Vodafone and Towers Watson team up for telematics

Telecommunications giant Vodafone and Towers Watson, the professional services company, have collaborated to launch a telematics service for motor insurers.

Available to companies outside of North America, the initiative combines Vodafone Vehicle Connect, the company’s telematics technology, with Towers Watson’s DriveAbility programme. The aim is to accelerate the pace at which insurers can bring new services to market at a competitive cost.

AIG Europe has signed up to run a pilot.

The service will gather granular per-second interval driving behaviour data, and will combine the information with external information such as traffic patterns and weather data to enhance the accuracy and value of the vehicle score.

The majority of solutions are expected to be made available to customers on a self-install basis, including options for insurers to offer ‘try before you buy’ applications on smartphones.

Towers Watson global head of pricing Duncan Anderson said: “From our experience of doing work for clients in the US, we know that analysing granular data allows a much deeper understanding of the context of driving behaviours, which gives a much greater understanding of the likelihood of claims. Indeed, we have found that our scores can differentiate loss ratio by over a factor of 10 from the best 10% of business to the worst 10%.”

Vodafone director of machine to Machine Erik Brenneis said: “With the global reach of Vodafone and Towers Watson, customers can enjoy a consistent delivery and support model throughout many countries.”