T-systems & insurtech spearhead speed up vehicle claims process with smart white-label telematics

 

 

Every day the police records 7.200 traffic accidents. In addition, German hull insurers receive 4 daily.000 invoices for glass repairs on the table. Insurance customers expect the damage to be repaired as quickly as possible following a collision. After an accident, the damage analysis often takes several days. Motor insurers can make more speed when they network with their policyholder's car. The new white-label telematics solution "Digital Drive" (T-Systems& InsurTech Spearhead) digitize the entire process – from damage analysis to repair order.

V ersurers have been reducing the number of manual steps in the claims process for some time now. The goal: higher processing speed, lower costs, more satisfied customers. T-Systems and Swiss InsurTech Spearhead have now developed "Digital Drive Schadenmanagement" (website ), a very smart claims process for insurers based on Big Data:

Telematics can thus not only document the driving style of the policyholder, but also process accident notification, documentation, damage assessment and repair order fully digitally."

 

 

The managed white-label solution uses the car's on-board diagnostic (OBD2) interface: the policyholder plugs an adapter into the interface and downloads the associated insurance app. The hardware – called a dongle – contains a GPS sensor and an accelerometer as well as a SIM card.

Big data method determines damage

The real turbo is called Big Data: the dongle's sensor technology measures the forces acting on the car in the event of an accident. The adapter then sends high-resolution acceleration and GPS data to T-Systems' secure EU data center via mobile communications."

A data set with acceleration values and telematics info for the period from 10 seconds before to 10 seconds after the accident is transmitted to the back end. Based on the data, the backend analyzes whether an accident has actually occurred, visualizes the accident location and situation, creates a damage report and estimates the repair costs. The system uses values from more than one million real accidents to calculate the damage.

 

 

From the T-Systems data center, all information is transferred to the insurance company's data-protected claims management portal. There, an analysis is available to the customer service representative within a minute. Once the system has determined the cost of repair, the insurance company orders the repair in the next step. After the accident, the vehicle owner can use the app to explain the circumstances of the accident to the insurance company, name the people involved, specify the defective parts and upload photos.

1. The dongle can be used for up to 20.Buffer 000 messages to send data packets to the cloud backend at a later time in case of missing connection
2. Accelerometer with a data rate of 400 Hz to collect relevant crash data
3. OBD2 interface: J1850 PWM, J1850 VPW, ISO-9141-2, ISO-14230, KWP 2000, ISO-15765 CAN – using the interface, the relevant vehicle data can be read out via the adapter using the OBD2 communication protocols.
4. GPRS, CDMA, HSPA – 2G/3G radio modules
5. Integrated battery
6. Pay-per-use models and fixed prices for hardware, service and connectivity
7. Costs for Digital Drive Service with all components are less than 100 euros per year and vehicle

More info here .

Well over 90 percent of the cars on German roads that are not currently connected to the Internet can be retrofitted with such telematics dongles: Since 2004, every new car has been equipped with an OBD2 port for on-board diagnostics. The number of possible applications available for OBD2 adapters is constantly growing. Roland Berger analysts predict that by 2020, some 90 million cars in Europe will be equipped with such dongles. What is new, however, is that insurance companies can now also use them for the claims process.

Many traditional insurance companies still have a hard time with telematics tariffs and often limit them to the group of young drivers. The reason: the pay-as-you-drive principle, which allows motorists to save up to 40 percent on premiums, reduces revenue and means less certainty in planning premium levels.

Added value and additional services instead of discounts

With Digital Drive claims management, insurers don't have to discount incentives because they offer added value to their end customers instead. In return for their telematics data, insurance customers then receive information on their smartphones, for example, about the condition of the vehicle, possible malfunctions or vehicle safety, and can have their own driving behavior evaluated. With the Digital Drive solution, the service also includes a logbook and real-time information on the position of the car. If the car is moved, for example because it is being towed, the owner receives a message on his smartphone. Brief:

Telematics offers insurers the opportunity to reposition themselves: Because their services go beyond simply settling claims."

Insurance customers want digital services

Many customers find this convenient. According to a study by Deloitte, 50 percent of policyholders are currently already willing to share their driving data for such additional services. The adapter therefore opens up new business models for usage-based insurance. Digital offerings can therefore reduce the service provider's costs – and at the same time strengthen customer loyalty. Google and Bain& Company assume in a joint study that the insurance industry could reduce its existing costs by nearly 30 percent gross if it consistently pursued digital transformation. The biggest lever here, he said, is damage management. Its automation, McKinsey agrees, reduces costs by 30 percent.