AN ENTREPRENEUR has accused the insurance giant Aviva of copying an app that his team pitched to the company almost three years ago.

Mark Robinson says he was watching an England World Cup match in the summer when he was astonished to see an advert for the Aviva Drive dashcam app, which he says closely resembles his invention Jolt.

He has filed a legal claim alleging the company stole his intellectual property and breached copyright in its marketing materials.

Aviva says Jolt “played no part” in the development of its own app and that it did not have access to designs or code.

Jolt – first featured in the Daily Echo in 2016 – turns a phone into a dashboard camera that can record accidents and instantly send details to an insurer.

Mr Robinson, of Jolt My Car, claims Aviva’s app is “identical” to Jolt and was “developed by the very team we share our knowhow with”.

In a series of posts on social media, he accused Aviva of copying his idea.

Mr Robinson said: “In 2015, the founders of Jolt used their savings and sold property to raise circa £1million in cash to develop Jolt. We invested two years of our lives, our money and created our own intellectual property in Jolt for motor insurers.

“Our business model is to licence insurance companies so that they could distribute it free to customers, and thereby reduce insurance fraud, provide instant FNOL (first notice of loss) and speed up claims.”

He pitched the idea to Aviva at a meeting in November 2015, attended by members of the insurer’s “digital garage”.

Mr Robinson said the app unveiled recently was an “identical copy of Jolt, free to everybody”.

Dorset-based Mr Robinson is chief executive of Imperious Technologies and has set up a series of successful tech businesses.

An Aviva spokesman said: “Aviva has developed our own dash cam technology to meet our customers’ needs most effectively. The use of smartphones for crash detection and dashcams is not unique to Jolt My Car or something they own, so we categorically reject their allegation.

“The introductory meeting with Jolt was more than two years ago and played no part in the development of our dashcam. No assets, including designs or code, were passed to Aviva.

“We have a strong track record in working with the start-up tech community, including investing in them and partnering to launch new propositions.”