Non-standard motor insurance specialist Quote Detective has teamed up with IMS, a leader in UBI and connected insurance technology, to launch an innovative new young driver UBI product, FreezaBird, for the UK market.
FreezaBird, which will be distributed primarily on UK price comparison sites, uses IMS’ One App mobile telematics technology paired with the IMS Wedge. It acts as an ‘override’ insurance product where the vehicle that the young person is driving belongs to and is already insured by their parent or guardian – kicking in when the young driver is at the wheel.
FreezaBird gives learner and young drivers opportunities to capitalise on benefits that are normally open only to experienced drivers, such as the ability to earn no-claims discounts, and siblings being able to drive the same car.
Quote Detective’s CEO David Harlow said the partnership provides “a great platform for us to grow profitably in the young driver market, capitalising on a number of insurers exits and rapid premium inflation.”
He said: “Helping get young drivers insured is important to us; it’s crucial for their livelihoods and their careers that they can access a car, especially in areas with poor public transport, but insurance has become prohibitively expensive. We plan to change that with FreezaBird.”
“We are confident that IMS’ highly engaging UBI app paired with easy-to-install technology, as well as proactive intervention and parental oversight where required, will create a new wave of safe and careful young drivers and a good return for our specialist insurer partner.
Explaining the additional policy benefits, David said that it being in the driver’s name allows them to earn a no-claims discount, even while they’re learning, too. And the parent or guardian’s no claims discount is unaffected in the event of the young driver claiming.
Other benefits include:
- No need for the young driver to buy a car in order to gain driving experience.
- Same policy and same price when the young driver is transitioning from a provisional to full licence.
- The scoring criteria encourages users to drive with extra care at night, because this is when accidents are more likely to occur. If unsafe behaviours are detected at night-time, the trip score will be impacted more than the same trip taken during the day.
- The young driver gets a generous 8,000 annual mileage allowance.
He said the policy will be sold mainly through UK price comparison sites, with a follow up call with the in-house specialist Quote Detective team to complete the purchase.
Andrew Brown-Allan, Executive Vice President, Growth, EMEA at IMS, said: “Quote Detective are great partners because they are using telematics technology in an innovative, flexible way to deliver a truly usage-based product to a market which is finding it increasingly difficult to access affordable cover.”
Andrew said that a number of insurers exited the young driver market last year because they under-invested in the tools to improve driving behaviour and failed to create the right mechanisms to undertake proactive risk management.
Brown-Allan continued: “It’s a pity because the insurance industry risks failing the needs of a vital segment of the driving population, so we’re really excited by this partnership with Quote Detective, which promises to reset the balance by giving drivers a high quality product, peace of mind for parents, and great returns for insurers.”
There are nearly three million young drivers in the UK, and premiums for this group went up by nearly £600 on average last year.
The policy is available to 17-24 year old drivers on select UK price comparison sites. To find out more about the Quote Detective Freezabird product, please visit: https://quotedetective.com/freezabird/
To learn more about how insurers can benefit from IMS One App and the IMS Wedge tag, visit www.ims.tech/oneapp
About IMS
IMS is a vehicle and driving data business, delivering enterprise solutions to global insurers, mobility operators and governments. The IMS DriveSync platform provides the capability for customers to improve their approach to pricing, customer engagement, risk management and claims handling by leveraging telematics data from any source – smartphone apps, aftermarket hardware and OEM embedded units. The company, with offices across the UK, Europe and North America, has analysed over 15 billion driving miles and its algorithms are fed by trillions of data points each day.
For more info visit ims.tech
About Quote Detective
Quote Detective is a motor insurance broker specialising in underserved areas of the market. In an industry dominated by automation, Quote Detective combines fintech with a human-centric call centre to cater for customers often overlooked by rigid online systems and generic question sets. This approach allows for a bespoke offline onboarding process tailored to specific insurers and customer’s needs, resulting in both a comprehensive understanding of customers requirements and an accurate risk assessment to protect the insurer. Quote Detective boasts a team of 100 dedicated staff that have proudly provided over 100,000 motor insurance policies.
To find out more about Quote Detective, please visit: https://quotedetective.com
