For Vodafone Automotive, the road to smarter insurance starts with location intelligence

Around the world every year, tens of millions of drivers are involved in traffic accidents and millions more vehicles are reported stolen. This is the driving force for automobile insurance – to help people recover financially from these unforeseen, but all-too-common, incidents.  

But instead of assisting after the fact, what if insurance companies could use modern technology to proactively address these occurrences by making roads safer, dispatching roadside assistance faster, or recovering stolen vehicles more efficiently? 

This goal to bring additional peace of mind to drivers is why Vodafone Automotive, a leading provider of vehicle safety and security solutions, teamed up with HERE Technologies. 

According to Benedetta Merigliano, Senior Global Product Manager for Vodafone Automotive, “Our collaboration with HERE was driven by our desire to use high-quality technology so that people are able to be proactive about their safety rather than reactive.” 

How technology is improving the automobile insurance experience 

By integrating HERE’s AI-powered digital mapping and location technology into its back-end platform, Vodafone Automotive can quickly determine the precise location of a vehicle and facilitate an appropriate response when an in-vehicle device detects a critical event such as a crash or theft. 

Merigliano explains, “HERE’s suite of Location Services is an integral part of Vodafone Automotive’s mission to make mobility safe, secure and accessible.” 

Some of the specific HERE Location Services being leveraged to increase safety and security on the road include HERE Map Data, which Vodafone Automotive relies on to power its stolen vehicle recovery service, HERE Route Matching, which allows Vodafone Automotive to support initiatives that advance safer driving behavior at scale, and HERE Reverse Geocoding, a product that translates GPS coordinates into precise, human readable addresses that enable faster and more accurate detection and recovery of stolen vehicles. 

Making the roads safer for everyone 

Along with enabling more efficient emergency response to critical events, the collaboration supports Vodafone Automotive’s work with auto insurers and promotes road safety for the public at large.  

Using HERE speed limit data and real-time traffic information allows Vodafone Automotive to empower insurers so they can better understand and more accurately assess safe driving behavior on the road. This benefits the customers who opt into select programs by promoting more nuanced, contextualized, and fairer policies offered by insurers that incentivize better driving behavior and advance road safety. 

The importance of the collaboration between Vodafone and HERE is summed up by Merigliano, who explains that “creating an ecosystem of players providing different features to build an overall solution is the game changer.”