According to a recent survey, almost 3/4ths of the auto insurance policy customers would be more than happy to accept an insurance program based on telematics, if sharing data about their driving could help reduce their insurance premium to certain extent. The survey aimed to judge the level of comfort that most policy holders have with regards to sharing their driving data with the auto insurers compared to sharing other types of personal information on mobiles or on the internet.
More than half of the people were comfortable enough to share data about various traffic accidents they were involved in with the insurance companies. This is quite high a percentage compared to the number of people who were really comfortable with social sites storing their photos, messages and other types of personal information. The percentage of people fine with the latter was under 30%. This survey aims to check the reception, the new idea of setting insurance premiums based on driving data, would receive from the auto insurance holders. Auto insurance companies are planning to install devices in the vehicles in order to get driving information so that premiums for insurance could be determined. A good example of this is the pay per drive initiative, which takes mileage data, offering discounts to those policy holders who drive less.
Telematics systems are used in a small percentage of vehicles currently but this number could go up in the coming years. A variety of emergency and navigational services would be offered to the motorists through data collected from these systems. More than half of the people surveyed are actually in favour of insurance rates being determined by driving data. However, the most important concern of policy holders is the loss of privacy. In fact, 4/5th of the people surveyed believe that these devices will help in determining the correct rates. A lot of people are of the opinion that the insurance rates should be on the basis of the miles driven by an individual. Interestingly more than half of the policy holders were against the fact that minor over speeding cases should affect their premiums. One of the most important things found was that a lot of policy holders wanted systems that could help them control the process of determining premiums for their insurance. They also wanted these systems to assist them in modifying their own driving behaviour in order to reduce premiums.
