Volvo is launching Safety Coach, an optional app that scores braking, acceleration and cornering, with high scorers offered cheaper usage-based insurance through Volvia. It starts in Sweden and Norway this month, with the United States and other European markets to follow.
Volvo is launching an app that scores how you drive and hands the result to an insurer. Safety Coach monitors braking, acceleration and cornering, and produces a safety score covering the previous two weeks. Drivers who share it can be offered usage-based insurance rates.
It arrives this month in Sweden and Norway, on most Volvos from model year 2020 with the Google-based infotainment system. That covers the electric EX40, EC40, EX60 and EX90 alongside combustion models including the XC40, S60, XC60 and XC90. The United States and other European markets follow later.
The scoring algorithm comes from Cambridge Mobile Telematics, which bills itself as the largest telematics and AI company working on road safety. The insurance offer in the Nordics comes from Volvia, a Volvo and If P&C partnership that has been running since 1959.
Volvo’s argument is about predictability rather than caution. “Our research shows that many accidents involve some form of surprise,” said Mikael Ljung Aust, a driver behaviour expert at the company. Staying in expected speed ranges and avoiding abrupt manoeuvres, he said, makes a driver easier for others to anticipate.
