The Insurers' Little Black Boxes

“Telematics and event data recorders (EDR) should be on every insurer’s radar,” said research and consulting firm Celent in its 30-page report titled “Vehicle Data and Telematics: What Does the Future Hold for the Insurer.” Coauthored by Catherine Stagg-Macey and Ashley Evans, senior analyst and analyst at Celent (respectively), the report explores the various ways in which primary benefactors — commercial fleet insurers and personal motor insurance limited to niche products — can avail themselves of the benefits the technology affords.

Within the context of the motor industry sector, EDRs are the most heavily adopted of available data recording devices — composed of trip-logging, GPS and telematics — largely because of the prevalence of airbags designed to record pre-crash data. In fact, Stagg-Macey and Evans said that, in the U.S. alone, more than 65 percent of post-2004 vehicles are equipped with an airbag control module with EDR capability.