<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/01/car_insurace_payd/print.html> The Register Biting the hand that feeds IT The Register ; Personal ; Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/01/car_insurace_payd/ Cost and privacy concerns stall PAYD car insurance By Lucy Sherriff (lucy.sherriff at theregister.co.uk) Published Tuesday 1st February 2005 11:53 GMT Pay-as-you-drive car insurance will not be commercially viable anytime in the next three years, according to Strategy Analytics. It cites privacy concerns, launch costs and patent fees, along with back-end data integration, as significant short-term obstacles to the technology's mass-scale deployment. Under pay-as-you-drive insurance, a black box records data about the driver's journeys. Charges vary, according to the risk of each journey. Last August, Norwich Union started testing the technology in the UK, with a pilot scheme for younger drivers (http://www.aviva.com/index.asp?PageID=55&year=&newsid=1971&filter=corporate,csr,uklife,intlife,ukgeneral,intgeneral,morleyfm,intfm) launched this year. Clare Hughes, a Strategy Analytics analyst, said: "While PAYD protects drivers from generalized assumptions, there are still major hurdles to overcome before PAYD insurance schemes are commercially viable; and these are not going to be successfully addressed for a number of years." But in due course, PAYD will become widespread, she said. Its introduction will be driven by an increased government focus on road safety, the availability of tamper-proof vehicle data to verify insurance claims, and the potential cost savings to the companies and the consumer. "The days of the once a year insurance premium will eventually disappear for the majority of consumers, with the rollout of risk-based variable monthly billing." . -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'