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Co-op updates young driver insurance to accelerate safer driving skills

6th January 2015 Print

In a first for the Insurance industry, The Co-operative Insurance has partnered with e-merge safer drivers to pilot a series of educational modules for customers holding a Young Driver Insurance policy.

Customers with a Co-operative Insurance Young Driver policy will shortly have access to a range of safety modules via their online dashboard.

The announcement comes as research from The Co-operative Insurance found that a fifth of young drivers (aged 18-24) believe they would be a safer driver if they were to benefit from continued education and lessons to improve their driving skills.

Focusing initially on the four core skills of speed, cornering, braking and acceleration, the modules have been designed to work with and complement Young Driver Insurance. Customers logging into their Young Driver dashboard will now be targeted with a series of driver training modules that are directly linked to telematics feedback data which provides a measurement of the way they drive.

Young Driver has also been selected as a key project for The Co-operative Young Members Board throughout 2015. The Board of 15 young people (aged 16-25) have already begun to closely work with our insurance business during the pilot phase for the safety modules. They will also continue to provide feedback and support for The Co-operative’s insurance offering for younger drivers throughout the course of 2015.

The Co-operative Insurance was the first major insurer to launch a “pay as you drive” insurance product for Young Drivers in 2011, providing potential access to more affordable premiums by rewarding safe driving through the use of smart box technology. Since then the product has given almost 60,000 young drivers the opportunity to continuously improve their driving skills and reduce their insurance premium by monitoring the way they drive.

Commenting on the launch, Steve Kerrigan, Head of Telematics at The Co-operative Insurance said, “As a business that strives to deliver a better way of doing business for our customers and their communities, we’re committed to playing our part to increase the safety of young drivers.”

“With thousands of drivers already improving their driving and reducing their premiums by using our telematics technology. We believe that the modules will accelerate these benefits by providing additional tools to help our customers continuously improve their driving skills.”

Jeremy Williamson, CEO and Partner at e-merge safer drivers also commented: “As a business that is focused on doing the right thing to improve young driver safety The Co-operative Insurance was a natural choice for us when looking for a partner to deliver these modules. This is just the first stage and we’re looking forward to developing the technology further based on customer feedback, telematics data and in conjunction with The Co-operative Young Member’s Board.”

Richard Coteau, Executive at Brake, (the National Road Safety Charity), said: “Brake fully supports the use of telematics as an incredibly useful tool for measuring performance and helping to create safer drivers. The next step for telematics is training which creates behavioural change, and we are delighted to support the innovative system developed by The Co-operative and e-merge safer drivers.”