AUTODATA Jamaica, an online provider of vehicular valuation and history information has signed a deal with general insurance giant Insurance Company of the West Indies (ICWI) to provide its underwriting and claims staff with access to Autodata services, namely E-Value and E-History.

E-Value provides estimates of the current market values of vehicles, while E-History provides the known history of a motor vehicle since its registration in Jamaica.

E-Value can be used for new comprehensive and third party fire and theft business to determine accurate and standardised market value. As far as ICWI staff are concerned, E-Value will not be used to replace the requirement of obtaining a valuation, but rather as a proxy, prior to the valuation being submitted. It will also be useful as a check against incorrect and inconsistent valuations. This service can be useful to determine the preaccident market value of a vehicle, especially in cases of theft and where the value is questionable.

E-History will be used on new business to check the background of vehicles prior to accepting the risk. It can be helpful with claims to ascertain the vehicle’s background as prior damage may be relevant to the question of causation and betterment. This is especially useful in cases of total loses, single vehicle accidents and where there are suspicious circumstances. Autodata is working with Total Jamaica, a leading gas station retailer in the country to develop a plan for the distribution of Autodata’s services to the general public via their service stations. Initially Autodata will be piloting the distribution from a few key strategic Total locations.

Speaking with Sunday Finance from ICWI’s headquarters on St Lucia Avenue in New Kingston, Autodata Jamaica’s Managing Director, Randolph Cheeks Jnr said: “The CEO of ICWI, Paul Lalor was very supportive of the project having realised the value that a data sharing initiative brings to the table as far as reducing risk and costs are concerned. He was most helpful in plugging us into the industry initially and he continues to remain supportive.

“Last week we rolled out across the ICWI network and branches. As you know ICWI is one of the leading players in the industry and so this is a very important relationship for us.”

Paul Lalor has been able to marry modern technology to the insurance industry to create enhanced services and greater efficiencies. His insurance App on BlackBerry handsets signifies a quantum leap in the Jamaican insurance industry. “The concept of Autodata for Jamaica is very new but on a worldwide scale it is a widely used medium for not only the insurance industry to have some access to information on vehicles they are going to underwrite, but it also helps with consumer welfare. There are people out there buying cars of which they have absolutely no clue about. They buy a car and drive it for 400 miles and then the axle falls off or the AC unit breaks down. “From that perspective I think it is important that a buyer of a vehicle, purchases a sound vehicle and that the insurer must see to it that a sound, roadworthy vehicle is insured.

This new service allows us to not only maintain but certainly contain our pricing levels. It will be of invaluable assistance to our underwriting, which is the core of our risk analysis and the taking of that risk,” said ICWI’s CEO, Paul Lalor.

Total Jamaica also sees value in the Autodata service and is finalising initiatives before fully signing on.

Total Jamaica’s Managing Director, Gordon Craig explained: “We are a gas station but our strategy is to offer value-added services. We see Autodata as another service of good value and credibility which the public will want to use. It fits in well with our business model of continuously innovating services that will be attractive to all our customers.

“How Autodata works in our stations is as follows all our stations are hooked up to the Internet therefore we can offer this service. Initially it will be an individual coming in and requesting the service from our staff, such as here are the details on a car, can I get an Autodata report? We will have a back-office system that will run the details through before handing over a report to the customer for a fee.

” Randolph Cheeks Jnr added: “The cost of the E-History service should be somewhere in the region of J$1,500. On the E-Value side the cost should come in between J$500 to J$600. Now when you consider that an insurer is paying a valuator around J$1,500 per valuation to get the same information, then you can see it is great value for money.”