A qualitative study about the effects of Transport Information Systems on the insurance premiums for haulage companies

Abstract

The last decades the information technology has invaded our society and affected the way we live our lives. In recent years it has also reached the vehicle industry. A tougher competition in the automotive business is driving on the development of IT. The Automotive companies are looking for new ways of differentiate against their customers. IT is a powerful tool to improve the car. The haulage companies have generally low margins, and the need of a more effective transport is getting more obvious. The need of lower fuel consumption, lower communication costs and a more effective rout planning is needed. Transport Information System has been more common in the commercial traffic. The system is used for dynamic navigation – to find the fastest way, to get continuous serviced, to control security systems like brakes, to get detailed information about fuel consumptions and optimize driving behaviour, all of this gives more effective transports. New technology such as GPS and telematics allows for new value propositions in the insurance industry context. In particular the new way of information gathering on risk relevant parameters, through the use of active and passive tags, GPS and telematic leads to these changes, with more accurate information available to insurance companies. They can use this additional information for risk evaluation, dynamic pricing and insurance product customization. This study focus on haulage companies and Transport Information Systems, we will investigate if haulage companies that have a TIS system can get a lower insurance premium. The purpose is to investigate how both insurance companies and haulage companies can benefit from this technique. Such work has not yet been thoroughly examined; therefore we saw a good opportunity to investigate it.