Mobile Usage-Based-Insurance (UBI) grew 160% globally in 2018

The global usage-based insurance (UBI) market saw rapid growth in 2018, reaching almost 25 million active UBI policies, according to the latest research from PTOLEMUS Consulting Group. Mobile-based UBI remains the main driver of this growth, increasing by 160% in 2018.

The main telematics insurers globally in terms of number of policies remain Italy’s UnipolSai and the USA’s Progressive and State Farm.

On the supply side, Octo Telematics, Cambridge Mobile Telematics (CMT), and IMS were the major telematics service providers (TSPs). Octo Telematics remained the top global supplier but CMT’s mobile-centric approach to the UBI market paid off with huge success, seeing over 50% growth in policies during the period.

Meanwhile, MetaSystem, Xirgo, and Danlaw hold a firm grip on the device supply market.

PTOLEMUS also found that the key insurance telematics market trends from 2018 were:

• North America and Europe still accounted for the majority of the UBI market.
• In the USA, mobile UBI added significant volume to the total number of UBI policies.
• The UK players continued to demonstrate innovation through exploring dash camera-based solutions.
• Some of the nascent markets began to take off slowly:
  • The Nordic market finally began to gain traction.
  • Two OEM programmes were launched in Latin America.
  • The markets in the West Indies, Cyprus, and Uruguay also opened up to UBI.

PTOLEMUS expects the expansion of the UBI geographical footprint to continue in 2019.

The research forms part of PTOLEMUS’ UBI Dashboard, a 100-page quarterly quantitative and business intelligence report surveying the global UBI and insurance telematics market since 2009. More information can be found here. 

To obtain more details about the evolution of the UBI global market with breakdown by country, insurance line, device used, target market and more, please contact [email protected].

About PTOLEMUS

PTOLEMUS is the first strategy consulting firm entirely focused on connected vehicle services and the Internet of Things. It assists connected insurance stakeholders in defining and executing their strategies. It has completed nearly 100 assignments related to telematics, 50 in the domain of UBI and insurance analytics.

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