Wednesday, 17 December 2014

Telematics cuts new driver crashes by 40%

Forty per cent of new driver crashes involving 17 to 25 year-olds could be avoided through mass market adoption of black box or telematics insurance, according to a report published by young driver insurer ingenie.

This amounts to the prevention of 28,749 crashes on UK roads each year.

The ingenie report also presents telematics data gathered over 200,000,000 miles to paint a clear picture of how, when and where young people drive; the risk they pose to themselves and other road members; and their receptiveness to behaviour change.
• Road crashes are still the biggest accidental killer of young people
• Young drivers are involved in 20% of ‘killed and seriously injured’ crashes
• Five 17 to 24-year-olds lose their lives on British roads every week

Based on this evidence, ingenie has joined forces with its insurance partner Ageas UK to call for an Insurance Premium Tax (IPT) exemption on telematics policies taken out by young drivers. This would allow insurers to reduce premiums and stimulate demand while the market matures.

Implementing this rate for telematics insurance could increase take-up by as many as 245,000 additional policies. This would result in an estimated 28,749 fewer crashes annually by year seven, and a saving to the UK economy of £500m.

When these findings were presented to transport minister Robert Goodwill MP at a recent meeting in the House of Lords, he acknowledged that “telematics was delivering for young drivers” and pledged further research into its impact.

The data suggests that lives could be saved through wider adoption of black box insurance. Indeed, ingenie’s data reveals that compared with the national average of 1 in 5 young drivers crashing in the first six months after passing their test, just 1 in 8 of those with a telematics insurance policy will have a crash during that period – that’s a 40% reduction in risk.