Octo Telematics named ‘strong market leader’ of usage-based insurance

Industry analysts Ovum has judged Octo Telematics to be a 'strong market leader' in terms of the competitiveness of its usage-based insurance (UBI) offering and ability to support insurers in launching a UBI product.

The Ovum report ‘Ovum Decision Matrix: Selecting a Telematics Service Provider, 2014–15’, assessed the positioning and capabilities of eight telematics service providers.

Although still an emerging market and accounting for less than 5% of all auto insurance policies sold, the UBI market is growing rapidly in a number of countries – particularly the US, UK, Italy, Canada, Brazil, and China.

Ovum selected Octo Telematics as a 'strong market leader’ based on weightings that are used in the report’s analysis to calculate scores for both sub-criteria and primary criteria.

The relative importance of the weightings is informed by Ovum’s interactions and discussions with insurers on the topic of UBI.

Developments in technology, regulatory change, and the need for differentiation in an increasingly commoditised market have led many auto insurers to assess the opportunity presented by UBI.

Recently, Octo Telematics broke its connected vehicles record by announcing its three-millionth customer.

While Italy still provides most of the company’s customers, the UK is experiencing some of the fastest growth in policy numbers, as recently highlighted by the extended partnership with ‘Insure The Box’ in the UK.

Commenting on the Ovum report, Jonathan Hewett, CMO, Octo Telematics, said: “It’s a great accolade for Octo Telematics to be recognised by Ovum as a market-leading provider of UBI solutions.

“As a result of our scale and market experience, Octo continues to lead the market by developing technologies that support both smartphone and mobile apps and online customer presentation via insurer and policyholder portals. We want to continue to deliver the best content and savings for the insurer and the policyholder respectively.”