Your driving will decide motor cover premium

For The First Time In India, Baiaj Allianz Introduces Telematics To Price Motor Insurance

Times News Network

Mumbai: A device that captures all your driving behaviour, right from how fast you go to when you apply brakes, will now help decide the cost of yo­ur motor insurance. For the first time in India, a private in­surer has introduced telema­tics —the technology of long-distance transmission of in­formation —to price motor in­surance.

The device, which plugs in­to the car's on-board diagnos­tics (OBD), relays information on quality of driving and usa-ge of cars to the insurance company, which uses the data to price the policy at the time of renewal.

Currently, four factors determine pricing of a vehicle insurance — its make, model, year of manufacture and loca­tion. Bajaj Allianz General Insurance has introduced Drive Smart—a policy which, at the time of renewal, will price insurance based on usage. The device and service is available for free to anyone who buys Bajaj Allianz's car insurance with the add-on covers.

"There are many car ow-

Vijay Kumar, president (motor insurance) at Bajaj Al­lianz, said, "The device will work on every car that has been manufactured after 2010 as all vehicles since then are OBD2-compliant." The Bha-rat Stage IV norms, which prescribe standards for car emissions, also include a man­date on on-board diagnostics.

The device connects the car to an app on the owner's smartphone and recognizes when the driver is over-accele­rating or braking suddenly, or if there is a sudden impact. While the telematics helps the Insurance company in gathering data, it provides car ow­ners a host of benefits which until now required a separate payment of a few thousand ru­pees. For instance, the driver can request roadside assistan­ce by tapping a button on the app in the event of an acci­dent.

The owner can also set up notifications for every time the vehicle breaches a speed li­mit or goes outside a 'geo-fen-ced' area in the map. The ow­ner can also share live and sta­tic location of the car with fri­ends. According to Singhel,

The technology will also enab­le the company to come out with a 'pay as you go' auto in­surance plan where the indivi­dual is charged according to how much he uses the vehicle. The add-on covers include round the clock roadside assi­stance, accident insurance, key and lock replacement co­ver and personal baggage co­ver. The add-on covers cost ro­ughly 50% of the basic insu­rance. For instance, if the standard 'all risk' cover on a Honda City is around Rs 9,000, the policy with add-on rates would cost around Rs 14,000.