Jason Verlen is the senior vice president at CCC Information Services. The company has been tracking the use of telematics in the automotive industry, particularly how future connected vehicle use cases will impact the repair and insurance segments. The company recently announced that Volvo had adopted its Accident Advisor technology, a telematics-based, connected service that helps guide drivers through the first steps in reporting and handling accident claims. He spoke to Aftermarket Business World about the current state of telematics adoption.
Another phase that is coming is the use of telematics for safety. The data from the telematics system can determine if there has been an accident, reach out to the customer to see if they are okay and give them the tools to proceed in the first few moments after that accident. That ties right into our Volvo announcement – adding both OEMs and insurers into the process so that use case can be enabled.
Do you foresee any challenges related to ownership or management of the telematics data among customers, OEMs, and other entities?
If you look at the laws that are emerging around data, it enables you to use the data for the express purpose that the consumer thinks you are going to use it for. If it is being used for other purposes, the consumer has a right to stop that. Consumers have certain rights that are beginning to emerge.
The primary way of approaching the problem is looking at it as the consumer’s data. If you do things with that data, he’ll allow it if he has an interest. That’s one of the reasons we like the safety use case, because consumers would be quite delighted to have their driving data be used for safety purposes.
Where are some other emerging opportunities for the use of telematics?
I think we are still in the early stages, and that’s the fun part. There’s a lot of data there, and you’ve got a more advanced networking infrastructure in its infancy that is still coming to fruition.
What if the OEM or the repair shop had all of that data as soon as the car was in an accident? That would potentially speed things up.
As far as our relationship with Volvo, they were the first to sign on to this ecosystem, and they are as a brand very fanatically interested in safety. They have said publicly that there will be a point where no one will ever die in a Volvo again, and they are quite serious about it.
We are talking to more OEMs and insurance companies, and the more both sides are filled out, the more benefit this type of safety innovation will be able to realize in the marketplace.
