AIS Insurance Service is collaborating with Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Group (MSIG) with the support of the Office of Insurance Commission (OIC) to launch Thailand’s first motor insurance plan, media reports said. Called Prakan Kubdee, it calculates premiums from real driving behaviour through the use of tech such as IoT.
Mr Rattapol Gitisakchaiyakul, chief executive officer of MSIG Thailand told the media, “Throughout 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic meant that insurance businesses had to seek solutions consistent with consumer behaviours in the New Normal. The idea for Prakan Kubdee arose during the lockdown, when the entire country had to transform its lifestyles and ways of working. Travel to the office became Work from Home and so car use decreased.
There was no long-distance provincial travel, and now there is the option of park-and-ride with mass transit railways. This gave us the idea to develop auto insurance plans with reasonable premiums, only paying when actually driving, with no need to pay when not driving, following real driving behaviours, under the concept, ‘People don’t drive the same, so why should they pay the same?’ It took us six months to develop Prakan Kubdee.”
The plan can help motorists save on insurance premiums by as much as 50 percent. The premiums are calculated by considering factors such as distance, speed, journey time, time of the day driven, and the area the driving takes place.
It was also reported that MSIG and automotive marketplace Carro are collaborating to launch Southeast Asia’s first-wide behaviour and usage-based car insurance programme. MSIG will first launch in Indonesia, followed by Thailand and Malaysia.