What is Thatcham?

Thatcham Research has been at the forefront of vehicle security since the 1990s. Since then, they have been working with law enforcement agencies, the automotive industry, and insurers to assess potential physical and electronic vulnerabilities, and identify the technology and ways to mitigate theft.

Thatcham operates on behalf of the Association of British Insurers (ABI) to certify products as ‘Insurance Approved’ so that insurers can be confident in the products being fitted genuinely reduce their risk.

What is ‘Thatcham Approved’?

If a product is ‘Thatcham Approved’ then it has been independently tested by Thatcham. The certification provides reassurance around the functionality, design, performance, and compliance (legislative and automotive quality standards)

Thatcham has created the compliance criteria for two Categories of Stolen Vehicle Tracking, Category S7, and Category S5. Click here to find more about the categories.

Thatcham Security Certification

Each product is rigorously tested to predefined criteria established by Thatcham Research and, where appropriate, its partnering organisations. This testing is intended to provide confidence in the product’s functionality, performance, and an objective evaluation of its capabilities.

All of this is monitored and periodically reviewed throughout the duration of the product certification to ensure that the levels of functionality and performance are retained.

You can find out more about Thatcham by clicking here

What is insurance approved?

Have you have been asked by your insurance provider to get an insurance approved tracking device installed to your vehicle?

As mentioned above Thatcham works with insurance providers to assess a products quality and functionality to ensure when that product is fitted to a vehicle that it genuinely reduces the insurers risk (reduces the risk of the insurer paying out in full for a stolen vehicle replacement if in fact your vehicle is stolen.).

It works simply like this; if your vehicle is stolen and never recovered your insurer will need to pay out for a replacement vehicle, and that’s a massive loss and its becoming more frequent with keyless theft. However if you have a tracking system installed such as a Thatcham category S5 system fitted to your vehicle your far more likely to get that vehicle recovered and your insurer not need to pay out for a replacement vehicle.

Its not just the insurer that’s going to be happy, you should be too. If you’ve ever had a vehicle stolen and been through the process of getting a replacement you’ll know the pain, particularly in this climate when new vehicle lead times are in excess of 18months.

Due to the potential exploitation of keyless entry technology of nearly every vehicle that leaves the factory now, more and more insurers are making mandatory that these types of systems are fitted to high value, theft prone vehicles.

There are two main factors when insurers look to make mandatory the fitment of a system to a vehicle, Its value, and its attractiveness to theft. Generally anything over 45k will require a category S5 system be fitted and under that a category S7 although there’s no fixed parameters for either category. The likelihood of a particular vehicle being stolen or its attractiveness to theft is down to the insurers own data, as you can imagine is quite extensive as vehicle theft can hit there profits in a big way. Although as mentioned, pretty much any vehicle now fitted with keyless entry technology is prone to keyless theft, so the risk now to insurers is at an all time high with no real end in sight as vehicle manufactures collectively dont look to be moving very fast on the issue.

so..

An insurance approved tracking device is a tracking device that has been independently approved and certified by Thatcham. It’s mandatory asked to be fitted to reduce the insurers risk of high value, theft prone vehicles being stolen and never recovered, therefore for the most part preventing massive financial losses being inflicted on the insurer.