ILC ARTICLE

Underwriting rules set to change

18th February 2022

The relationship between insurers, repairers and salvage partners needs to become a lot closer if drivers are going to be properly protected by their policies.

According to Jim Loughran, CEO of e2e Total Loss Vehicle Management, emerging technology is changing the game for insurers and a new symbiotic relationship with repairers and salvage companies will be critical to accurate underwriting.

He said, “To date insurers have assessed risk through actuarial methods, relying on historical data to make assumptions about what will happen. However, when markets, environments and behaviours change so dramatically is it reasonable to suggest that a different approach needs to be explored?”

He said that as self-driving technology becomes more prevalent, turning the driver to passenger, the profile of the person behind the wheel becomes less important to assessing the risk of an incident.

Instead, risks will be assessed according to the resilience and dependability of the on-board systems, the driver aids and the decision-making software that controls the autonomous vehicles.

Loughran concluded, “Those complex systems will fail, glitch and bug, and the results will be found in bodyshops and salvage yards around the country. Analysis of crumple zones, structural deformation, angle of incidence, speed of impact and myriads of other data points will be collected analysed and made available to the insurer to enable better understanding of the risks they insure against.”