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To save money on insurance, drivers agree to intrusive monitoring technology

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Re: To save money on insurance, drivers agree to intrusive monitoring technology

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still think this is BS, considering trucks are causing 2500 times [0] more damage than gas cars and are certainly not bringing tax income proportionally to this. Why should EV then? [0] https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-...

This seems like a weird argument to make. We either pay collectively more for taxes for the roads we use, or collectively we pay WAY more for food, materials, and basically everything else if we tax trucks proportionally. Large trucks are carrying stuff, and the cost of that stuff is going to be directly associated with the cost of logistics. Yes, some states haven't figured out what that looks like, but I really don…

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Re: To save money on insurance, drivers agree to intrusive monitoring technology

#272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my country you pay an anual fee for having a vehicle, like property tax but for vehicles. The larger the vehicle, more you pay, discount if you have an EV (no emissions). It's not that difficult.

Which is crazy. Use a car for 500 miles a year you pay the same as someone using it for 50,000 miles a year Just charge on the odometer reading each year. 3p a mile or whatever. Maybe charge more based on weight.

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Re: To save money on insurance, drivers agree to intrusive monitoring technology

#273

> Insurance companies may think you’re a higher-risk driver if you’re accelerating fast, braking aggressively, making sharp turns, using your phone while you drive, coming home at 3 a.m., taking dangerous roads or simply driving a lot. Is there any proof that any of these behaviors actually correlate with tangible risk? (I mean, I can understand that "simply driving a lot" increases risk.) Personally, I'd be more int…

Anecdotally, when Tesla implemented safety score as a voluntary activity to unlock FSD, my gamer brain kicked in and couldn't not pursue a high score. The result is that I went from an extremely anxious and aggressive driver (which is 90% of american drivers) to completely ambivalent to my arrival time and obsessively approaching intersections cautiously and giving time for drivers that cut me off.

I do think that a key component for success is near real-time feedback so it feels like a game and not a speeding ticket in the mail.

Re: To save money on insurance, drivers agree to intrusive monitoring technology

#274

> Insurance companies may think you’re a higher-risk driver if you’re accelerating fast, braking aggressively, making sharp turns, using your phone while you drive, coming home at 3 a.m., taking dangerous roads or simply driving a lot. Is there any proof that any of these behaviors actually correlate with tangible risk? (I mean, I can understand that "simply driving a lot" increases risk.) Personally, I'd be more int…

I have no idea whether the current telematics algorithms are any good at assessing risk.

However, with a large enough corpus of training data including years of telematics on drivers with and without insurance claims it certainly seems like it should be possible to build models that can make much more accurate risk assessments than they can with the data they currently collect such as age, zipcode, and past accidents.

Put another way, I would be surprised if there was zero correlation between driving behavior and insurance claims.

Re: To save money on insurance, drivers agree to intrusive monitoring technology

#275
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's kind of funny, because from my perspective I'm an old man who learned himself a trade decades ago and worked things right to the point that I don't have to drive around a shit-box anymore, but to you I'm a privileged asshole. Which one is the truth?

One thing to look into. If you're married, give the vehicle to your spouse, and note the amount of the gift in a notarized letter. That then becomes the value of the vehicle for tax purposes. We live in a state that essentially has an import tax on vehicles. It's unconstitutional, but you'd have to take that to court and that would take years. We did this with our vehicles when we moved to the state. The person at th…

I need a source to believe gifting something something allows you to use a false appraisal.

Re: To save money on insurance, drivers agree to intrusive monitoring technology

#276

> Insurance companies may think you’re a higher-risk driver if you’re accelerating fast, braking aggressively, making sharp turns, using your phone while you drive, coming home at 3 a.m., taking dangerous roads or simply driving a lot. Is there any proof that any of these behaviors actually correlate with tangible risk? (I mean, I can understand that "simply driving a lot" increases risk.) Personally, I'd be more int…

Casualty insurance companies just want the numbers, then to set the markup, then profit. They've filled out that elusive intermediate step. If it means finding a way to get a customer a discount then that's ok, as long as they have the customer.

The biggest factor they can monitor is verifying miles driven. Miles driven, unsurprisingly, has a bigger impact than virtually anything else someone signing up to be monitored would be guilty of.

Re: To save money on insurance, drivers agree to intrusive monitoring technology

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's what they insinuated might be possible. You COULD save $X with this shiny new surveillance device! Im sure the executive who proposed this scheme didn't pitch it to the rest of the staff as "Ive found a way we can cut our revenues by 30%".

"I've found a way to reduce payouts with data collected by this device that our payers don't get to directly see except through our filtered interface"

"that if it ever got out we were doing that would turn out to be majorly illegal and also would probably cause us to bleed customers fairly quick!"

Re: To save money on insurance, drivers agree to intrusive monitoring technology

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still think this is BS, considering trucks are causing 2500 times [0] more damage than gas cars and are certainly not bringing tax income proportionally to this. Why should EV then? [0] https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-...

This seems like a weird argument to make. We either pay collectively more for taxes for the roads we use, or collectively we pay WAY more for food, materials, and basically everything else if we tax trucks proportionally. Large trucks are carrying stuff, and the cost of that stuff is going to be directly associated with the cost of logistics. Yes, some states haven't figured out what that looks like, but I really don…

Doesn’t this assume that the cost will not effect behavior? If trucking logistics becomes more expensive to properly account for the externalities, wouldn’t companies be more motivated to find more cost efficient methods. I’m sure there are plenty of items that could be shipped by rail, but aren’t because trucking is currently cheaper for the individual company, while the cost in road damage, pollution, greenhouse gasses, increased traffic, etc. are paid by everyone else.

As for disproportionately affecting the poor, sales taxes (like on groceries and other goods) and excise taxes (like on gas) are exactly the regressive taxation systems that burden the very people living paycheck to paycheck. Shifting the tax burden from skimming off the top for the people spending all their income on daily necessities, towards companies paying the full cost of their chosen operations, would give the poor more buying power and allow market forces to find and utilize the most effective and efficient means to provide services instead of the cheapest means that are only cheap because they are subsidized by everyone else.

Re: To save money on insurance, drivers agree to intrusive monitoring technology

#280
post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know someone who's an actuary, and the reality is much simpler: people who consent to tracking tend to be safer drivers because they aren't afraid of the insurance company seeing their driving habits. It gives the insurance company a way to identify a lower risk group of drivers so they can charge that group lower prices.

> people who consent to tracking tend to be safer drivers because they aren't afraid of the insurance company seeing their driving habits Is that true? The handful people I know who have/had these devices are definitely wouldn’t fit that category. And most removed it after a while because their premiums went back up (because of their driving). They just chose it because it offered cheaper rates and they all said the…

The problem with this tracking nonsense is that it doesn't change anything. The business model is still the same. Unless the insurance company pays out less claims there won't be any savings.
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