Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Keeping premiums low
‘It’s good to see that attitudes have decisively moved on from earlier cynicism’
Insurers are focused on lowering premiums specifically for cars that have on-board cameras or radar-based systems that can automatically prevent or mitigate some accidents.
New research by Autoglass suggests that 90% of car insurance providers recognise the crashpreventing potential of such systems and a separate study by Thatcham Research found that, on average, vehicles so equipped had premiums around 10% lower than equivalent vehicles without them.
Other key systems, according to insurers, include GPS trackers, so it can be proved where a driver was and how fast he or she was travelling and localised driver alerts sent to the car over 3G or the internet to warn of accidents, speed cameras or bad weather.
The majority (70%) of companies want to take advantage of so-called big data – collating a large number of data threads on any single individual – in order to reduce fraud.
At the same time, 43% plan to use it to record data from cars at the point of an accident, to settle claims with less effort. Four in 10 see the marketing potential in knowing more details about where their customers are going, how they are driving and on what kinds of roads. But 57% of insurers say their current IT infrastructure is simply inadequate for such a large amount of data and replacing it could be prohibitively expensive.
Autoglass is investing in as-yet unavailable technology that “should give both driver and insurer the confidence that their ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance System) is functioning properly,” after a windscreen replacement.
Neil Atherton, of Autoglass, said: “It’s good to see that attitudes have decisively moved on since a study we did two years ago, which found much more limited awareness of new technologies among insurers and a degree of cynicism about their benefits.
“However, drivers should be aware that cameras used for autonomous emergency braking, for example, are not without risk, as one that is misaligned won’t ‘see’ the road ahead correctly, with potentially dangerous consequences.”