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

money.com

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

#281

Post by lotsofpulp »

louthy wrote: post #43
renewiltord wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you have to pay those anyway. But it will lower the total spend and so you'll have money available to pay them. You don't have to be rich or anything. I live in San Francisco, and insurance for my Subaru Forester costs me $1.2k/yr and I have comprehensive coverage. So if someone were to buy a $10k car and instead chose a $5k car, it'll be as if insurance were cut to $700/year for the next 10 years! If you value y…

> I live in San Francisco, and insurance for my Subaru Forester costs me $1.2k/yr and I have comprehensive coverage Wow, that’s crazy high. In the UK my Porsche 911 (992) is cheaper to insure than that! (Without an insurance tracker) Anyone know if US insurance generally much higher (than other comparative nations)? Or is SF an anomaly?

Car insurance is partly based on the distances you travel with the car, and the area. The US is bigger than the UK, so on average, that component of the insurance price should be higher in the US.

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

#282

Post by blackbear_ »

The only way I would even consider to have one of these things is if the insurance premium would be reduced proportionally to how much I (don't) drive. Only use the car on Sundays? Pay 1/7 of the price.

But of course prices can only go up.

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

#283

Post by analog31 »

parl_match wrote: post #17
mholt wrote: post #6

Utah views EV drivers as tax evaders because they don't buy gas. So they have a "deal" for EV drivers: pay an exorbitant registration fee (hundreds more than other vehicles) or install an OBD device in your car and carry a surveillance app to be charged for how much your vehicle is driven [0]. The measurement route requires 2 separate accounts with 3rd parties, one of which has your payment information on file. Given…

> Utah views EV drivers as tax evaders because they don't buy gas That's because they kind of are. Road taxes are often use-based, where gasoline is the way they extract "use" taxes. EVs also wear roads more than gas cars do, on average, because of their higher weight. And it's not linear wear per pound, either. This is going to require a significant shift about how states and cities think about their road maintenanc…

My hunch is that the wear caused by both ic and ev cars is negligible comared to trucks. Thus road use taxes, including gas, subsidize heavy trucking.

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

#284

Post by lotsofpulp »

dingaling wrote: post #212
renewiltord wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got Geico to make me a quote for this Porsche 911 https://www.carfax.com/vehicle/WP0AC2A90KS149357 and it comes to about $4.4k where I am. And if I added this Porsche 911 https://www.carfax.com/vehicle/WP0CA29984S653662 it goes to $1.8k. So I suppose it comes down to driver risk in the end since my car is only $32k, not $200k like yours.

The majority of cost risk in insurance is that of third parties, not the value of your own vehicle. People often say "the insurance costs more than my car is worth!" as if it's scandalous. But what it's insuring you against, primarily, is the risk of paying millions of $CURRENCY in medical fees to the third party. Your car's value is peanuts in comparison.

I have always maxed out my liability insurance (what my insurance company would have to pay others in case it was my fault), and I have a spotless driving record, and it has always been $40 to $50 per month for 5k miles per year.

Comprehensive and collision, what your insurance company pays you regardless of who is at fault, is what cases insurance to be expensive in my experience.

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

#285

Post by sumtechguy »

fn-mote wrote: post #224
louwrentius wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this different from the phone in your pocket?

There is no reasonable scenario whereby your insurance company gets access to your geolocation trace information from your phone. It is possible that your phone provider does not have more than 24 hours of records of which phone towers you connected to. It is almost certain that the granularity of any information subpoenaed after the fact will not be sufficient to establish any specific behavior at the time of the ac…

> It is possible that your phone provider does not have more than 24 hours of records of which phone towers you connected to.

It is much longer than that (they have exabytes of data and DO keep it). They have retention periods in years not days. They also bake stuff right into the OS. As they usually have final say on what can and can not be installed on your phone.

Back when I worked this sort of thing they were looking into gathering that exact data and selling it. As being a cell phone is title II device they have a lot of wiggle room on doing exactly that as they are considered like an ISP. It is probably burred in that fine print you sign when you sign up.

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

#286

Post by LanceH »

Gordonjcp wrote: post #145
crmd wrote: post #56

When I tried this a few years ago, the unit beeped when it sensed braking or lane changes it didn’t like. It beeped constantly in the course of normal New York City defensive driving. I found myself running more than one red light to avoid the “hard braking” beep. It completely eliminated any enjoyment of the new car I sacrificed to save up for. After 3 months I was horrified to get an email with a list of time stamp…

We have similar devices on our vehicles at work. I can tell you that they don't work on Landrover Defenders, because they are reading about half way to "OMG WHAT ARE YOU DOING" just sitting in the car park with the engine idling.

They have a point. There is probably an expensive repaid coming on from sitting sitting in the car park idling.

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

#287

Post by oceanplexian »

asoneth wrote: post #193
Tarball10 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it dubious that people who get good scores on these telematics are actually better drivers or less likely to cause accidents. I've been stuck behind people doing 40 mph on the entrance ramp trying to merge into a 70 mph interstate. It's terrifying. They get a great rating for their leisurely acceleration, while vehicles on the interstate have to slam on their brakes and swerve to avoid them.

I am also skeptical of the accuracy of the initial rules but this seems like a domain that should be fairly easy to refine with a large enough corpus of data. Once an insurance company has a sufficient number of claims from telematics users I would wager that they will be able to find strong signals in the telematics data to identify customers who are likely to be expensive.

Someone can be a “safe” driver on paper, never get into an accident, but their actions regularly put other people in harm’s way. For example someone who’s driving well below the flow of traffic will provoke other drivers to have to pass them, but then eventually it results in someone getting into a head on collision.

Sure the passing driver is ultimately at fault, but the slow driver has blood on their hands despite no accountability. If they were driving the legal speed limit it may have prevented a serious accident and loss of life. of course, the insurance company would be none the wiser.

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

#288

Post by Red_Leaves_Flyy »

tokai wrote: post #219
SavageBeast wrote: post #213

A former girlfriend of mine came home one day with one of these devices plugged into her car. She was the kind of person who just said "yes" to whatever was on the form and she simply picked the lowest price option. My head immediately goes to the scenario where theres been some kind of an accident. Maybe it's a fender bender or maybe a pedestrian was hit. In one case you have a couple damaged cars and a deductible.…

The only issue with your scenarios is that nobody will ever get in trouble for killing a pedestrian.

That’s a disingenuous hot take. There’s a lot of discussion to be had about balancing Justice and societal/personal costs but you’ve gone and skipped past all of that.

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

#289

Post by mnw21cam »

Kye wrote: post #52
jbritton wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I figure it’s semi trucks that do almost all the road damage. We could just tax the trucks, but that would just get passed along in higher prices for everything. So might as well pay for road repair out of the general fund than have special taxes.

Diesel is already taxed at a higher rate than gasoline.

"Fuel duty is currently levied at a flat rate of 52.95p per litre for both petrol and diesel, while VAT at 20% is then charged on both the product price and the duty."

https://racfoundation.org/data/percentage-uk-pump-price-whic...

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

#290

Post by LanceH »

Waterluvian wrote: post #218

I tried this with an app. They offered 2% off after a month of data collection. I called and turns out my insurance was already so “low” that 2% is the most it would have ever offered. I dunno about elsewhere but in Canada, insurance is like tech job salaries, the only real way to get the best deal is to change providers every few years.

> the only real way to get the best deal is to change providers every few years.

I had Farmers for about 5 years in a row. It started off at $440/6months and ended up at $900/6months -- on the same two cars (comprehensive on only one of them). I tried calling them up and asking why my insurance was going up when the amount they were actually covering was going down due to depreciation. They avoided my calls and lost my business.

Now I'm trying to deal with the legalities of having a child in college in another state, but no car.

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