Female friendly telematics boosted by ‘familiarity’ rating

Drivers regularly using the same roads could gain more competitive premiums, with road familiarity now being used as a rating factor in telematics policies.

Model Driver, the female-friendly telematics offering from Sheilas’ Wheels, is the first product to use familiarity as a scoring factor.

The move is set to benefit female drivers who tend to drive on more familiar routes than men do, according to existing telematics data.

Wunelli, the telematics solutions provider, developed the familiarity-scoring system that works along with parameters such as night-time driving, speed, driving in congestion, smooth driving and journey types to give a driving behaviour score.

Wunelli chief executive Sandy Dunn said: “Based on 706 million miles of driving data collected over the past four years, we know females typically drive more frequently and more regularly on roads that are known to them compared to male drivers. It may sound like a gross generalisation, but our driving data shows this to be true.

“Of course, some individual males drive like a female; however, the power of driving behaviour scoring is that premiums can be customised. We are delighted that Sheilas’ Wheels Broker is the first intermediary to adopt the scoring parameter for its new Model Driver Policy. 2013 is set to be a year of innovation and evolution in insurance telematics and this is a great start.”

Sheilas’ Wheels Broker managing director Jon Morrell said: “Since the implementation of the EU gender neutral ruling, prices are not what they should be for women given their superiority in terms of safety and responsibility behind the wheel. Therefore, by adopting telematics we can continue to offer the best possible deals for our female customers.”