By Paolo Ravicchio Chief, BU Insurtech di VIASAT GROUP
The wide spread of Black Boxes all over Italy represents a success story; in this sense, our Country has always been a leader in the Old Continent. Main insurance companies have already adopted such solutions in the past and now even the smallest ones are finally approaching to technology and taking new ideas into consideration. Such technologies have been developing quickly in Italy, maybe because of the peculiarities of the territory. Until a few years ago, policy prices were truly expensive all over Italy and a significant number of frauds, claims and speculations were reported every day. Italian scenario was radically different from the rest of Europe; telematics was mainly used to try to contrast such a critical situation. Insurance companies –in need of a remedy and, at the same time, enthusiastic about the idea- made a “blind” investment. Years later, results show that intuitions have been successful. Therefore, there has been a levelling of conditions which –on the one hand- shows the effectiveness of the measures and, on the other, requires a different technological approach to face new, global challenges. In such a scenario, a company like Viasat does what it can do better; to innovate, and to be pragmatic. A new era is starting for insurance telematics: focus is moving from mere control functions to interesting, addes-value prevention solutions. Right now, the goal is not just to analyze the behaviour of drivers in the event of an accident –which has already occurred, but to exploit technology advantages in terms of prevention. For instance, preventing vehicle thefts or road accidents through appropriate drive coaching functions, or to reduce the consequences of an emergency situation with the help of immediate and georeferenced assistance functions. Technological prevention, before and beyond refunds. We believe that this represents the maximum point of synergy and interaction between telematics and the insurance field, which will be capable of producing the global enlargement and a cooperation and linkage between benefits and beneficiaries we aim at. Services, serenity and care for customers and risk reduction for insurance companies. With this view, we propose a modular, gradual approach through our ready-to-use platform, which gives access to single functions (sales, management, telematic data). The system fully integrates with most common suites and no further investment is needed. The new perspective arises from the name “Sicuri e Protetti” (Safe and Protected).