OAI: Tech-Driven Insurance Continues Growth with Snapshot in Delaware

RANCHO CUCAMONGA, CA, April 23, 2012 (Press-News.org) The recent expansion of Progressive's Snapshot insurance discount program to Delaware now leaves few states where usage-based insurance coverage isn't available and highlights the growing hold technology-driven data recording is having on the industry, according to Online Auto Insurance.

Snapshot champions its palm-sized, in-car data recorder as an innovation that can save motorists money through detailed recording of their habits behind the wheel, including distances driven, times driven and abrupt speeding and stopping. Policyholders checking that report online can shape how they drive to meet a range of coverage discounts that they would not have been eligible for otherwise.

With company representatives estimating that 500,000 customers have used the program across the 40 states it is now available in, Snapshot is the most widely available usage-based program of its kind. Access to Snapshot was widened last year to customers in Alabama, North Dakota and New Mexico. But the program isn't available as a form of cheap California car insurance because the program hasn't yet expanded to that state, nor to Washington, Alaska, Hawaii, North Carolina, Tennessee, Illinois, Indiana, West Virginia or Massachusetts. Drivers in places like California have access to pay-as-you-drive programs, but not to any programs that give discounts based on habits beyond mileage.

Insurers have increasingly been relying on data-driven technologies to map out information that they say is more accurate than the commonly used self-reporting methods. Companies providing that technology say that customer satisfaction has pumped up demand for their products.

"[I]nsurers such as Progressive, Allstate, and State Farm are expanding their usage-based programs to accommodate the positive consumer response, and other insurers in the U.S. and abroad are rapidly adopting the technology," telematics technology company DriveFactor stated in a press release.

DriveFactor is one of many companies that provide data-capturing devices behind "vehicle telematics," which are in-car telecommunication systems that send, receive and store information. But it's not just private companies catching onto the movement: government entities seeking more efficiency through the use of hard data have also sponsored studies into telematics.

A March report from North Carolina's Program Evaluation Division recommended a phased approach to implementing telematics for state agencies' fleet vehicles. Oversight of those vehicles by the Division of Motor Fleet Management could bolster management and "strengthen its accountability," according to the report, by recording vehicle mileage and frequency of use.

Telematics, the report's authors stated, is "a cost-effective solution that can help boost productivity, address driver safety, misuse and abuse, and ensure fleet operations run as efficiently as possible."

Another study from the University of Delaware in 2009 proposed a five-year plan to implement a system using vehicle miles of travel (VMT) as a measurement tool that would determine state fees and charges. VMT-based fees could be as viable as the long-running use of fuel taxes as a measurement tool for funding transportation systems, researchers said.

Source: http://knowledge.fhwa.dot.gov/tam/aashto.nsf/docs/5557747B265CD5BA852 ... =REFERENCE

For more on this and related insurance issues, head to http://www.onlineautoinsurance.com/california/ for access to an easy-to-use quote-comparison generator and informative resources pages.