Slippery road alert with graphics
Article care of Lexisnexis.
Over the last few years telematics data has proven itself to be a very powerful rating factor for insurers. All the miles of data collected includes 450 vehicle makes and models, with over five million GPS data points per day and collectively 150,000 earned car years.
The data gathered and analyzed to date has revealed that women are on average safer drivers than men. It has identified the cars on the road driven by individuals more likely to speed, and derived key accident triggers such as hard accelerating, braking, night-time driving and speeding.
This data gathering is enabling us to bring new insights all the time to insurers. We are constantly testing and normalizing data from different smartphone sources and other sources and refining the risk scores that we serve to insurers.
For us it is very important to show the power of data, both to consumers and to insurance companies who are moving ahead with a telematics product offering for the first time.
The data that we produce is vital to testing the effectiveness of the new Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and Automated Vehicle Technology (AVT) as it comes on the market. We are doing a lot of work with OEMs and auto manufacturers in this area.
Being a research-driven and inquisitive company, sometimes we decide to interrogate the data with some questions that we feel would be useful to the public, for road safety or other purposes.
Recently we looked at driving behaviour amongst young motorists in winter compared to summer. The results serve to underline the power of telematics in helping the insurance sector rate UK young drivers more accurately and target road safety messages to help reduce accident risk.
Our analysis shows that after adjusting by mileage, during the winter months, drivers with telematics policies:
- Hard brake 23% less in the winter than in summer
- Speed on highways 20% less in the winter than in summer
- Speed on local roads 7% less in the winter than in summer
- Speed on rural roads 15% less in the winter than in summer
- Drive on a weekend night 14% less in the winter than in summer
- Drive on a weekday night 20% less in the winter than in summer
The driving behaviour of over 18,000 motorists with telematics policies, covering 106 million miles over a two year period was analysed. Overall 95% of the telematics insurance policies had a young driver as a main or additional driver.
Almost half of all road accidents involving young drivers can be attributed to slippery roads, travelling too fast for the conditions, inexperience, sudden braking and exceeding the speed limit. Telematics can help tackle these risks, providing insights for driver feedback. But our analysis also shows how sophisticated the insurance sector can become in rating drivers for risk whilst reducing claims loss ratios.
Comparing driving scores for the summer versus winter, our research found that 68% of drivers have a better driving score in the winter months. This is the first time telematics data has been analysed to show that young drivers with telematics policies are on average changing their behaviours in the winter months, when the roads are generally wet and icy.
The annual count of road deaths in the UK runs at approximately 1,700 every year: 1,700 reasons to highlight ways of making the roads safer for drivers, and young drivers in particular.
UK Department for Transport figures show drivers between the ages of 17-24 are statistically over-represented in reported road accidents.
For full results of our winter driving research,visit the Wunelli website.
– See more at: http://blogs.lexisnexis.com/insurance-insights/2017/02/young-motorists-with-telematics-drive-with-more-caution-in-winter/?utm_campaign=in16.insblog&utm_medium=email&utm_source=insurance-insights-blog&utm_content=blog-story-2#sthash.JoyNs6Qw.dpuf
