How technology is reshaping car insurance

No surprise here: technology has transformed our lives — including something we care deeply about, road safety.

Over the past twenty years, advances like collision-avoidance systems, backup cameras, blind-spot monitors and airbags have helped cut road deaths by more than 30%. Premiums haven’t followed suit, though: today’s high-tech parts — bumpers, side mirrors — cost more to repair than the ones they replaced.

Road safety in the age of self-driving cars

Since automated features like Tesla’s Autopilot arrived, we’ve started to see their mark on road-safety numbers. Experts estimate that more than 90% of crashes come down to human error — so a road full of self-driving vehicles would, in theory, see far fewer collisions. And because these vehicles generate so much driving data, policies and premiums could be tailored to each driver’s habits and needs. Promising, right?

The technology brings challenges too. Until driverless cars are the norm, they’ll share the road with conventional ones and “a mix of vehicles — private and shared, some with autonomous features — which will make the market more complex,” says Louis Gagnon, President, Canadian Operations at Intact Insurance. Will self-driving cars tempt more non-drivers to buy in, adding traffic and, with it, risk? Or will car-sharing replace personal vehicles and thin out city traffic? Time will tell. One thing’s certain: the complex systems in self-driving cars won’t be cheap to fix, and that’ll show up in premiums.

Technology and how we drive

Our cars have changed a lot in recent decades — and so have our habits behind the wheel. Giving up our smartphones feels unthinkable now, but their effect on driving is genuinely alarming. Distracted driving is now the top cause of fatal and injury crashes in Canada, and studies show that texting behind the wheel makes you 23 times (!) more likely to cause one. That’s staggering.

So how can insurers help? Through those same smartphones. Most car insurers, Intact Insurance among them, now offer programs that adjust your premium based on how you actually drive.

Take Intact’s my Driving® program: it looks at things like speed, smoothness and alertness to personalize your premium. Good habits earn savings on your car insurance; riskier ones can nudge it up.

Beyond seeing how your driving stacks up against others’, you get handy tools for breakdowns, tips for greener driving, and ways to stretch your fuel.

In the end, better habits make the roads safer for everyone — and isn’t that what we all want?

If you take away one thing, make it this: the surest way to make the roads safer (and trim your premium) is to put the phone away while you drive. Your notifications, texts and urgent emails will all still be there when you arrive.