In the past year, the use of telematics for insurance has gone from interesting to important, giving rise to a whole new set of questions regarding rating, marketing, underwriting, data management, etc. Fortunately, there are emerging sources for answers, including a recent survey of industry participants and number of sessions at the 2013 Insurance-Canada.ca Technology Conference (ICTC2013) March 18-19, 2013 in Toronto.
Survey Says….
Insurance-Canada.ca has conducted two previous polls of Canadian practitioners to determine awareness of telematics for insurance, understanding of challenges, expectations of telematics impact, and involvement. The most recent survey updated these.
Awareness is definitely trending up. In the first su
rvey (early 2012) over half of the respondents had a low level of understanding of telematics and its role in insurance. Awareness was rising by the time of the second poll in August. In the most recent survey, over 60% of respondents had a high degree of awareness of telematics in insurance. An additional 10% were involved in a telematics project.
Also, expectations are on the rise. In last summer’s poll, less than half of the respondents in each survey felt that a majority of Canadian insurance underwriting companies would be using Telematics for rating and underwriting within 5 years. In the most recent survey, 70% of the respondents felt that there would be meaningful penetration in 5 years or less.
Some things remained the same. Respondents continue to feel that the two biggest barriers to usage of telematics for insurance were Customer Acceptance (over 40% of the respondents agreed) and Insurer Appetite and Initiative (22%).
Questions from You, Answers from Experts
In the survey, we also asked respondents to let us know what questions they had that could be passed on to experts. And we got some good ones. Hot topics included: Privacy, regulation, impact on pricing, impact on brokers.
And we’ve got some experts who will address these questions and others at the ICTC2013 next week in Toronto. There will be a number of sessions over the two days, including a full half day devoted to UBI and Telematics on Monday 18 March.
Your Turn
We’re looking for you comments now. The comments section below is always open. Better still, plan to attend the ICTC2013 and bring your questions with you. Information and on-line registration is available here.
So, get the answers you need by joining the conversation here and join you r colleagues face to face next week at the ICTC2013.
Factors such as minutes of driving, distance and city or rural driving can be easily quantified and clearly explained to drivers. How do you quantify, and clearly explained to drivers, factors such as cornering, brakes per mile, acceleration?
Feedback loop. When the drivers premiums actually go down with accepted and exhibited behaviors behind the wheel.