The high cost of car insurance for young drivers has been a thorny issue for a very long time. Northern Ireland-based Autoline Insurance Group is not claiming its new, telematics-based Road Safety Reward App is a panacea, but it is hoping it will ultimately make insurance more affordable for younger drivers.
The target age group for the app is 17-25 year olds who are given a score based on their driving patterns. Those who score well can get as much as 40 per cent off the cost of their premiums. However, discounts will be reduced if their driving deteriorates. Continuing good behaviour is rewarded with increased discounts.
“Autoline was started in Newry 35 years ago so we have a lot of experience of the insurance industry and are the first in our sector in Europe to launch a telematics phone app,” says operations director Julie Gibbons .
“We began taking an interest in the possibilities of usage-based insurance about two years ago. It uses telematics to monitor how people really drive in terms of speed, braking patterns and aggression. Telematics was originally developed for fleet-management purposes and the data was gathered via a black box fitted in the vehicle. These boxes are expensive to buy and install so the cost is usually passed on to the client. Obviously this system wasn’t suitable for young drivers already paying huge premiums.”
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Motorists in Northern Ireland have the highest car insurance rates in the entire UK, states a newly released report. The research, conducted by the Consumer Council, recently discovered that motor car insurance for drivers in Northern Ireland is £287 higher on average than the rest of the country’s rates.
For the residents of Newry, Belfast, Londonderry, and Armagh, car insurance premiums are the highest in the country. The next highest regions, after the greater London area, included both the West Midlands and the north west region.
The study did have a recommendation for beleaguered Northern Ireland drivers, however, in stating that if they compared car insurance quotes from a multitude of insurers they could save as much as £260 for their troubles. Additionally the survey also posited that the motor car insurance market in Northern Ireland was currently weathering not only higher costs to insurance premiums but also from inertia and apathy from car insurance customers as well. The report suggested that the lack of any general competitive activity was ultimately responsible for driving prices higher in the region.
Motorists additionally have to cough up more cash for their insurance premiums due to the elevated levels of insurance claim payouts across the region as well, the survey found. Approximately half of the total costs of Northern Ireland’s auto insurance claims were due to the high level of compensation payments made to the region’s drivers.
Additionally the report discovered that payments made to the barristers and solicitors of claimants’ added up to approximately £1 million on a yearly basis.
In related news, the Association of British Insurers recently complained about the incredibly high fees that solicitors have been charging lately, which have been partly responsible for the general hike to car insurance rates the country has been experiencing.
