Thaivivat Unveils AI Crash-Detection System as Profits Surge 102%

 

Thaivivat Insurance marks 75 years with an AI crash-detection launch, as parent Thaivivat Holdings posts 102% profit growth and eyes double-digit growth.

 

Thaivivat Insurance Public Company Limited marked its 75th anniversary on Tuesday with the launch of an artificial intelligence-powered crash-detection system, unveiling the technology as its holding company reported a 102% jump in net profit for the first half of the year, comfortably outpacing the broader Thai insurance market.

 

Speaking at the "Thaivivat Next Move — Driving the Future of Motor Insurance" event in Bangkok, Thepphan Asvatanakul, senior executive vice president and director of Thaivivat Insurance, said the company was repositioning insurance from a product bought for reassurance into one woven into everyday life.

 

"When people think of insurance, what usually comes to mind is peace of mind — the reassurance of having cover when the unexpected happens. That remains fundamental to our business," he told reporters. "At the same time, we believe insurance can go further than simply responding after an incident."
 

 

That philosophy, branded "Beyond Peace of Mind to Quality of Life", underpins a raft of new non-motor products the insurer has rolled out this year, including an "Active Health" policy offering premium discounts of up to 40% for policyholders who exercise regularly, developed with partners such as Garmin and Decathlon; a home policy, "TVI Homie Care", that extends cover to pets and electric-vehicle chargers; and "TVI Smart Delay", which grants travellers automatic access to airport lounges once a flight is delayed beyond 90 minutes.
 

 

 

Crash Detection: turning panic into "zero panic"

The centrepiece of the anniversary event was the launch of Crash Detection, a smartphone-based system designed to identify road accidents automatically and connect drivers to real-time assistance without requiring any additional hardware.

 

Dr Chalermpol Saiprasert, executive vice president of Thaivivat Insurance, who led the development of the technology, said the system was built to work with a policyholder's own device.

 

"Crash Detection is designed to be simple to use, with no extra equipment needed. It runs through the Thaivivat app, using a smartphone's built-in sensors along with an algorithm to detect the impact and movement patterns typical of a road accident," he explained. "Once the system identifies an event that meets the threshold, it alerts the user to confirm what has happened and request help immediately."

 

The tool operates through five steps — detecting unusual motion via onboard sensors, alerting the user, offering one-click confirmation, pinpointing the vehicle's location by GPS, and dispatching real-time assistance from Thaivivat's operations centre.

 

"Once a customer requests help, the system sends GPS coordinates and the necessary details to our operations centre, which coordinates a response team to the scene, while the customer can track the status of that assistance in real time," Dr Chalermpol added.

 

said the aim was to compress the most stressful moments after a crash — when a driver may be too shaken, injured or disoriented to call for help — into what the company calls a "zero panic" experience.

 

 

 

The launch builds on a decade of motor-insurance innovation at Thaivivat, most notably its usage-based "on-off" car insurance, introduced ten years ago and now covering more than 400,000 policies across all 77 Thai provinces, with premiums calculated on actual driving time and savings of up to 80%.

 

A related feature, "Rot Tid Mai Kid Bia" (no charge in traffic), has returned policyholders more than 30 million minutes of premium-free time.

 

Motor cover is also being extended into a broader ecosystem, including AI-based damage assessment through subsidiary MARS, a repair-quality control centre, guaranteed workshop standards and replacement vehicles available on the spot at partner garages.

 

 

Profit growth outpaces the industry

This technology push comes alongside strong financial results. Thaivivat Holdings, the group's parent company, reported a 102% year-on-year jump in first-half net profit.

 

Insurance service revenue also rose over 34%, driven primarily by non-motor lines like health, cancer, accident, and travel cover. Additionally, the company shifted away from traditional agents toward new partnerships across retail, finance, media, and online platforms.

 

In a media interview following the event, Jiraphant Asvatanakul, chief executive officer and president of Thaivivat Insurance, set out the growth trajectory behind those numbers.

 

He said motor insurance, which still accounts for roughly 70–80% of the group's premium base, grew 7% in the first half, while non-motor lines expanded 15%, helped by low average premiums that make policies accessible to a wider customer base.

 

The company is targeting double-digit overall growth this year, with the fourth quarter — traditionally its strongest, thanks to tax-related demand — expected to provide a further boost.

 

 

Jiraphant attributed part of the group's flexibility to its holding-company structure, which he said made it easier to allocate capital and establish specialised subsidiaries, such as its damage-assessment unit, without being constrained by existing insurance regulations.

 

He also pointed to the group's app, which is nearing 100,000 downloads, as the main channel for cross-selling between motor and non-motor products, alongside a self-service claims feature that lets customers submit photos and video directly rather than waiting for an assessor.

 

He placed the company's performance against a broader industry backdrop in which Thailand's economy grew roughly 1–2% in the first half while non-life premiums across the market expanded 3–4% — around twice the pace of GDP — suggesting, he said, that insurance penetration in Thailand still has considerable room to grow.

 

 

Industry-wide expansion and a hospital donation

The company's results reflect broader market trends. Thailand's insurance regulator, the Office of Insurance Commission (OIC), reported industry-wide gross written premiums of approximately 969 billion baht (USD 28.5 billion) for the period.

 

Growth was largely driven by rising healthcare costs boosting health and critical-illness cover, life insurance profits climbing on unit-linked products, and non-life insurance led by motor and travel policies.

 

The regulator's Secretary-General, Chuchat Pramoolpol, said supervisory priorities going forward include strengthening financial stability, improving transparency, ensuring fair use of AI and technology, and updating the sector's development plan to address economic risk and volatility.

 

 

Alongside the product launches, Thaivivat used the anniversary to highlight its "Thaivivat Caring Forward" social-responsibility programme, under which safe drivers who make no at-fault claims can direct a share of their premium to a chosen charity and claim a tax deduction.

 

To mark 75 years, the company donated 10 million baht (roughly USD 294,000) to the Ramathibodi Foundation, part of a wider campaign donating 75 baht for every policy sold towards a new hospital building.

 

Professor Dr Artit Ungkanont, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Ramathibodi Hospital, noted that the planned 25-storey, 278,000-square-metre building will become Thailand's largest hospital facility.

 

However, the project still needs at least 5 billion baht (USD 147 million) in public and private funding. Once completed, it will serve as a training and innovation hub to help reduce the country's reliance on imported medical technology.

"Our next step is to keep bringing technology and innovation into insurance so that more Thais can access cover more easily and receive support that fits their daily lives — both on the day something goes wrong and every other day," Jiraphant said.