Quindell’s Terry: Debate about telematics mass-market appeal is ‘long over’

The debate about whether telematics will break into the mainstream motor insurance market is “long over”, according to Quindell founder and executive chairman Rob Terry.

Some commentators expect telematics insurance, which monitors driver performance in a bid to charge more accurate premiums, to be largely confined to the young driver market.

But Terry, speaking to Insurance Times after the release of Quindell’s 2013 results yesterday, insisted that anyone not expecting telematics to have mass-market appeal was “living in the past”.

He said: “We are shipping more than 500 devices a day with some of our clients and that is not in the young driver market. That debate should be long over.”

He added: “The biggest deal we are working on in telematics in the UK, which may or may not come to fruition, would see us rolling out more than 2 million telematics devices over the next 18 months to two years. That is again not focused on young drivers.”

The company plans to launch an Ingenie product for drivers over 25 in the third quarter this year. Terry said: “It won’t be a slow process. It will partner with a major brand that already has access to several million drivers.” He declined to name the company.

Quindell is also pushing telematics into areas beyond motor. Terry said the company is handling 1,200 claims a week using video-based home telematics with “one of the largest direct insurers in the UK”.

Quindell offers telematics through its technology solutions division. It also owns 49% of telematics broker Ingenie and has an option to buy the whole company, which it plans to exercise by the end of this year’s first half.

Quindell’s technology solutions unit grew revenue by 168% to £80.4m (2012: £30.1m) in 2013, which Terry said was partly driven by the UK telematics business.