Geolocation of vehicle fleets: soon to be
a mandatory requirement for insurers?




More than half of all stolen vehicles equipped with geolocation systems are recovered, making it the most effective theft protection system.

As a result, insurers are already demanding that vehicles with a new value of more than €70,000 be fitted with GPS tracker, otherwise they will not insure them.

But the trend suggests that in the coming years, insurers may well extend this requirement to all vehicles and machinery, not just the most expensive.

To ensure that you have the best chance of recovering your property in the event of theft, the technology in your system needs to be good enough.

There are several technologies to geolocate a machine, and two types of networks remain the major players in the field:


Low speed networks (LPWAN): LoRaWAN & SigFox

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LPWAN networks have many advantages and are widely used for geolocation, but in our opinion they are not the most optimal.

For example, there are still areas in France that are not covered by these networks at all, so if your vehicle is driving in a so-called "white zone", there is no way to switch to another network than this one, and you can therefore momentarily lose geolocation.
Furthermore, as GPS hyper-precision is not the primary goal of these networks, it is possible that the position displayed varies from several hundred metres to several kilometres.

Finally, LoRaWAN and Sigfox technologies may have difficulties in tracking a vehicle moving at more than 120 km/h (70 mph).

For this reason, the technological choice for MotorsFit fleet tracking systems is cellular networks, particularly 4G LTE-M technology.


The main advantage of this network is its ability to carry a large volume of information: position updates every 60 seconds, or even less, as opposed to every 10 minutes for low-speed networks.
Secondly, it is sufficient for the geolocation device to be equipped with a multi-operator SIM card to deal with white zones.
Example: the vehicle is in a white zone with Orange? Bouygues takes over. Bouygues doesn't get through either? SFR takes over...
There is always an alternative so that you never lose sight of your vehicle.

Finally, 4G LTE-M technology provides underground coverage. This method of communication is used to call for help from a lift in the event of a breakdown.
It is therefore possible to continue to follow the asset, even several dozen metres underground, in France and abroad.