Australian motor insurers have spent years pricing on the assumption that advanced driver assistance systems make vehicles safer to insure. A landmark study released today suggests that assumption deserves a harder look.
The IAG Driving Safer Outcomes Report was produced with Queensland University of Technology and the iMOVE Co-operative Research Centre. It is the most comprehensive Australian study of ADAS behaviour to date, drawing on three evidence streams: analysis of 100,000 vehicle collisions using police-reported crash data from Queensland and Victoria over 11 years, an on-road driving study with 50 participants across three vehicles, and a national survey of 2,024 drivers of ADAS-enabled vehicles.
Its central finding is striking: the technology works, but 60% of Australian drivers are actively turning it off.
For brokers and underwriters, that figure matters. Motor insurance premiums rose 8% in the 12 months to July 2025, according to ASIC, following growth of more than 42% between 2019 and 2024. Repair costs have climbed in parallel, rising 26% since 2022 and now accounting for around 60% of total motor claim costs, based on the Insurance Council of Australia's March 2025 Motor Insurance Policy Paper. The safety dividend from ADAS is only being captured by the 57% of drivers who use the systems regularly.
Every ADAS system studied reduced the likelihood of the crash type it was designed to prevent, without exception. The largest reductions recorded were sideswipe collisions down by up to 40% through lane keeping assist, head-on crashes down by up to 21% through autonomous emergency braking, and lane-change accidents down by up to 15% through blind spot monitoring.
Fifth Quadrant analysis commissioned by IAG estimates that full ADAS coverage - with systems consistently engaged - could prevent around 7,850 of Australia's roughly 40,000 annual serious road casualties. That is IAG-commissioned analysis from an independent research firm, not a government or independent academic finding, and should be read in that context.
Shawn Ticehurst, head of the IAG Research Centre, named the disconnect as the core problem. "In a modernising vehicle fleet with driver-assist safety features as standard, we would expect to see a positive correlation in reduced accident and casualty rates," Ticehurst said. "But that's not happening and it needs to change if we want to see fewer accidents."
The study raises a question the industry has not yet fully resolved. If ADAS features are regularly disabled, is the risk profile of that vehicle meaningfully different from a non-ADAS equivalent? The assumption embedded in premium pricing - that ADAS-equipped vehicles are lower risk - holds only for the 57% of drivers using the systems consistently.
The repair side is already reshaping motor economics regardless of whether drivers use the technology. In the United States, ADAS calibrations appeared on 34.7% of repair estimates in 2025, up from 12.1% in 2022, according to Enlyte's collision claims database - a US figure used here as directional context, given the ICA has confirmed the same cost trend is present in Australia without publishing an equivalent domestic percentage. Even a minor bumper impact on a sensor-fitted vehicle can require expensive recalibration. The ICA has called for greater investment in ADAS repair training as a direct claims cost strategy.
For brokers with fleet clients, the picture that emerges from the IAG study is a market where premiums are rising, repair complexity is increasing, and the safety benefit meant to offset both is not being fully realised - because most Australian drivers have not developed the trust in the systems required to use them consistently.
The ADAS penetration of the Australian fleet will continue growing as mandates take effect.
In March 2025, car-to-car autonomous emergency braking was mandated on all new passenger vehicles. In August 2026, car-to-pedestrian AEB came into effect on all new vehicles. Lane keeping assist mandates come into full effect from March 2029. By 2031, Austroads projects approximately 40% of Australian vehicles will be ADAS-enabled. Around 6% of the national fleet is replaced each year, meaning ADAS penetration - and the repair complexity that accompanies it - will grow steadily through the decade. For brokers advising fleet clients, loss ratios on fleet policies have been tracking upward as advanced technology drives costlier claims and more total losses, and that trend has further to run.
The IAG study identifies driver trust, not information, as the key variable determining whether ADAS gets used. High-trust drivers were twice as likely to use the systems regularly. But trust is built through experience, not instruction.
In the on-road field study, a single supervised test drive across six ADAS systems more than doubled the share of participants reporting zero barriers to use - from 8% before the drive to 18% after. Yet only 19% of drivers who recently completed a driving lesson said ADAS was covered in any meaningful way.
Professor Sebastien Glaser of QUT said hands-on exposure is the lever that shifts behaviour. "The effectiveness of ADAS in delivering real-world safety benefits depends on strong driver engagement," Glaser said. "It starts with overcoming existing negative attitudes and behaviours through targeted information and education."
IAG is calling for coordinated action across vehicle manufacturers, governments, driver educators and the insurance sector, with recommendations including ADAS training at the point of sale, integration into licensing curricula, and design changes to reduce intrusive alerts that prompt drivers to disable the systems.
