Telematics and connected insurance company IMS, through their partnership with High Mobility (the Germany-based OEM data aggregator) are the first to implement connected car location data for ‘Pay How You Drive’ (PHYD) usage-based insurance directly from Volkswagen (VW) passenger vehicles.
Steve Kerrigan, VP for EMEA at IMS announced that following a successful trial, Volkswagen (VW) will roll out a full pilot that routes vehicle location data through the IMS’ One App framework and makes it available to insurers.”
How will the connected car location data be used ‘Pay How You Drive’ (PHYD) insurance propositions?
Steve explained: “In-vehicle driving data will be processed via our IMS One App, which will then produce risk-based scores and data feeds for motor underwriters. “The programme is now available to insurers as a proof of concept. We see it as a significant enhancement to current in-vehicle telematics data capture. However, embedded OEM data still has a fair way to go before it becomes the go-to standard for scoring and pricing PHYD products. This is clearly an important step in the right direction.”
Which Volkswagen models support connected auto insurance data?
Steve said there are many VW models available in the new platform, including: the ID range of BEV models and SUVs such as the Tiguan, T-Roc and Touran. During the last 12 months, VW BEV registrations in the UK were second only to Tesla at just under 40,500 vehicles.
Steve explained: “VW has done some foundational data work with fleets, but up to now it’s been off limits to everyday drivers in private vehicles. Taking this type of data directly from OEM embedded sensors has not gained significant traction so far within the insurance market due to a number of challenges, plus high-profile standalone data aggregator platforms (like Wejo and Otonomo) that promised to bridge the gap between OEMs and insurers falling by the wayside.”
Why is this a breakthrough for OEM data?
He added: “We’re confident we’ve managed to achieve, with VW, what others have failed to do. We can display the scoring in our IMS One App to the policyholder as well as provide actionable data for our insurer partners, and we already have some interested parties in both the UK and Germany. In the near term, we see a mixed economy where PHYD data is collected side-by-side from both smartphone sensors and those embedded within connected vehicles.”
Commenting on the partnership, [Name] [Title] for VW said: “This is an exciting next step in the journey towards a truly symbiotic relationship between car makers and the insurance industry for the benefit of our customers, which over time should correlate with lower premiums.”
Drivers can be confident that the scores they receive on the IMS One App are a true reflection of their driving capabilities, as can insurers. VW is proud to be associated with this project – the first in the UK to connect location-based, personal lines data with applying the data for risk-based scoring.”
“We expect keen interest from the insurance industry both in the UK and elsewhere, and at last we can now visualise a time in the not-too-distant future when this process becomes the normal way to price risk.”
