Oct. 12, 2017—Octo Telematics, the London-based provider of telematics for the auto insurance industry, announced it will acquire the usage-based insurance (UBI) assets of Willis Towers Watson and will create a partnership with the broker to develop insurance products, according to Insurance Journal.
According to the Q4 2016 Industry Trends Report put out by Mitchell International, 93 percent of millennials would buy usage-based (aka pay-as-you-go) insurance. When Willis Towers Watson spoke with FenderBender back in June, it anticipated that by the end of 2016, 17 million people will have tried it.
These UBI assets include Willis Towers Watson’s DriveAbility solution and the DriveAbility Marketplace.
Octo explained that Willis Towers Watson’s DriveAbility aggregates and analyzes granular telematics and insurance data to provide driving scores.
It also assists insurers as they design, score, issue and bind telematics-based insurance policies.
The insurance telematics industry is growing at a rapid pace, with nearly 100 million UBI policies expected worldwide by 2020, said Octo, quoting a 2016 study on UBI published by Ptolemus Consulting Group.
CCC Information Services is pushing for OEM-insurance partnerships with CCC Drive, which is a telematics platform that allows a vehicle to automatically notify an insurer when a crash occurs.
As vehicle technology advances and CCC Drive gains popularity, it could have a profound impact on claims, vehicle repair and the entire automotive lifecycle, says Marc Fredman, senior vice president of corporate strategy and development for CCC.
“This is producing ever-greater amounts of data that can assist insurers in accurately pricing risk,” said Octo. “Big data analytics are therefore crucial to break down telematics information such as driver behavior data to create driver scores, as well as carry out crash analysis and provide the full range of telematics benefits.”
“Insurance telematics is evolving far beyond the simple black box hardware. With ever-increasing data volumes being measured and recorded, the tools being used to analyze it and provide accurate driving behavior information to insurers must develop at a similar pace,” according to Octo’s CEO Sbianchi.
“It makes sense to join forces with Willis Towers Watson to pool resources and lead on further developing telematics propositions,” he added.
