the office invoke themes of travel, serving as reminders that Metromile is road trip friendly (our customers aren’t charged for driving over 250 miles each day) and motivation to get out on the open road. In other efforts to unite our fellow co-workers across the country, all of our offices (SF, Tempe and Boston) have conference rooms named after automobile influencers.

One of the most important parts of the new office is the open kitchen that is large enough for the whole company to assemble in. No matter how big we grow, it’s always important that we can gather in one place to share and celebrate company successes. Or to start a friendly nerf-gun fight. During our office-warming party, it was a great place for guests to mingle with each other, and we expect to see many occasions like this in the future!

The wait is over. Per-mile insurance is now available in Pennsylvania! We are rewriting the rules of the road by introducing a totally new type of car insurance where the monthly bill is based on miles driven.

Over 60% of drivers in Pennsylvania are considered low-mileage (drive less than 200 miles per week), and large cities like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh already have great public transportation and bike-friendly commute options. In fact, Philadelphia has more bike commuters per capita than any of the other ten biggest cities in the U.S. It is likely that Pennsylvanians who rarely drive are overpaying for car insurance, so we anticipate that pay-per-mile car insurance will be much-needed solution!

We also plan to help Pennsylvanians become smarter drivers with our smart driving app. Insurance customers will receive the Metromile Pulse, a device that plugs into the car’s OBD-II port to deliver useful driving data and smart services.

Pennsylvania is the second state on the East Coast where we offer per-mile insurance, and we have more planned on our roadmap. Sign up for our waitlist if you would like to be notified when we arrive in your state!

Many of us are all too familiar with the sinking feeling you get when you find that dreaded ticket on your dash because you parked in a street sweeping zone. Here at Metromile, we’re on a mission to make car ownership as easy as possible, which is why we are excited to announce that our street sweeping alerts are now available in San Diego and the greater Los Angeles area!

We’ve already issued more than 28,000 alerts in San Francisco and Chicago and saved customers an average of $1.8 million in parking tickets. Now, customers in San Diego and the greater Los Angeles area can avoid those pricey tickets as well. In the past year, there have been nearly 650,000 street sweeping citations issued in the city of Los Angeles, 70,000 in Santa Monica, and 25,000 in West Hollywood. At $63-$73 per ticket, that means that residents in the greater Los Angeles area have spent more than $53 million in street sweeping ticket fines. We’re here to do something about that- your money can definitely be put to better use! Trying out that new restaurant or going to a concert with your friends is much better than paying for a pesky parking ticket.

Metromile customers in select cities can take advantage of the alerts. We use city data and internal information to determine if your car is parked in a street-sweeping zone, and, if so, you will receive a push notification 12 hours before the scheduled street cleaning. If you miss the first alert, there will be a second alert with one hour to spare.

LA and SD are the first of many stops on our roadmap as we expand coverage for our sweeping alerts and other smart services. Learn more about our free smart driving app, and if you are also interested in saving money with per-mile insurance you can get started here. Here’s to the last of those street sweeping tickets!

We are excited to announce that Joe Selsavage has joined Metromile as Chief Financial Officer! Joe was most recently the CFO at Hotwire, the leading travel discount site, overseeing their global finance and accounting efforts. He took them from launch to a well-known global company, and we are confident that Joe will be a key player in taking Metromile to the next level. Before Hotwire, Joe spent more than 10 years in accounting and management functions for various organizations in the Washington, D.C. area. To get to know Joe a little better, we asked him to answer some questions to gauge how well he will fit in at Metromile. Spoiler alert: he’s going to be awesome.

What excites you the most about joining Metromile?
I’m super excited to be joining such a fun company that’s disrupting the car insurance industry and growing fast. I look forward to being part of the team!

How do you commute to work?
I live in San Francisco between Noe Valley and Castro, and use Muni to get to work. Editor’s note: Way to go, Joe! We’re all for commuting via public transportation.

Where is your favorite place to road trip to?
Anywhere. I love to spend time traveling and experiencing the world. My last job was at Hotwire, so I learned a lot about how to save money on last minute travel. I can jump in the car or get on a plane any time for a last minute trip. I love to road trip to Tahoe or fly to the east coast (DC, NY or Boston) for the weekend. If I have more time, I’ll go to Brazil.

Which Metromile app feature is most helpful to you and why?
I love the street sweeping alerts. As someone living in the city with a car that I only use occasionally, the street sweeping alerts have saved me many times from getting a ticket.

We are eager to see what the future holds as Joe steps into this important role. Speaking of important roles, we are hiring a ton in SF, Tempe and Boston! Check out our job listings if you are interested in joining the Metromile team during this pivotal time.

Editor’s note: The Tag is no longer available, and the Metromile smart driving app is now only available for pay-per-mile insurance customers. 

In our efforts to make car ownership as easy and affordable as possible, we are excited to introduce the Metromile Tag! While the beta is currently available in eligible states and vehicles*, it will soon become available for all cars. The Tag wirelessly connects to smartphones via iBeacon technology and can be stored conveniently in the glove box, cup holder, or center console of the car.

*Tag is currently available in CA, OR, WA, IL and in cars built in 1996 and later

When the Tag detects the user’s phone it will start delivering useful driving information using the exact same app as our per-mile insurance customers. Features include our street sweeping alerts (currently in San Francisco, San Diego, and Chicago), a car locator, driving stats, and more.* For those not ready for per-mile insurance, the Tag is the perfect way to take a free test drive to see how much they could save. Now everyone can have an easier time managing the daily hassles of owning a car.
*Note that our car health feature will not be available for Tag users since it requires the OBD-II port.

Our per-mile insurance customers will still receive the device that plugs into the OBD-II port, which we are now calling the Metromile Pulse (formerly the Metronome). Per-mile insurance customers have additional features such as the status of their car’s health, the ability to contact one of our on-staff mechanics, and even finding a stolen car. For current customers, there is no need to request a new device, but those interested in using a Tag in an another car will need to set up an additional account.

To make this new launch as seamless as possible, our current app users that are not per-mile insurance customers will be grandfathered into our program and can keep their Pulse (OBD-II device formerly known as the Metronome). If anything should happen, we’ll replace it with a new Metromile Pulse if needed. We still encourage everyone to share our app with their friends, just note that moving forward they will receive the Tag instead of the Pulse.

If you have additional questions about the Tag or the Pulse you can check out our FAQs. This is only the beginning – we have so many great new app features that we can’t wait to share in the coming months. Have suggestions for something that could make the app experience even more helpful? Send us a tweet @Metromile or email us at [email protected].

We’re proud to be revolutionizing car insurance here at Metromile, making car ownership more seamless and affordable. Not only did we want to shake up an age old industry, but we also wanted to address the fairness factor: why should the majority of low-mileage drivers subsidize the minority? If you don’t drive much, you shouldn’t pay much.

This message has definitely resonated with many people, and we wanted to make sure that our mission and our offering could clearly be understood on our website. As savvy consumers, we’ve grown to appreciate and expect clean and simple designs that get to the point while still connecting with us emotionally. The new Metromile website clearly shows how much money you could save with pay-per-mile insurance, and also how we enable a smarter driving experience.

So what exactly has changed? We’ve improved how you get your insurance quote so you can see your potential savings sooner. Updated navigation makes it easier to find the answers you need, whether you are wondering how our app can really help you find your car (it can!) or if we are judging your driving habits (we aren’t!). We believe that cars should support your busy lives, not hinder them.

The insurance revolution doesn’t stop at a new website; there are lots of exciting updates that we can’t wait to share with you. We can’t reveal everything right now but we can give you a hint: East coast expansion. Questions? Please visit our help center.

We’re thrilled to announce that pay-per-mile insurance is now available in California, joining Washington, Oregon, and Illinois. Check out this great new video that explains how Metromile’s pay-per-mile insurance works:* 

Did you know that, on average, a California driver only logged around 8,500 miles in 2011?** That means most people in the state would be great candidates to save – per-mile insurance is an economical option for those who drive fewer than 10,000 miles per year.

Visit our site to learn more and even get a quote!

Be sure to check out the latest and greatest on our app too – we’ve released some awesome new features:

• Ask a Mechanic:  If you have any questions about the health alerts of your car, you can now directly contact our very own mechanic from within the app.
• Speed Tracking: We added an overlay for speed by trip so you can see how fast you were going.
• Gas Customization: We get it – there are 3 octane levels for fuel out there, and now you can enter the type you use to better estimate gas costs. The price of gas is based on the average price in your zip code.

As always, many more fun(ctional) things to come!

* Prices shown in video are examples only. Exact monthly rate and per-mile rate vary based on driver history, car’s make and model, and other additional factors.

** ”Moving Off the Road | A State-by-State Analysis of the National Decline in Driving”, Phineas Baxandall, US PIRG, August 2013  

About a month ago, automated street sweeping alerts went live in San Francisco, and they were such a hit that today we’re now rolling them out in Chicago, too!

Why Chicago? Well, in 2013 alone, the city gave out a whopping 250,000 tickets during street cleaning season – that’s equal to $15 million in fines! We thought we could help make a big difference in Chicago area drivers’ experience of having a car – especially on this issue – so we decided to take action.

From today onwards, when you park in a zone where street sweeping will be taking place within 12 hours, we’ll send you an alert via email and push notification, as well as a reminder to move your car one hour before the sweeping begins. This frees you up from trying to decipher all those complicated signs – now you can get out of your car and go.

And just to further prove that we’ve got your back, on Wednesday, April 23rd, we’re offering to pay off street sweeping ticket that MetroMile customers have received since street sweeping started in Chicago on April 1, 2014!

All you have to do is bring us your ticket, show us the app installed on your phone, and we’ll give you cash – on the spot – to pay it off. Seriously!

We’ll be just outside The Tribune Tower at 435 N Michigan Ave. from noon to 3 pm CST to hook you up. Note that this promotion is limited to the first 100 MetroMile users who bring us their original tickets that have been issued in 2014, one per customer.

While we expect our new street sweeping feature to be super useful, we ask for your patience as we work out any kinks that come up. We may also ping you to fill out a quick survey to help us improve the experience, and thank you in advance for any and all input.

If you’re new to MetroMile but want to jump on board to start getting automated street sweeping alerts to your phone, here’s how: 

1. Sign up for our Beta here. We’ll send you a free Metronome (a little plug-into-your-dash-and-go device that works with the MetroMile app).

2. Plug the Metronome into your car (1996 or newer).

3. Download the MetroMile app from the App Store and sign in.

It’s as simple as that. Once you’ve followed the above three steps you’ll get you the alerts, driving stats, car diagnostics, and a whole lot more. Happy to have you on board!

In San Francisco alone, drivers paid over $29 million in street sweeping ticket fines in 2011. That sucks. So we decided to do something about it.

Introducing street sweeping alerts from Metromile. Starting as a pilot in San Francisco (with more cities to come), these useful alerts will hopefully ensure that you never get a street sweeping ticket again. You just need to be a Metromile customer to take advantage of this.

Here’s how street sweeping alerts work: when you park in a zone where street sweeping will take place within 12 hours, we’ll send you a heads-up (via push notification and email) telling you when you need to move your car. We’ll also send a reminder one hour before street sweeping begins. You can forget all about deciphering those complicated signs and just lock the door and go, knowing that Metromile has your back.

We hope you enjoy this new feature, Metromilers! It’s just one of a whole bunch of exciting developments headed your way.