WTW is to team up with Thatcham Research to work on how new vehicle technology will impact on claims risk.
The partnership between will include the latter’s Variant Code dataset that reportedly provides granularity on the growing variety of standard and optional features in UK vehicles. It will also involve WTW’s Claim Metrics program, which looks at claims activity in the personal lines insurance market. That program benchmarks over £17bn of motor claims spend and more than 40% of the UK motor market.
Tom Helm, head of claims consulting at WTW, said that the two firms were excited to announce the new partnership that would offer insurers ‘exceptional levels of insight into emerging claims trends’.
Meanwhile, Daniel Payne, chief digital officer at Thatcham Research, said: “Vehicles are set to change more in the next five years than they have in the last 50. Combining the uniquely granular data and sophisticated analytics capabilities of Variant Code and Claim Metrics is a win-win for insurers.”
Thatcham Research was established in 1969 with the specific aim of containing or reducing the cost of motor insurance claims while maintaining safety standards. It has been delivering vehicle risk data on behalf of its members and the Association of British Insurers for two decades.
According to the Thatcham Research website, its Variant Code dataset, which covers both cars and LCV vehicles, was launched in 2015. Since then, it has collated information look at more than fifty key risk-affecting features for each vehicle. The dataset contains more than 65,000 individual records.
The link-up between Thatcham Research and WTW follows statistics last month from the latter that said claims inflation increased 6.1% for UK motor insurers in H1 2021. This was despite a fall in motor claim volumes due to lockdowns during the pandemic. However, WTW found that the cost of settling claims still went up during the pandemic.
As Reinsurance News reported, that H1 2021 figure compares to an inflation rise of 10.8% during 2020.
