| Putting PAYD to freedom |
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Insurance companies have on the whole kept quiet about the phased introduction of Pay-As-You-Drive (PAYD) policies enabled by the proliferation of satellite navigation. Indeed, the European market for telematics-based car insurance systems is expected to grow from the present €2.5 million to €477.8 million by 2015. According to a recent report published by the Royal Institute of Navigation, growth will come mainly through Europe’s pending eCall legislation and growth in GPS technology and applications. Norwich Union’s pay-as-you-drive (PAYD) insurance model is the first such product commercially available. eCall is designed to automatically alert local emergency services with the vehicle’s location in the event of a crash. According the the insurance industry, PAYD offers a good opportunity to save on annual premiums for certain classes of drivers - particularly low-mileage and young drivers. It is reported by Norwich Union that around a quarter of drivers in these two categories alone achieved savings of up to 30 per cent by switching to PAYD. Another advantage claimed for PAYD, telematics-based insurance systems working on GPS technology is that the vehicle’s route and speed can easily and fully be traced, making insurance fraud, say the experts, ‘virtually impossible to commit’. It is this very function that introduces civil-liberty implications, which are likely to delay the widespread adoption of PAYD for years to come. Would you consent to be spied on if you thought it would save you money?
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This really scares me, we as a nation have more cctv cameras watching our every move, in addition to the, seemingly, ever growing presence of speed cameras. The big brother nation is already here. What happens when we have these tracking systems in all our cars, will we automatically also have parking and speeding tickets issued automatically?
George Putman | 22 Sep 07 - 12:24