ADAS or Advanced driver assistance systems is the overarching terminology for a group of safety features designed to automate or enhance driver safety. These work by alerting the driver to potential dangers or actively providing automated avoidance.
ADAS or Advanced driver assistance systems is the overarching terminology for a group of safety features designed to automate or enhance driver safety. These work by alerting the driver to potential dangers or actively providing automated avoidance. With more and more being done by vehicle manufacturers to improve driver safety, there are now over 4.5 million vehicles on the UK roads being produced with some type of ADAS. While this is likely to help reduce the total number of road traffic accidents, we are yet to fully understand the long-term impact on insurance pricing and claims costs.
It has been predicted that while claims costs will have an initial spike as a direct result of ADAS features, as these features become more commonplace, the associated costs to repair will decrease. Combine this with the potential of a reduction in accidents and it could start to make a positive dent (pun intended) in the overall costs as it will not only impact repairs and total loss claims but potentially the ever-increasing personal injury claims costs.
2020 saw the introduction of the IIR (UK insurance industry requirements) for the safe repair of ADAS equipped vehicles meaning the member insurers require repairers to meet vehicle manufacturing standards for safe ADAS repair. This should start to provide a level of consistency across the industry not only for the standard but also the costs of these repairs.
This makes having the correct data, about the specific fit of vehicles, even more relevant to insurers. A feature by the same name can require very different standards of repair and therefore costs. For example, auto emergency braking in a 2016 model could be significantly different (due to technological advancement) from a 2019 model.
Whichever way you look at the impact of ADAS on the insurance industry it is becoming very apparent that knowing what vehicles have ADAS either fitted as standard or as an optional extra will be an integral part of appropriate pricing and efficient claims cost management in the future.
Using Cazoo Data Services data, our knowledge of the UK car parc and feedback from our insurance industry partners we can provide vehicle specific insights into what ADAS features are being adopted and which Brands, and models are leading the way, both from a safety perspective and their potential to impact claims inflation.
For example, we can tell that Nissan has really embraced lane departure warning (LDW) systems whereas Mercedes have taken greater strides into lane keeping assist (LKA) technology. Not only can we provide the knowledge of ADAS exposure, but we also normalise the manufacturer terminology to allow for direct comparisons across all makes and models.
These are essential insights for insurers as the impact of passive ADAS, such as a simple warning light associated with lane departure warning (LDW) vs the active ADAS of lane keep assist (where the vehicle actively takes control of the steering) to keep your car on track, will have a sizeable impact on how risks are assessed and claims costs are forecast.
This is just a taste of the data enrichment that we at Cazoo Data Services has available and is already being used across the insurance industry from point of quote through to claims management.
We will continue to share further insights over the coming weeks. If you want more information about how Cazoo Data Services vehicle data can help to improve your insurance business COR (combined operating ratio), please do get in touch at sales@data.cazoo.co.uk
