Premiums will also be based on actual risk posed by an individual’s driving in addition to the more typical factors of age and gender. The product is aimed exclusively at the young driver market – male and female drivers aged between 17 and 24. Policyholders, will have a ‘smart box’ installed in their car that provides real time information about how and when they drive.
Capita Insurance Distribution will provide full end-to-end sales support, policy administration and processing services to The Co-operative Insurance’s motor insurance customers. Wunelli will provide the ‘smart box’ and telematics data that enable a driver’s speed, acceleration, braking and the time of day that they drive to be recorded and used to drive his or her premiums down – or up.
Mark Townsend, managing director of Capita Insurance Distribution, said: “At a time when the cost of insurance premiums are high, and in the light of the recent European Court opinion on using gender to define risk, it is particularly gratifying to be working with The Co-operative Insurance in the launch of an innovative technology designed to reduce costs for young people, and encourage responsible driving behaviours. This deal enables us to combine our experience in telematics with our core skills of cost effective, efficient and customer focused policy administration.”
Grant Mitchell, head of motor insurance at The Co-operative Insurance said: “The new telematics technology will enable us to gain a genuine insight into how a young driver behaves behind the wheel. We believe that young drivers risk becoming an ‘uninsurable generation’ and hope that our product will pave the way for the rest of the industry to give them access to fairly priced motor insurance premiums. We look forward to working with Capita Insurance Distribution to help us deliver this next step in telematics technology to the market place.”
Penny Searles, commercial director of Wunelli, said: ”This is a challenging time for Insurers and we are proud and privileged to be working with The Co-operative Insurance on such an innovative product launch that will not only see a new approach to underwriting but will see insurers actively helping to improve driving behaviours to avoid death and injury. Telematics offers so much more to both customers and insurers than reduced claims, and it is exciting that we have helped The Co-operative with their vision, by providing the telematics services and our experience of how to use the data effectively to help customers control their costs and their driving.”
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Media enquiries
Capita press office
Caroline Mooney
Tel: 0207 654 2152 or 020 7654 2399 (out of hours)
caroline.mooney@capita.co.uk
Capita Insurance Distribution, part of Capita Insurance Services, is the fifth largest UK personal lines insurance intermediary and third party administrator specialising in personal lines solutions for affinity clients. Capita Insurance Distribution employs over 1000 staff (based in Portsmouth, Colchester and St Ives in Cambridge) and administers around £200m of personal lines gross written insurance premium. It works with 49 insurance companies in the UK personal lines market place, and currently maintains different product sites for 82 household brands such as Asda, Liverpool Victoria and Admiral. Further information can be found at www.capitainsuranceservices.co.uk
The Co-operative Financial Services (CFS) is part of The Co-operative Group, which is the world’s largest consumer co-operative with around five million members, over £14 billion turnover, and core business interests in financial services, food, travel, pharmacy and funeral care. The Co-operative Group has over 5,000 retail trading outlets. Following the merger with Britannia Building Society on 1 August 2009, the new organisation is one of the largest and well diversified mutual businesses operating in both retail and corporate markets. As part of The Co-operative Group, the new business is characterised by its unique ethical and member reward policies and very high levels of customer advocacy. The combined business has £70 billion in assets, 12,000 staff and nine million customers. It has over 300 high street branches, 20 corporate banking centres and a major presence in Leek , London, Manchester, Plymouth, Skelmersdale and Stockport. It is the only mutual organisation that enables its members to earn financial rewards for the products they hold, as well as giving them the opportunity to have a say in how the business is run.
Wunelli Limited was launched in 2007 by experienced insurance professionals and is the only proven Telematics Insurance end to end solution provider in the UK that allows Insurers to launch telematics based motor insurance products. It has operated its own Telematics based policy via its Coverbox Panel, since January 2009 and is ideally placed to offer the hands on experience, operational processes and telematics systems necessary to help insurers design and launch their own products. Wunelli has worked with its partners, to develop a full service comprising:
- Product and Process Design and implementation Service
- Integrated hardware and services
- Data collection
- Insurance administration and billing capability using telematics
- Personalised customer website
This ‘off the shelf’ solution ensures that Insurers can move to market with confidence using a tried and tested supply chain and capitalise on the Wunelli knowledge and experience to create innovative products to fill market gaps.