Keyless cars could lock drivers into high insurance premiums
OWNERS of keyless cars face being penalised with higher insurance premiums if they lack security measures to combat the rise in thefts of high-end vehicles.
From January next year, the vulnerability of keyless technology to theft will be included for the first time in official security ratings of cars that insurers use to set their premiums.
This means that cars with flaws in the technology or ineffective countermeasures will be downgraded, owing to their susceptibility to “relay attacks” where thieves hijack the signal from the key inside the owner’s home to start the car and drive it away.
Thefts of premium-brand cars doubled in the first 10 months of 2019 to more than 14,300, compared with 6,600 in 2015, according to insurer Direct Line.
Aviva, one of Britain’s biggest insurers, says the number of theft claims it has processed relating to keyless cars has increased by 12 per cent in a year. It is now twice the rate of non-keyless vehicles, which fell by 6 per cent.
The susceptibility of different of keyless cars will be rated by Thatcham Research, the insurance industry’s research body, in its new vehicle security assessment programme (NVSA).
The NVSA is used by insurers to set premiums, alongside other factors such as the owner’s postcode, the driver’s age and profile and the car’s value.
A keyless fob should only connect with a car’s locking system within 2m of the vehicle, but Richard Billyeald, the chief technical officer at Thatcham, said: “We also want these systems to have countermeasures to the relay attack. We don’t stipulate what they are, but we want to see them.” Most premium cars come with keyless technology as standard, enabling drivers to open and start their vehicles without removing the fob from their pocket or pressing a button.
In a relay attack, one thief will stand by the house with a device that amplifies the keyless fob’s signal. A second thief gets close to the car with another device, which transmits the fob’s signal to the car, fooling it into thinking the keyless fob is within range, and unlocking the car so it can be driven away.
Mr Billyeald said one “fix” was a motion sensor key that went to “sleep” when stored motionless overnight, stopping interception of the signal.
Others were different wireless technologies such as ultra wideband and Faraday pouches or containers, which can block signals from keyless fobs.
Aviva said it had identified 10,000 customers with keyless cars in hightheft areas in Birmingham, Coventry, Leeds, London and Manchester, to whom it was sending Faraday bags.
The Telegraph disclosed last week how the average driver’s premium had risen by a quarter from £387 a year to £477 since 2014. Car thefts had jumped by 60 per cent in the same period, to 115,000 in 2018-19, a 10-year high.