DO DASH CAMS MERIT INSURANCE CUTS?
Some insurers cut rates for the cameras, but ‘driver behaviour’ is the local focus
Not only do dash cams make for good viral social media, they can also lower your insurance costs, prevent fraud and speed up the claims process — and the ICBC should discount the premiums of drivers who install them, a B.C. distributor says.
Alex Jang, the owner of BlackboxMyCar in Richmond, said he’s had clients use dash-cam footage to help government adjusters sort out who’s responsible, speeding up claim settlements and saving the insurer money.
He said the ICBC should reward drivers with a discount of 10 to 15 per cent if they install a dash cam, as he said some insurance companies in the U.K., South Korea and Thailand already do.
“It gets rid of all the he-said, she-said,” Jang said.
Dash-cam footage can also be used to prove fraud, he said. In 2012, an Ontario driver was charged with defrauding his insurer after the driver he hit recorded the offending vehicle backing up to him on a highway.
And Jang said a dash cam can save drivers money if the model can be left on when the car is unoccupied, like when his car was damaged in a hit-and-run “and I was able to capture the licence number and I didn’t have to pay a penny.”
Dash cams could help in a hitand-run, but there is no evidence that installing one will make you a better driver or lower your odds of getting into a crash, ICBC spokeswoman Joanna Linsangan said.
Video footage of a crash can be included in a driver’s case along with statements of the drivers, witnesses and police, and photos to determine liability, she said. But because the footage shows only one perspective, “it only tells part of the story,” she said.
As for assessing blame in a hitand-run, “We would welcome the footage, as it will help us with our investigation,” she said.
B.C. Attorney General David Eby said dash-cam footage isn’t going to improve a driver’s performance and incriminating footage could be erased by the offending driver or one planning fraud.
He said, instead, ICBC is going to pilot telematics, technology that records the car’s speed, how it turns and brakes, and other safedriving data that the ICBC can download to use to determine a driver’s risk. Rate reductions also can be based on that data, he said.
“The technologies we’re looking at currently are trying to change driver behaviour,” Eby said. “Research shows people drive better when they have (telematics) in their car and have voluntarily taken it on because they know it affects their rates if they drive differently.”
The data can be used for investigating liability if captured before the car is sold or destroyed, he said.
Eby said drivers aren’t discouraged from providing relevant dash-cam footage to the ICBC, but “it just doesn’t seem like the most obvious response to fraud.”
Aaron Sutherland of the Insurance Bureau of Canada said dashcam footage may help a driver determine liability and save him paying his own deductible, but he said collecting telematics through apps is better at determining driving habits. He said companies in Alberta and Ontario, where there is competition for car insurance, already offer discounts based on these apps, and insurers can also use the data to provide drivers with discounts based on their actual monthly usage.
I was able to capture the licence number and I didn’t have to pay a penny.
ALEX JANG, BlackboxMyCar