European automobile insurance companies may begin using black boxes to establish rates

Car insurance companies in Europe that are looking for a way to work around the ban in Europe on charging different rates to male and female drivers are considering innovative new technology using black boxes that may completely change the way that auto insurance premiums are calculated. The largest automobile insurer in the United Kingdom, the Royal Bank of Scotland, is one of the companies currently investigating and testing the use of this technology, which uses a small device to monitor the way that customers use their vehicles so that…

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Hartford to test a new form of car policy in 2012

Hartford Financial Services Group has announced its intentions to begin a pilot program in 2012 for an auto insurance policy based on telematics. Hartford’s president of consumer markets, Andy Napoli made the announcement during the company’s investors meeting. The new policy will be using telematics. According to Napoli, using the “devices in insured vehicles to transmit information about driving behavior, such as miles driven, speed, acceleration, deceleration, and using that information to price the risk.” This pilot program will be known as TrueLane and will begin in the first half…

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State Farm uses telematics to help drivers obtain better car insurance rates

State Farm has announced that it has partnered with Hughes Telematics Inc. in order to give its car insurance customers the opportunity to use an in-vehicle device so that they may lower their auto insurance rates. State Farm is calling the program In-Drive, and uses technology developed by the Atlanta-based telematics company to give its Illinois policy holders a chance to take part in the program starting in September. Other states may also be offered this program in 2012. The features of the technology are comparable to some of those…

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Gartner names SAS as the leader in software market size

Gartner Inc has released a report entitled “Market Trends: No Escaping BI and Analytics in Insurance in 2011”, which gave SAS the top rank in software market size. In the report, the business analytics software and services leader was shown to have a quarter of the 2010 market share, with a $138.7 million revenue. The Gartner report said that insurance companies are focused on risk management, compliance with regulations, acquisition and retention of customers, and the achievement of excellence within their operation. These goals, according to Gartner, are pushing technology…

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