Active safety features such as collision alerts and auto-braking are reducing the number of auto insurance claims, according to a rather unsurprising study released this week by the Highway Loss Data Institute.

The HLDI is an affiliate of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a crash-test and automotive safety-research organization funded by insurance companies. The group looked at 623,000 collision claims and 252,800 property damage claims from 2000-2011 model-year Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Acura, Buick and Mazda vehicles fitted with certain optional safety features. The group compared the claims against the same cars that didn't have the features.

The results? Property damage claims for Acura and Mercedes vehicles fitted with collision alerts and auto-braking were 14 percent less frequent than for cars without the systems. Volvo models with auto-braking (standard on four models) recorded about 20 percent fewer claims for bodily injury than those models without it. For cars with adaptive headlamps -- which swivel to the curves of the road based on steering inputs and typically use brighter xenon or LED lamps -- there were 10 percent fewer claims for property damage (these pay for damages to another car or object, as opposed to collision, which does only the owner's car). On Mazdas, adaptive headlamps reduced medical payment claims by more than 20 percent.

In comparisons of lane-departure warning systems on Buick and Mercedes models, the trends, oddly enough, reversed. Property damage claims rose as high as 10 percent on Mercedes models with lane-departure warning than on those cars without it. The organization suggested that such systems may not read road markings correctly, or that drivers might be switching them off.

Overall, the IIHS says the study's data are still too new and too limited for the effects of these safety systems to be fully understood -- or to even know why certain features on certain cars came out with higher or lower claim rates. Last year, the group did a separate study for the Volvo XC60, the first such Volvo with the City Safety auto-braking feature, and compared damage claims against other midsize luxury SUVs. The study concluded that not only were property damage claims filed 27 percent less often with the XC60, but that insurance payouts to cover the damages were 20 percent lower than with other SUVs.

However, don't expect any safety discounts soon.

While radar, cameras and other computer sensors are dropping in cost, they're still quite pricey to replace, especially when hidden behind grilles, bumpers and other exterior parts of the car that are likely to get hit in an accident. Active safety features typically add several hundred to several thousand dollars to the price of a new car, and they're not any cheaper to replace.

"Even though the number of claims may decrease, the cost of the insurance claims goes up," said Russ Rader, IIHS spokesman. "From this initial study, it's clear that some crash-avoidance systems will be effective safety features, but they're unlikely to reduce insurance costs."

[Source: IIHS.]