YouDrive, a spy that is good for your pocket. In any case, this is the promise of Direct Assurance with its connected box. The latter evaluates your driving, with the prospect of an insurance premium reduction of up to 50%.
Drive little… and “perfectly”
This product is not new: Direct Assurance launched YouDrive in 2015, but until now this offer was only reserved for young drivers. The economic outlook remains quite interesting: in 2022, the French paid an average of 736 euros for their car insurance.
In fact, it still seems quite difficult to achieve that 50% reduction, as shown by a recent survey by UFC-Que Choisir. You will have to be very light to achieve the best scores that allow you to obtain the maximum reduction of 50%, using the brake and accelerator to a minimum. A good exercise in anticipation and, therefore, in ecological driving, but not necessarily easy to apply on a daily basis.
With a score out of 100, the insured benefits from a 10% reduction from a score of 60 and a score between 90 and 100 is required to achieve a 40% reduction.
Finally, to get the 50% discount you must drive less than 500 kilometers per month, or 6,000 kilometers per year. This is very little if we compare it with the average annual mileage traveled by the French, almost 11,000 kilometers last year.
A student interviewed by UFC-Que Choisir, for his part, managed to reduce his insurance premium from 1,059 euros to 917 euros, that is, 142 euros saved. A 13.5% discount that seems more realistic than the 50% promise.
“While driving” services of still limited interest
As we can see with this example from YouDrive, but also more fundamentally with the so-called “when driving” or “per kilometer” insurance, only certain categories of the population may find it of interest.
These are mainly young and novice drivers, students or people living in urban areas, according to the online comparator Lesfurets, which notes a certain increase in demand, although it remains a niche product: in 2020, it represented 1.3%. of their connections. with its partners, compared to 4.4% since the beginning of 2023.
A possible consequence of the decrease in average mileage for several years and of the French seeking to limit their insurance budget in the current context of high inflation.
Breaking with the classic insurance model
These personalized insurances represent an important change compared to the usual way of calculating the premium:
“For a long time, the calculation of the price of car insurance was carried out based on essentially statistical elements such as the driver’s profile (age, driving experience, history and accidents), the type of car (make, model, power), as well as such as the place of residence. The way of driving or the places where the insured usually travels are only very partially taken into account, since insurers do not have this information,” explains Lesfurets in a statement.
While there is potential interest among small cyclists and young drivers, several reasons explain the still uneven success of these formulas:
“The French no longer like the idea of being tracked down by a whistleblower,” underlines Christophe Dandois, CEO of the online insurer Leocare.
The current insurance solidarity model in France would also be questioned: in short, good drivers pay a little more to offset the costs of bad drivers, but with a positive overall effect:
“We pay less for our insurance in France than, for example, our British neighbors. These new products per kilometer or according to behavior are therefore more successful across the English Channel, while here they could ultimately increase the average premium”, emphasizes Christophe Dandois.
Another criticism formulated by the director of Leocare: the fact of adding a box to plug into the OBD socket of the vehicle, while cars are increasingly connected or we can already measure numerous parameters from a simple smartphone.
Source: BFM TV
