Global Insurance Telematics Subscriptions to Exceed 100M by 2018, Auto Insurance Faces Dramatic Changes

Global insurance telematics subscriptions are expected to grow 81 percent from 5.5 million at the end of 2013 to 107 million in 2018.

“With Progressive’s Snapshot having attracted more than 1 million drivers in the U.S. and Octo Telematics already counting close to 1.3 million UBI customers – mainly in Italy – insurance telematics is now entering the mainstream market, at least in certain countries. The emergence of smartphone-based solutions, the gender ruling in the EU, and growing awareness of insurers to move to a more proactive safety, preventive, and service/CRM based approach improving the customer experience and loyalty will be strong drivers for growth in the near-to mid-term,” says VP and practice director Dominique Bonte.

However, in the longer term, with the emergence of active safety systems based on ADAS and V2X technology and various forms of semi and fully autonomous driving and the drive towards a zero accident risk environment, the auto insurance industry will face new paradigms which will fundamentally change the nature of their business. The whole concern about accurately monitoring the driver behavior and calculating the risk of the human driver getting involved in an accident disappears when contemplating insurance for cars without a driver.

While traditional auto insurance revenues will ultimately unavoidably decrease, insurers’ expertise in automotive analytics and statistics will offer new opportunities in a burgeoning Internet of Things in which big data skills will be one of the most sought-after capabilities—another example of how technology will dramatically transform a traditional industry worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

ABI Research’s “Usage Based Insurance and Safety Telematics Synergies” study highlights trends, drivers, and inhibitors of insurance telematics solutions as well as the changing nature of UBI with accident prevention and CRM becoming more important. Forecasts are provided for insurance telematics installed base, shipments, and discounts per region and implementation type.

Source: ABI Research