Metromile also runs a Boston office. Are they a competitor or higher up on the stack?
Boston startups merge to create driver-tracking giant for insurance industry
11–20 of 32 posts
Re: Boston startups merge to create driver-tracking giant for insurance industry
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some level of car insurance is mandated by law in every state. Might as well make it as cheap as possible for yourself. Additionally, many people can barely afford their car. It's crazy how many people are driving around in a car worth more than their annual salary. $60,000 vehicles and such, especially trucks. It would take them a while to "self insure" against the risk of totalling that.
New Hampshire doesn’t require car insurance. https://www.thehartford.com/aarp/car-insurance/new-hampshire...
live free or die
Re: Boston startups merge to create driver-tracking giant for insurance industry
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some level of car insurance is mandated by law in every state. Might as well make it as cheap as possible for yourself. Additionally, many people can barely afford their car. It's crazy how many people are driving around in a car worth more than their annual salary. $60,000 vehicles and such, especially trucks. It would take them a while to "self insure" against the risk of totalling that.
I was thinking more about the people driving $2k-$5k cars. The last thing they need is their insurer jacking their rates because they're ending too many trips in bad zip codes. You can "incentivize them onto public transit" all you want but most of those people would already be on public transit if there was even a $40/mo difference.
> The last thing they need is their insurer jacking their rates because they're ending too many trips in bad zip codes.
Wait, the 'data' is based on ending a trip in a bad zip code!?
Man, and I'm over here thinking they map all the drivers over time and place to see who is normally on the road with each other, then basing those factors on courteousness and abilities with ambiguity.
Re: Boston startups merge to create driver-tracking giant for insurance industry
#14If the premiums approach being sufficiently fine grained as to account for individual risk then what's the purpose? Why not just squirrel the money away in some sort of HSA-esque fund and cut out the expensive middleman entity? If the state is gonna make me pay for mandatory coverage why not just do it with taxes and have one less set of predatory companies trying to screw me?
Even with perfect information about the past/present, there is still uncertainty which can be insured against. Current models are nowhere near precise enough, and probably will never get there (self-driving cars will replace the need for insurance at the individual driver level before we have perfect models of driving risk)
How could there be certainty? Even a good driver can skid on ice or get hit by an uninsured driver running a light.
Re: Boston startups merge to create driver-tracking giant for insurance industry
#15If the premiums approach being sufficiently fine grained as to account for individual risk then what's the purpose? Why not just squirrel the money away in some sort of HSA-esque fund and cut out the expensive middleman entity? If the state is gonna make me pay for mandatory coverage why not just do it with taxes and have one less set of predatory companies trying to screw me?
>If the premiums approach being sufficiently fine grained as to account for individual risk then what's the purpose?
It doesn't matter if there is a purpose when so many states mandate that you buy the product anyway.
Re: Boston startups merge to create driver-tracking giant for insurance industry
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even with perfect information about the past/present, there is still uncertainty which can be insured against. Current models are nowhere near precise enough, and probably will never get there (self-driving cars will replace the need for insurance at the individual driver level before we have perfect models of driving risk)
How could there be certainty? Even a good driver can skid on ice or get hit by an uninsured driver running a light.
Indeed, how could there? There is inherent uncertainty to the future which cannot be known, and thus there is risk which can be insured against
Re: Boston startups merge to create driver-tracking giant for insurance industry
#17Metromile also runs a Boston office. Are they a competitor or higher up on the stack?
There are a few differences: Metromile is an insurance company that uses devices which plug into cars to track mileage and charges by the mile. CMT/TrueMotion aren't insurers, they provide apps/SDKs to insurance companies which track driving behavior. This tracking is used to decide on how much to charge for insurance, but this is just a factor applied on top of someone's traditional premium, that is, CMT/TM can't really support pay-per-mile insurance
Re: Boston startups merge to create driver-tracking giant for insurance industry
#18If the premiums approach being sufficiently fine grained as to account for individual risk then what's the purpose? Why not just squirrel the money away in some sort of HSA-esque fund and cut out the expensive middleman entity? If the state is gonna make me pay for mandatory coverage why not just do it with taxes and have one less set of predatory companies trying to screw me?
There would be some good reasons, for example regulations could mandate that only factors that one can change and are most directly related to driving are valid for the rate setting. i.e. field of employment or income cannot be used but speeding, hard breaking, cell phone use while driving, and other unsafe behaviors would be.
Re: Boston startups merge to create driver-tracking giant for insurance industry
#19Weird, how did I miss that apps like this even exist? Seems a little creepy to me, though maybe it cuts premiums for some people? "Both companies’ core products are apps on smartphones that use the sensors in the phones to collect data about how people are driving, such as whether they are speeding, frequently braking hard, or picking up their phones to text when they should be paying attention to the road." https://…
If you're in california, it's because california regulation is very specific in what can be used for car insurance rating and those apps are not one of them.
Re: Boston startups merge to create driver-tracking giant for insurance industry
#20speaking as someone with a working knowledge of the technology used to track drivers for insurance purposes (OBD2 and CANbus) Ive always been remarkably suspicious of this sort of black-box "we will save you money" proposition.
tapping into the CAN (car area network) system on a vehicle lets you see things like timing retardation and advancement, barometric pressure, o2 levels, and throttle body positions. it tells you what these systems are doing in realtime but it fails to tell you why these systems did these things. at best youll have to make a guess, and insurance companies seem to have an incentive to lean into the "because you drive poorly" excuse in order to minimize risk to investors.
theres no target and no set of parameters that define what an altruistically good driver is in the eyes of these companies, only the companies insistence it can "save you money" without explaining what you must do other than "be a good driver" and install their widget, which runs mystery code that interacts with one of the most critical parts of your vehicle that may itself not even be DOT approved..