OT: Bewildering auto insurance rates

[H oMeGuy]

Show us one example of a US insurance company that does this with
private autos. I'm betting you can't show us that one example and
are nuts as usual.

And you're a fu ckin ass hole, as usual. I'll give you 3 examples.

Stop being a dick and do your own research, and stop riding me for
telling you true facts that otherwise upsets your sensitive and delicate
american mentality.

====================

(a long article, I only copied part of it - read the whole thing to
become more informed about just wtf is going on in your own country)


http://verdict.justia.com/2012/08/14/progressive-car-insurances-snapshot-experiment

August 14, 2012

Progressive Car Insurance’s “Snapshot” Experiment: Should Consumers Be
Wary of Being Individually Tracked While Driving?

Progressive’s New Approach

Progressive has developed a tool to track individual drivers’ behavior.
Once the results are in, drivers will be offered insurance at a rate
based on how they perform when behind the wheel. Progressive’s CEO has
called this new pilot program, known as “Snapshot,” an “evolution” and
“a meaningful start toward personalized insurance pricing based on
real-time measurement of your driving behavior—the statistics of one.”

In this column, I will discuss the new trend towards Usage-Based
Insurance (UBI), highlighting Snapshot. I will also discuss some of the
privacy concerns that may arise from this type of tracking. In
particular, I’ll explore how the use of GPS-tracking in the rental-car
context has led policymakers to express concerns—concerns that, in turn,
may lead to limits on the types of UBI that will be permitted in the
marketplace.

What Is Usage-Based Insurance (UBI)?

According to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC),
UBI “is a recent innovation by auto insurers that more closely aligns
driving behaviors with premium rates for auto insurance. Mileage and
driving behaviors are tracked using odometer readings or in-vehicle
telecommunication devices (telematics) that are usually self-installed
into a special vehicle port. These telematics devices record and/or send
driving data to the insurance carrier or telematics provider working on
the insurer’s behalf.”

With UBI, premiums are calculated using a variety of methods, including
utilizing or analyzing a customer’s activity at the gas pump, and his
debit accounts, direct billing, and smart-card systems. You can tell
when a person is traveling, for example, by the tolls a driver pays or
how often he refuels.

Progressive was one of the first companies to offer UBI programs, about
a decade ago, when Progressive and General Motors Assurance Company
(GMAC) began to offer discounts for lower mileage drivers. Progressive
tracked mileage through GPS and cellular systems. Several UBI models
have emerged including Pay-As-You-Drive, Pay-How-You-Drive (PHYD),
Pay-As-You-Go, and Distance-Based Insurance.

=====================

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jimhenry/2012/09/30/drivers-accept-monitoring-devices-to-earn-discounts-on-auto-insurance/

9/30/2012

Drivers Accept Monitoring Devices, To Earn Discounts on Auto Insurance

More and more drivers are inviting their insurance companies to ride
along and monitor their driving.

The idea behind so-called “pay as you drive” or “usage-based” insurance
is simple enough. As State Farm puts it: “Safer drivers should pay less
for auto insurance.”

Nobody can argue with that in theory.

But privacy advocates worry that the new forms of insurance discounts –
especially policies that employ GPS data — create the potential for
corporations to monitor a lot more than just how many miles we drive,
and how fast we do it, especially location.

For their part, the insurance companies promise not to misuse the data.
Progressive Insurance, which has been advertising its “Snapshot” device
for more than a year now, says its monitoring device doesn’t even use
GPS technology and can’t capture location data.

Progressive says its device measures how often you brake hard, how many
miles you drive each day and how often you drive between midnight and 4
a.m. It does not track whether you’re speeding or your location, the
company said.

However, many competing programs using GPS data potentially could, even
if the insurance companies promise not to use it.

“The best way to protect a consumer’s locational privacy is to not
collect the data in the first place,” according to a statement from two
California-based groups, PrivacyActivism and Privacy Rights
Clearinghouse.

Those groups point out that one of the biggest aims of pay-as-you-drive
programs is simply to capture actual miles driven. Cars already have a
device that does that, called an odometer, they said. In other words,
insurance companies could find some other, less-invasive way to capture
mileage, they said.

Therefore, the groups argue, it’s unfair to make drivers choose either
to accept a monitoring device and get a discount, or refuse the device
to protect their privacy, and miss out on the discount.

=============

http://www.rmtracking.com/blog/2010/04/20/car-insurance-companies-offering-discounts-for-tracking-privileges/

04/20/2010

Would you consent to a vehicle tracking system that is monitored by your
insurance company, if it would lower your rates?

Hundreds of thousands of clients currently signed up for AAA and
Progressive auto insurance might soon have the choice. The two companies
are among the first to launch unique on-board driving data collection
programs. Little boxes, about the size of a box of stick matches, plug
into the vehicle’s electrical and diagnostic centers and they record
vehicle speed, time of day, brakes applications and the number of miles
logged. Representatives think the program will create safer drivers and
therefore lower premiums.
GPS Tracking & Insurance Premiums

GPS Tracking & Insurance Premiums

Drivers will be able to access their data on the insurance website by
logging in with a personalized code.

Customers can save 10 percent on their insurance just for using the
devices; more if their statistics are better by comparison with other
drivers under similar circumstances and conditions. For instance, the
insurance rate drops if the vehicle is driven fewer than 12,000 miles a
year; the national average.

However, there is a bit of controversy dissuading some drivers, and it
deals with privacy. The boxes, at programmed intervals, send the data
wirelessly to the insurance company’s headquarters. In essence, the
driver’s habits can be monitored daily – perhaps hourly – and
scrutinized by specialists who attempt to translate real-world
happenings into dollars and decimal points.

AAA debuts its vehicle tracking program, called uDrive, this month in
the state of Nevada, through a series of open houses. Progressive’s
program is called MyRate and it is active already with 100,000 customers
in 19 states.

The boxes are not GPS tracking devices, which means the insurance
companies do not know, and keep no record, of where the individual
clients are traveling. That fact is good, or bad, depending on where
someone stands on the issue of personal freedom, versus safety and cost
savings.

[Kurt Ullman]

Post by H oMeGuy

Show us one example of a US insurance company that does this with
private autos. I'm betting you can't show us that one example and
are nuts as usual.

And you're a fu ckin ass hole, as usual. I'll give you 3 examples.

As usual have nothing to do with the original assertion that these are
GPS monitors that can do more than track total miles and speed
parameters.

Post by H oMeGuy
Small boxes that sit on your dash board or back window shelf that know

where you drive, which intersections you go through, how fast you go,
what time of the day, how fast you drive, where does the car spend it's
time when it's parked, etc.

Stop being a dick and do your own research, and stop riding me for
telling you true facts that otherwise upsets your sensitive and delicate
american mentality.

You wouldn't know a true fact if is bit you on your virtual ass.

Post by H oMeGuy
The boxes are not GPS tracking devices, which means the insurance
companies do not know, and keep no record, of where the individual
clients are traveling. That fact is good, or bad, depending on where
someone stands on the issue of personal freedom, versus safety and cost
savings.

And yet your own response negates what you said.

[H oM eG uy]

Post by Kurt Ullman

Post by H oMeGuy
And you're a fu ckin ass hole, as usual. I'll give you 3 examples.

As usual have nothing to do with the original assertion that these
are GPS monitors that can do more than track total miles and speed
parameters.

What the insurance companies claim these OBD dongles do, and what they
can really do, are 2 different questions.

There are MANY OBD-2 dongles that currently exist that log vehicle data
(brake use, vehicle speed) AND have built-in GPS AND can send that data
to monitors via cellular service.

It's only a matter of time (a short matter of time) before insurance
companies are up-front about wanting to match that info with gps
locations (or admitting they already have it in the dongles they've
provided).

Any gadgets they provide that don't connect to your obd port will
defacto be GPS trackers, but in looking at what's available now, it's
clear that:

1) An OBD dongle has sufficient GPS reception capability given the
location of these ports in passenger vehicles and the capabilities of
GPS receiver modules

2) The OBD dongle is much less likely to be "messed with" in terms of
breakage or loss or mishandling by the vehicle's owner/operator compared
to a dash-mounted box with cord going to power socket.

3) logged OBD data can probably identify vehicle by serial number, so
there is no question that the logged data is from a specific vehicle. A
dash-mounted GPS logger might or wouldn't have this capability.

It might even be the case in some cars with built-in GPS that it is
possible to get GPS data through the OBD port. So insurance companies
wouldn't be lying if they said their dongle's were not GPS receivers.

Post by Kurt Ullman
You wouldn't know a true fact if is bit you on your virtual ass.

======================
http://www.infowars.com/auto-insurance-co-tracks-drivers-by-gps-charges-per-mile-driven/

Auto Insurance Co. Tracks Drivers by GPS & Charges Per Mile Driven

Insurance tracking device records route driven by the policyholder

Kit Daniels
Infowars.com
March 28, 2014

A California auto insurance company is rolling out a car tracking device
which allows the company to locate policyholders by GPS and charge them
insurance rates per mile driven.

Developed by San Francisco-based MetroMile, the Metronome device plugs
into a vehicle’s OBD-II port and wirelessly sends mileage data to the
insurance company, which charges a base rate plus 2 to 5 cents per mile,
and can even record the route driven by the policyholder.

MetroMile also provides a smartphone app which links the policyholder’s
phone to the device.

“Opening the app, it showed the path I had driven and recorded the
number of miles, how long it took, average fuel economy and fuel cost,”
Cnet contributor Wayne Cunningham wrote in his review of the Metronome.
“After driving further, I opened the app again and saw the route I
covered on a map.”

“The app listed each trip I took, breaking it up at each of my stops.”

He also added that he could view his entire route for a specific day or
for each individual driving segment.

Now this isn’t the first monitoring device released by an auto insurance
company but it is one of the first to openly employ GPS data to charge
drivers per mile driven.

California’s former Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner green-lighted
per-mile insurance pricing back in 2009 in order to pressure drivers not
to drive as much, and no doubt insurance companies will take advantage
of the pricing to hike up auto insurance rates just as Obamacare did for
health insurance.

Rural drivers in particular will be especially hurt as many of them
drive long stretches of highway to get to the nearest city.

And there’s also the very real risk of insurance companies abusing
captured GPS data by charging policyholders fees for going, say, one
mile over the speed limit or for driving at night.

Or, even worse, the data could be handed over to the government.

“The best way to protect a consumer’s locational privacy is to not
collect the data in the first place,” privacy watchdogs Privacy Rights
Clearinghouse and PrivacyActivism wrote on the subject. “… Because
insurers may collect all manner of data, all of that data will be stored
along with the actual miles data.”

“Data retention issues arise because now not only are we looking at the
storage of actual miles data, but of all other data that happens to be
collected.”

Unfortunately, auto insurance companies are simply following a trend set
by authoritarian lawmakers who are trying to tax drivers per mile driven
with government-mandated tracking devices.
=================

See also:

http://www.ebay.com/bhp/obd-gps-tracker

OBD II GPS Tracker Real Time GPS tracking System
GPS Tracker for car, NO hidden FEES, No contract

$89.99

Simple GPS tracking provides real time GPS tracking system updates every
one minute while device is in motion. Its perfect for monitoring your
fleet, home vehicles, senior citizens or teens.

[Kurt Ullman]

Post by H oM eG uy

Post by Kurt Ullman

Post by H oMeGuy
And you're a fu ckin ass hole, as usual. I'll give you 3 examples.

As usual have nothing to do with the original assertion that these
are GPS monitors that can do more than track total miles and speed
parameters.

What the insurance companies claim these OBD dongles do, and what they
can really do, are 2 different questions.

Only when in your fevered imagination or (most often) when you get
called out on some idiocy and want to pretend you are still correct.

[Meanie]

Post by H oMeGuy

Show us one example of a US insurance company that does this with
private autos. I'm betting you can't show us that one example and
are nuts as usual.

And you're a fu ckin ass hole, as usual. I'll give you 3 examples.
Stop being a dick and do your own research, and stop riding me for
telling you true facts that otherwise upsets your sensitive and delicate
american mentality.

Why does it need to be "American" mentality? Not all "Americans" think
as such. Why are you being a dick for having a bitter Canadian mentality
for assuming all Americans are the same? Are all Canadians jealous of
Americans and often attempt belittling them when possible? Get over it
already.