Användarbaserad försäkring i Sverige - En möjlighet att plocka russinen ur kakan (?)

Abstract

Inspired by growing technological advances, this study qualitatively examines the experienced consequences of usage-based insurance (UBI) on the Swedish market for car insurance. Past research has long criticized traditional premium-pricing for not rewarding safe driving, and the asymmetric information that characterizes the industry gives rise to a series of problems e.g. moral hazard and cross-subsidization, where the latter signifies a situation in which low-risk-individuals “pays” for high-risk-individuals since the insurance company cannot separate them from observable (traditional) data. Usage-based insurance applies a technology named telematics, where driving behavior is retrieved on the individual level and then digitally transmitted to the insurance company and acts a basis for the premium calculation. When low risk is given the opportunity to signal her risk to the insurance company, the insurance product should attract all low risk individuals and exhibit a “creamskimming” opportunity where the insurance company with the technology implemented attracts all low risk on the car insurance market. The purpose of this study is to reward the reader with new knowledge on the essential conditions, possibilities and obstacles that insurance companies identify with UBI on the Swedish car insurance market. The literature (i.e. past research) is compiled of an insurance overview with special attention to the Swedish situation, a short summary of asymmetric information and lastly, published research on UBI that maps its recorded and/or theoretical implications. By theoreticality exhibit the possibilities of UBI, we then challenge these prerequisites assumptions in the results and analysis (chapter 4). The primary results present that the respondents do not experience the underlying technology sufficiently sophisticated to be launched on the Swedish car insurance market. In reason of low demand, by contrast of other countries, which is primarily due to general low premium levels, the Swedish consumer’s economic incentives are reduced against the drawback of being monitored and/or changing insurance supplier. The interviewees express the insurance product to offer a “cream-skimming” opportunity, but partly with negative implications on the established insurance portfolio.