SiriusPoint signs strategic partnership with hi-tech vehicle insurer

Specialty re/insurer SiriusPoint has formed a strategic partnership with an insurance provider which uses real-time monitoring of vehicles’ safety performance to deliver more affordable insurance. 

Bermuda-based SiriusPoint has signed the partnership with Nirvana Insurance which uses telematics to monitor the performance of vehicle fleets. 

Vehicle telematics combines GPS systems, onboard vehicle diagnostics, wireless telematics devices, and black box technologies to record and transmit vehicle data, such as speed, location, maintenance requirements and servicing, and cross-reference this data with the vehicle's internal behaviour, according to website Heavy.ai.

San Francisco-based Nirvana launched in 2022 and enables fleets with 10 or more power units to buy insurance by leveraging telematics data to pass savings of up to 20% to fleets based on safety. 

With the support of SiriusPoint, Nirvana is expanding its offering with a new non-fleet programme, designed for fleets with fewer than 10 power units.

Patrick Charles, Head of North America Insurance at SiriusPoint, said: “We have been providing capacity to Nirvana since January 2022, so we were already familiar with its capabilities.

“During our working relationship, Nirvana has proven to be a high-quality underwriter of risk and demonstrated how the thoughtful use of telematics can better align driver behaviour with underwriting risk. We believe Nirvana’s business model is promising and its offering ties into our purpose of providing security and resilience to those we work with.”

By collecting billions of data points from sensors and internet-of-things (IoT) devices within trucks, Nirvana tailors its rates to individual fleets, the company said.  Fleets also have access to Nirvana’s Safety Platform which aggregates safety data, along with artificial intelligence-powered safety insights to help them improve safety year-round.

“Our fleet programme launched in January 2022 and has unbelievable traction,” said Rushil Goel, co-founder and chief executive officer of Nirvana. “Nirvana is changing the paradigm by proving how a better customer experience - lower rates, faster turnarounds for quotes, and access to a full safety platform - all of this results in a fundamentally stronger business, reflected in our market-leading loss ratio.

“The launch of our new non-fleet programme is the next step in our evolution. We have a shared vision with SiriusPoint to be ‘best-in-class’ underwriters, and this partnership will enable us to lead the way in utilising telematics to underwrite customers’ risk more accurately. The increased use of data and telematics are critical to the risk management of the auto sector and the evolution of its insurance coverage.”