Cobra was the first UK telematics supplier to be involved in the
Usage Based Insurance (UBI) market, powering the Co-Operative Young
Driver insurance offering when it launched in 2011.
The UK continues to be a fast growing market for insurance based
telematics innovation with the most recent announcement coming from
Quindell on a major joint venture with the RAC.
Currently around 40 UBI programmes are in place in the UK
supporting around 500,000 live policies. However, the Italian
market has four times as many live policies from just 32
programmes, according to research released in April 2014 by
Ptolemus Consulting.
Cobra Italia is experiencing huge growth in the insurance
telematics arena through its partnership with Generali.
Cobra has worked with Generali since 2010, with its telematics
technology enabling the Italian insurer to offer a range of
innovative services and insurance premium reduction incentives to
drivers.
The Italian consumer has embraced UBI with Cobra now installing
800 black box units a day, a figure which has risen steadily since
2013. Fitting black boxes is proving a win-win for both insurers
and drivers according to recent Ptolemus research that says the
technology helps reduce average claims frequency after year one by
30%.
Cobra now has over 2,000 installers in Italy to cope with driver
demand and is managing all elements of the Generali UBI project,
from the moment the customer contract is signed up, through to the
installation and activation phase.
As a result the Cobra Italia UBI team has now grown to 50 people
actively managing the relationship with the 2,500 General Group
agencies, installer network and drivers.
With the Generali contract set for continued growth it may not
be long before Italy overtakes the USA (2.6m live policies) as the
largest UBI market in the world.