MyDrive Solutions Announces the Latest in Insurance Telematics With the Launch of its Insurance Smart Box Technology

LONDON, March 26, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

- The launch of MyDrive Dynamic means car insurers will be able to accurately assess the risk presented by individual drivers, and price premiums accordingly, for the first time -

MyDrive Solutions, the insurance telematics specialist, today announces the launch of its insurance smart box product to market - MyDrive Dynamic - which will enable car insurance companies to use driving behavioural data, as derived by the latest data capture technology, to assess the risk presented by individual drivers, and price car insurance premiums accordingly.

In response to the rising cost of insurance premiums, particularly for young drivers between the ages of 17 and 25, MyDrive Solutions is launching its sophisticated insurance telematics product - MyDrive Dynamic - which captures driver behavioural data in the car using an insurance smart box, stores it in the Cloud and then allows the insurer to assess driving ability and behaviour. Results are displayed through an online portal which can be accessed by the driver.  

MyDrive Solutions has spent the last 12 months building a robust insurance risk assessment capability, which will allow individuals to be rewarded with lower premiums for safe driving.

Linden Holliday, CEO of MyDrive Solutions, explains "The device works by placing a 'Dynamic Drive Recorder' in each car that collects vast amounts of data - we take a snapshot every second - about an individual's driving style. This includes a driver's level of aggression, smoothness, anticipation and consistency. We contextualise this information in relation to the road network - for instance, whether a driver is on a motorway or A-road, or whether he is approaching a roundabout - and driving conditions - for instance, whether an individual is driving at night, in heavy congestion, or in treacherous weather conditions. Put simply, the insurance smart box knows where the driver is, when they are driving and how they are driving. This information is transmitted back to the insurer's data systems via the Cloud so they can measure each driver's capability and price their insurance premium accordingly."

MyDrive Dynamicis entirely unique in the insurance telematics market place, as other devices currently available only take a report or 'snapshot' of the driver every 30 seconds, also logging any exceptions, such as sudden braking or acceleration. Only measuring a driver ever 30 seconds however, means vital details may be missed, and with key information being overlooked, this approach will never lead to true understanding of individual driver behaviour. Conversely, by monitoring drivers every second, MyDrive Dynamic develops an extremely detailed picture of how safe an individual's driving style is, thus allowing the risk to the insurance company to be calculated very easily and very accurately.

MyDrive Solutions has now signed and put into operation agreements with all of its supply chain partners required to complete the entire business offering, and is today announcing the launch of MyDrive Dynamic.  

MyDrive Dynamic will operate using data transmitted via Telenor Connexion, the leading provider of premium M2M solutions for business and life critical applications, who will be providing all telecommunications service to MyDrive Solutions. The agreement with Telenor Connexion marks the final piece of the jigsaw for MyDrive Solutions to be able to come to market, and as such, MyDrive Dynamic is now "open for business."

Holliday continues, "Young drivers in particular have been hit very hard in the past year with rising insurance premium costs. In fact, since 2010, premiums have increased by a staggering 58 per cent for this age group, which equates to a £2,200 cost for the average 17 to 25-year old in their first year of driving. And with the European Court of Justice's ruling in March that insurance companies can no longer use gender to set insurance premiums, young female drivers have been penalised even further."

Holliday concludes, "Young drivers arecurrently being faced with the very real risk of being priced out of owning a car, but MyDrive Dynamic offers them a chance to first and foremost, prove themselves as safe drivers, and secondly, a chance to lower their premiums. With our distinctive one second data logging technology, combined with GPS data, we can contextualise every decision each driver makes by mapping it to the road network. We therefore feel that today, we are bringing an entirely unique proposition to market, and we look forward to the opportunities that this will bring."

About MyDrive Solutions

MyDrive is a rapidly growing company providing the ability to understand the skill levels of a car driver in undertaking the extremely complex task of driving a car on the UK's congested road network.

We monitor driving behaviour on a second-by-second basis, and deploy industry leading analysis to determine exactly how capable the driver is, in real time, and on an ongoing basis.

Importantly, we have a European patent (pending), protecting our unique ability to contextualise individual behaviour to the road network. In short, this allows us to understand the road topography that the driver is interacting with, and therefore to understand what the driver should be doing at all points on the road, to determine the appropriateness of their driving (e.g. is the driver approaching a road junction at too high a speed, or cornering at an inappropriate speed?)

This information can be utilized in many ways, from self-improvement to achieve better fuel efficiency, to proving driving capability, and therefore risk profile, to an insurance company, to a parent ensuring that their child is driving in a safe and sensible manner.

Our key focus is the insurance industry. Until now, insurers have been forced to consider risk on the basis of proxies for behaviour, since it has hitherto been impossible to actually observe behaviour. There is statistical validity in using such proxies, but this is based on averaging a pool of drivers; there are many drivers who share the pooled characteristics (occupation, age, marital status etc) but who do drive in a different manner to that pool. Our capability allows the insurer to largely ignore the "old proxies", and focus instead on what is really important, which is how the driver drives, not how the statistics suggest he ought to drive.

Press contact

David Beesley
itpr
+44(0)1932-578-800

SOURCE MyDrive Solutions