NU Online News Service, June 17, 1:50 p.m. EDT

Travelers says it is seeing a substantial increase in the number of claims filed by mobile devices during the past year, a sign of the growing popularity of smartphones.

Travelers compared claims data from the first four months of 2010 versus the same time period in 2011. The company says the data show that the number of claims filed using mobile devices more than tripled.

“The faster our customers report claims to Travelers, the faster we can help them,” says Jay Gauthier, vice president, Travelers Personal Insurance Marketing. “That’s why we continue to develop technologies that make it easy for our customers to communicate with us in the way that’s most convenient to them—whether online, over the phone, or through their mobile devices, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”

As part of the claim study, Travelers found that 70 percent of claims filed through mobile devices related to personal-auto insurance, 28 percent were personal-insurance property claims, and the remaining 2 percent were business-insurance property claims (.5 percent) and business-insurance auto claims (1.5 percent).

“Our claims analysis reveals that at the time of an auto accident, it is convenient for individuals to report the claim through their mobile device so they can quickly begin the process of getting their car back to the condition it was in before the accident took place,” says Gauthier.