“Crash course” for Insurance

When insurance holders are involved in a collision, they generally need to find initial assistance themselves, such as calling a towing service, finding a workshop, renting a replacement vehicle, and reporting all the details to their insurance representatives. Then a complex administrative and assessment process goes into action. Zurich Group Deutschland wants to speed up and simplify that process. Not least of all, it expects to make the process more economical, thanks to automatic data transfer from the vehicle and targeted use of artificial intelligence to draw the right conclusions.

The average new car these days is equipped with the requisite sensor systems to provide data for well-founded insurance claims. However, the intersection of data analytics and connected cars is not necessarily part of an insurance company’s core expertise. In order to hasten the day when the vision of automatic damage management will become reality, Zurich Deutschland COO Horst Nussbaumer invited experts from Porsche Consulting to serve as mentors in building the basis with his own project team. Developing and implementing this innovative business idea is a matter not only of technical expertise, but also of collaborating with the right partners.

A pilot crash test yielded important insights, after which a small test fleet was sent out into everyday traffic on the roads. The insurance company now receives data directly and automatically about the type and extent of collision damage much earlier than before. Speed often saves money, which benefits not only the insurer but also partners such as workshops and rental car companies. The task now is to scale up the solution, preferably with larger customers such as leasing fleets. But as Nussbaumer emphasizes, “The insurance business is built on trust. That’s why we will never let machines work alone when it comes to dialogue with our customers in the event of a claim.”