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iTech Dunya is a technology blog that specializes in tech-related topics.Our GOAL is to produce high-quality content for our millions of readers.
CAR INSURANCE - Tips & Myths
As an insurance broker, it’s interesting to hear from consumers what they think are facts about car insurance; often times some things considered factual are actually myths and sometimes half-truths. Here are a few that I hope will increase your car insurance knowledge.
Tip #1: When you rent a vehicle and choose to use your own insurance policy for the collision damage waiver, note that only the drivers listed on your policy are covered. So if you are renting a vehicle and adding a second driver, who is not on your policy, you should purchase the insurance from the rental company.
Tip #2 – An accident you have with a rental vehicle will show up on your auto insurance history (autoplus) report. While your current insurance may not be aware of the accident or even be involved in the claims process at all, it will be reported as “Other claim(s) involving individual” and may show up when you show for new insurance. How? It follows your driver’s license number.
Tip #3 – Tickets received outside of the province will show up on your motor vehicle record (MVR). Ontario has a reciprocating agreement with many US states to report infractions. Also tickets stay on your record for 3 years from the date of conviction. So if you got a speeding ticket in June 2012, and you went to court in May of 2013 and charges were reduced, rather than thrown out, then it will be May of 2016 before it comes off your record.
Tip #4 – When you purchase Third Party liability and mandatory accident benefits coverage only, if you car is hit while parked and the responsible party is not identified (hit and run) your insurance company will not cover the cost of repairs, as this would be considered a collision claim.
Tip #5 – Accidents must be report to the nearest Collision Reporting Centre – Report accidents as soon as possible to police local to the area of the accident. For example, if you live in Toronto but get into an accident in Hamilton, you must report the incident to the police in Hamilton and not Toronto. If you don’t know where the closest reporting centre is located, ask the police during your initial call to them.
DISPELLING SOME MYTHS
Myth#1 - Red cars do not cost more to insure: Colour does not matter, but size does! It also holds true that 2 door cars tend to cost more than sedans, and SUVs more than mini-vans.
Myth#2 - Leased or financed vehicles cost more to insure: Not true. The cost you pay for insurance includes but is not limited to these factors: where you live, what you use the vehicle for, your license history, insurance history, coverage purchased, number of drivers etc., but never the financing details.
Myth #3 – No demerit points means a ticket should not be considered for insurance purposes. The truth is that while most demerit points stay on your record for two years, the ticket itself stays on for three (3) years from date of conviction.  All traffic related tickets count for insurance regardless of whether you lost points or not.
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iTech Dunya is a technology blog that specializes in tech-related topics.Our GOAL is to produce high-quality content for our millions of readers.
Car Insurance Limiting Your Right to Sue check it with itech dunya..
Purchasing car insurance can be overwhelming if you do not know all the questions to ask. Some insurance policies could leave you without the grounds to sue if you have been injured in an automobile accident.

There are many types of coverage for different scenarios:
  • Personal Injury Protection (PIP) deals with coverage of medical expenses if you are to be in an accident. 
  • Bodily Injury deals with the monetary amount an individual could recover if you find yourself on the defense side of a lawsuit. 
  • There’s also coverage which deals with Limitations on Lawsuits, more commonly known as the Verbal Threshold. This is the type of coverage that severely limits your ability to enter into a lawsuit for damages caused by an automobile accident. (It is important to note that no threshold allows you to sue for any type of injury.)
If you happen to have Verbal Threshold coverage and find yourself in an automobile accident, in order to sue for damages, your injuries must fall under one of the following six categories:
  1. Death, your estate can sue on your behalf
  2. Dismemberment, loss of a body part
  3. Loss of a pregnancy 
  4. Significant scarring or disfigurement 
  5. Displaced fracture, which means the bone has broken completely in half
  6. Permanent injury within a reasonable degree of medical probability
The best case scenario, in order to keep your right to sue, is to not choose this type of coverage. However, if you do have this type of coverage many lawyers, including the ones here at the Levine Law Firm, can help you determine if you have grounds to sue. 
Permanent injuries can come in many shapes and sizes and you may not even realize you have grounds to sue if you have been injured in an automobile accident. We can help you no matter what type of insurance coverage you have.
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iTech Dunya is a technology blog that specializes in tech-related topics.Our GOAL is to produce high-quality content for our millions of readers.
Why Am I Paying So Much for Car Insurance?
Why am I paying so much for car insurance? Well, it could be for a whole bunch of reasons. Car insurance in Pennsylvania can range from very low premiums to some of the highest in the country and car insurance companies have not made it easy to determine how they come up with these premiums.  There are some pretty basic factors that I’ve outlined below that will definitely affect your car insurance in a negative way.  Some of them are fixable, others may be out of your control.
  1. Proximity to the Philadelphia – Car insurance in Philadelphia is the highest in the state. In surrounding counties such as Montgomery County, Bucks County, and Delaware County car insurance premiums can end up being higher. As you get further from Philadelphia into Chester County and Berks County, car insurance premiums will start to really decrease.
  2. Low Credit/Insurance Score – clients don’t like to hear that their credit score is affecting their insurance premiums, but it’s a fact, and every company uses it in determining premiums. Insurance companies have found that credit score has a direct correlation to the profitability of the business they write. Some companies have more favorable rates for those with poor credit scores while others will essentially deny coverage. 
  3. Claims – Whether it’s a small claim or a big one, all claims can affect your ability to get lower rates when shopping. Even if the insurance company cannot “surcharge” your policy for a claim, PA car insurance companies can move you to a less favorable rating tier or remove loss-free discounts. 
  4. Young Driver – Will my insurance get cheaper when I turn 25? Short answer… No. This is a major misconception in the car insurance industry. There is no specific discount when you turn 25. In reality, your rates will get progressively better as you age. In many cases, you may need to shop your insurance to see any significant change in premium. Some car insurance companies are more favorable to drivers in their 20s. No companies are favorable for drivers in their teens.
  5. Older Driver – The reverse is also true… somewhere around age 60, you can expect to see your insurance premiums start to creep up. Around age 70 or 75, companies may even require that an extra medical form be filled out.
  6. Home and auto policies are separate – If you have your home and auto insurance with different companies, you may be missing out on significant discounts. It’s very rare that I find a situation where splitting the policies makes sense.
  7. Prior low limits of insurance – I’ve mentioned this in other articles, but low limits of insurance don’t always mean the lowest prices. Rather than carry the state minimum coverage, get quotes for higher limits. You might find that it’s not as expensive as you thought. It might also open up new, more competitive markets that aren’t looking to write low limits. This will also help you secure better quotes in the future.
  8. Been with the same company for years – This is my favorite… When someone tells me they’ve been with the same company for 20 years.  As an agent, I can appreciate this kind of customer loyalty. However, these are the clients for whom I end up saving the most money… sometimes thousands of dollars a year. This is where the value of an independent agent comes in. An independent agent has the ability to shop your insurance with numerous companies to make sure you are still getting the best premium.  Agents for companies like State Farm and Allstate are locked in to one specific company, which isn’t doing you any favors. Most customers are looking to be loyal to their agent, not their insurance company (there’s a difference).  Why not have one that gives you more options? 
Call Risk Averse Insurance in Media, PA for a quote on your PA homeowners insurance and PA car insurance.  We can also provide insurance for motorcycles, RVs, classic cars and any other “toys” you own.
Risk Averse Insurance is an insurance agency in Delaware County that specializes in providing high-quality insurance products at an affordable price.


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iTech Dunya is a technology blog that specializes in tech-related topics.Our GOAL is to produce high-quality content for our millions of readers.
Is Health Insurance the New Car Insurance?
We’ve all watched our health insurance premiums and deductibles grow over the years. What's next? It seems to me that one day health insurance will be just like car insurance in terms of the “cause and effect” within our policies. If my theory is correct, we’ll be responsible for our health records in the same way that we’re responsible for our driving records. Tickets and accidents earn us points on our records, causing our premiums to rise. If companies aren’t happy with our performance, we could eventually even be dropped.
You Reap What You Sow
I first made this connection a couple of weeks ago when – after 13 years of being with Progressive insurance – I was dropped. To be quite honest, my driving record was pretty awful in my younger years. But the last decade or so, I've hardly had any infractions. However, my 22-year-old daughter seems to have inherited her mother's heavy foot and a love for feeling the wind on her face (which unfortunately requires higher speeds).
In the past few years, she’s been in about four car accidents and has collected quite a few tickets for speeding, parking, and not renewing her tags. Yep… it really wasn't a big surprise when I received the letter stating that after all we’d been through, Progressive Insurance was breaking up with our family.
21st Century Healthcare
I got to thinking: is this what's next for health insurance? With the Affordable Care Act, we’re seeing a big push for consumers to take more ownership and responsibility in managing their own healthcare. There is more interest than ever before in wellness and prevention programs. By being proactive about building and maintaining our health, we can actively prevent so many of the health issues that are plaguing our hospitals and medical offices. Who can be held accountable for our health if not us?
The Cost of Our Behavior
This begs the question: will this emphasis on personal health accountability translate into consumers being graded or measured for their healthcare behaviors? When we utilize the healthcare system through our insurance, will we accrue “points” that will work against us over time? Will these points result in larger premiums, or the possibility of being dropped if we collect too many of them?
When it all boils down, a large portion of healthcare costs are linked directly to patient lifestyle choices. Similarly, my daughter's driving costs are linked directly to her driving behavior. What do you think?
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iTech Dunya is a technology blog that specializes in tech-related topics.Our GOAL is to produce high-quality content for our millions of readers.
Insurance & the Connected Car
In this series of posts, Influencers and members predict the ideas and trends that will shape 2015. Read all the stories here and write your own (please include the hashtag #BigIdeas2015 in the body of your post).
Growing up watching Knight Rider and seeing K.I.T.T. where Michael would continuously talk into his watch, and K.I.T.T. would drive to his rescue (through a garage door or two), or safely transport him through the night while Michael had a catch up on his sleep - only to be woken up by the local police freaked out at the thought of him asleep at the wheel, only to be foiled by his pretending to have a 'crook neck'!.
Move forward 15+ years, we now talk to our watches and cars ARE driving themselves. This futuristic TV show is today's reality and only becoming more and more real. We will be allowed driverless cars from January 2015.
The connected car is a super exciting area that many folks already talk about in great detail. In fact, in Capgemini's Car's Online study - presents a compelling case of how:
'generation connected' are confident about what they want and how they want it, secure in using technology to increase their power as car shoppers and owners, and comfortable driving innovation in the industry.
It's too easy to jump to telematics when you talk about connected cars, so a quick summary from me would include the following:
  • Safety - by default, car capability increases beyond recognition. Humans no longer in control of the car (especially as the car will react quicker than we ever would). By 2015, all cars in Europe must be equipped with eCall, a system that automatically contacts emergency services and directs them to the vehicle location in the event of a serious crash
  • Fleet knowledge and efficiency - knowing when to roll vans/cars/trucks across what roads
  • Intelligent GPS - bye bye theft, traffic jams and other inconveniences
  • Location based services - working out the best things for you along the way including charging points for you and your car!
  • Infotainment & more - never be out of touch, it's all connected to your bio metric enabled smart phone. Your finger print not only unlocks the phone, but tells the car who is driving and sets your profile, routes and other preferences
Of course there is far more to it than this, the key here for me - it's an unprecedented volume of data for us to derive insights from. There is a good summary from Direct Line in the UK here. A 12 month pilot for example gathered over 11m miles of data.
It's nothing new!
One of my frustrations is that everyone talks about Telematics as a new shiny thing. Like GPS, Telematics has been around for more years than I care to recall - however it has only just found its feet in the mainstream marketing and minds of the consumer, primarily due to plummeting technology costs of the 'black box', smart phones that can do the same (or similar) and most importantly - a problem to solve - the increasingly high cost of insurance. I also use the word mainstream carefully, it's talked about a lot - with adoption in some key demographics (young drivers). Whilst it has applicability across a great many other demographics - the number of actual policies is still relatively low compared to the total number of policies in force for any one insurer. I do however believe this will change! - not because of the desire to reduce the cost, more about the way in which we move to buy everything as a true utility or service.
This was debated at a recent roundtable discussion by Post Magazine which I participated in. However to drive significant adoption, it may need a more fundamental change. Perhaps a change in law from opt-in to opt-out? - it would certainly give governments the opportunity to truly consider road charging properly!
Let's be Blunt!
The Connected Car brings so much more and is yet another blunt instrument providing oodles of data back to organisations that allow you to use it. As in most of these cases, there is always a pioneer and in the world of motoring, it's usually Formula 1, followed quickly by Mercedes in the consumer markets before it then filters down to other manufacturers. As an aside, there are some great videos here on data in F1 here and here - the difference being, soon this will be available to all of us, on our phones. F1 is a world where hundreds or thousands of changes are made to the car during a race to increase performance and the team's chances of winning. It's all data driven. Imagine now if that same logic could apply to your everyday commute. Extend the life of your car, specific parts, avoid accidents and congested roads, get cheaper petrol. the list goes on - these in fairness are all here today and almost all through your smartphone. It's simply quicker and easier to update than the cars in built systems. Just look at the long list of features on theFord Fiesta driving experience page.
Today's reasonably priced car is a hive of sensors, features and functions. Advertising of them has moved from mpg, performance and power steering, to how it connects to the rest of your digital life, from Foursquare checkins with Mini, to connecting to your phone in every car. (A change in Law helped that specifically here in the UK to ban the use of Phones while driving) In fact, Infotainment is now seen as more important in most cases than the actual driving experience itself.
From an Insurance perspective, today this offers a great insight into not just where and when you drive, but how you drive too - therefore what risk you present to insure. We already have the ability to do some great things way beyond UBI (Usage Based Insurance) to organisations like MyDrive who compare your driving style to that of Advanced motorists. The key here being you can drive fast (amongst others) safely. In fact, go a step further - if you are a meat eater - Allianzhave found in the Australian market that you are better driver than your vegetarian counterpart. Data is starting to tell us much more than ever before.

What does the future hold?

Jump forward 5, 10, 15 years - we will live in world of autonomous vehicles, car safety will have excelled beyond recognition click to tweet and ultimately motor accidents will be a thing of the past - it is a familiar story now. What or who do we insure then? The personal market with have dissolved, the fleet and commercial market will have evolved.
From a personal car perspective, I still question even the basics of car ownership. Going back to where I started this post, I remember growing up as a kid and my first ambition at 17 was to get driving lessons, pass my test and buy a car. Ask a 17 year old today in the UK where car ownership is on their list of priorities and I would be surprised to see it in the Top 10. This in itself brings a new challenge, we will no longer insure the driver and vehicle - you will simply rent your journey with a Zip Car or similar which will include a near new car, sat nav, insurance, petrol and much more. Cost of ownership or importantly running is a key barrier to entry - these new schemes, or fractional ownership could completely destroy the need (in urban areas at least) the desire to own a car and its associated financial burden.
For insurance companies, we need to decide on what or where the market will be - who we establish new partnerships with outside the vehicles - to drive new revenue streams and make the most of the vast volumes of data available about each and every journey. Of course, with this brings more questions - the most important being - if all this data is so valuable, who owns it?
Home James!
Personally, whilst I love driving, 99 times out of 100, we could probably being doing something else far more valuable when the one thing we haven't solved yet is creating more time. I wait for my autonomous car to chauffeur me around in the future!
From the movie, Minority Report, is this what the self driving car of the future looks like?
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iTech Dunya is a technology blog that specializes in tech-related topics.Our GOAL is to produce high-quality content for our millions of readers.
Future of IT in the Automotive Industry
When we talk about IT in the automotive industry, we fall into the trap (much like the confusion with how Asian OEMs define vehicle IT) of talking about the connected car alone. The bigger trend here that we are trying to uncover through our newly launched research program titled “Automotive IT” is how this concept of digitization (connected, multi-device, data-generating and thus ripe for big data programs) is impacting many functions across the automotive space ranging from the vehicle retail and ownership experience to launching new shared mobility programs. My colleague Niranjan based with me in our Detroit office is heading this new program and we are currently working on a number of interesting topics in this space.
There are a few important trends to begin with here but key is that IT investments in the automotive industry are not just about day to day operational efficiencies anymore, they are increasingly being tied to business objectives
  • Bringing the retail experience into the 21st century. This largely defined as moving from Brick to bricks and clicks and is not just about opening lifestyle stores in cities like the Audi City showroom in London.
    • It also involves digitizing the customer engagement process and where augmented reality apps, digital screens and the newest Volvo Microsoft HoloLens immersive project all comes in. It is also about digitizing the long and boring pages of owner manuals (a market where vendors like Tweedle Automotive are supporting OEMs such as FCA on digital owner manuals).
    • Bringing in new car configurator portals that can be tailored to mobile and web. This is where Audi, BMW and Mercedes Benz are trying to bring a new wave. Augmented reality apps (limited experience) to immersive options like Volvo (full scale) are emerging here. But most of these are limited to luxury OEMs and newer brands like Hyundai who are keen to capture market share.
    • Taking a leaf out of Apple and introducing the concept of hiring “product geniuses”. BMW has already started this in full scale and has an ambitious plan of hiring 1000 such individuals (young tech savvy folks) who are merely trained to explain features and the vehicle to probable customers and not push sales. All the other luxury brands have similar ambitions and even GM tried this for Cadillac and now for other brands after the introduction of LTE (20 somethings product geniuses). This is again a new investment area and a highly relevant one given the increasing tech content in cars and an area where OEMs will atleast be able to convince big franchisee dealers in the US.
    • Web equivalent of lifestyle stores like the “Mercedes Me” concept. This platform that is offered by Mercedes came as a result of their “best customer experience” 2020 team that is a cross functional team including telematics engineers, sales and marketing folks, finance folks and so on. One look at this and we can understand that the concept here is to engage potential customers and existing customers with a slew of offers clubbed into connect, assist, finance, inspire and move me that offers everything from leasing to finance to Car2Go car sharing service to connected services like diagnostics health check and maintenance alerts. The concept that came into the web in the same shape as the lifestyle store in Hamburg hopes to connect with the new gen customers.
    • So very clearly just between these few trends there is massive dollars going into investment on wearables, new mobile and web platforms, new car configurator ideas, etc. Apart from this expect a good amount of investment moving away from the traditional dealer management systems into more dynamic CRM systems that can offer much more potential to engage with the customer over the vehicle lifecycle using the connected car as a central platform (Nissan Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Azure partnership for DMS systems is a good example)
  • Building new services for the vehicle and user with a focus on harnessing big data platforms. This is where OnStar prognostics to pushing contextual offers/coupons to building app stores and payment platforms/wallets (for example in the SAP vehicle network users can pay for parking through Samsung Pay) in the vehicle. This is the use case for pushing internet and cloud to the vehicle and this is where use cases around connected living (nest Mercedes example), connected health and safety come in. All of these will come at a certain investment but our belief is that they will be solid revenue streams in the medium term.
  • Another major area where most German OEMs are pumping billions and others on the average 3-5% of their turnover is digitizing the manufacturing space or Industrie 4.0. OEMs like BMW have a six pillar definition of this and players like Siemens are highly active here. This is not just process improvement but given the migration of most OEMs to unified global vehicle platforms, it is also about meeting business goals. Again this is where CIO’s and COO’s are equal stakeholders with the quality departments as well.
  • Launching new mobility initiatives is not just about business models or a use case for alternative fuel vehicles but more about comprehensive models that push driving or mobility as a service. This is where Faraday Future, the next disruptor after Tesla is looking to innovate in the market. This is also closely linked to use cases on building new services for the vehicle/user and pumping investment dollars into new payment platforms and big data SaaS models.
  • A big area where 3-5% costs will increase for OEMs depending on the approach is Cybersecurity. While the focus currently is just on intrusion prevention systems or hack mitigation systems, there is a wider approach required to enable an integrated model that ensures hardware, software, network and cloud security (What giants like McAfee are preaching). There also needs to be an approach for data privacy, security and retention policies and all of these in conjunction will define OEM cybersecurity investments. And despite more than 10 qualified startup or specialist Cybersecurity vendors, for most OEMs this is still a learning game.
As you can see, IT in this industry is not about the next design tool, prototyping tool or pushing more dollars into bringing high speed connectivity in the vehicle. It is about realizing business objectives ranging from improving market share to generating more revenue per user and improving the overall security architecture (security ranks number 1 to 2 in terms of concerns of most CIO’s).
Again, me and my team would love to speak to you if you want to know more about this research program. You can reach me at cpraveen@frost.com
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