OMG Telematics for car insurance

[Heather in Ottawa]

Perfect for the car-lite out there! Well, this might be old hat to some, but I just heard about 'telematics' here for car insurance in Ontario... get a car insurance discount if you drive infrequently, during daytime, and avoid hard acceleration and braking. All signed up, expecting to pay about $40/month for insurance in Ontario after my year of monitoring has elapsed.

[Self-employed-swami]

cool.

good for you!

[Scandium]

Has anyone else tried this and can offer any more info? "Usage based car insurance" as some call it
https://www.mint.com/blog/consumer-iq/how-usage-based-programs-can-lower-your-auto-insurance-premium-0414/
I remember Progressive offered it to me when I was with them, but switched to geico and haven't heard anything about it. I don't like being spied on (I run several do-not-track plugins and use duckduckgo after all..) but it might be worth it to save cash on auto insurance. After all I'm a pretty careful driver, and even more so after I lowered my speed and started watching my mph closer.

I'd like to heard some experiences though..

edit: I know this post is old but didn't want to start a new one.

[LibrarIan]

As much as that low price sounds great, I'm with Scandium. I value privacy a little too much, even if it will save me money. I also use duckduckgo.com and several plugins including Ghostery. I'll stick with shopping around.

[Angie55]

I tried the Progressive one once. Problem is you have to have it track a certain amount of time before it kicks in. I kept getting alerts telling me I unplugged the device when it was really just because my car was not being used. I had it plugged in for around 2 months but I never got to the point where they had enough data to apply the discount because I drove the car maybe 2x during that time period. Seemed backwards to me so I gave up on it.

[Jack]

That's not a discount, it's a threat: "you'd better let us track your every move or we'll hike your rate." Fuck that voyeuristic bullshit!

If we had reasonable privacy right protections in this country, it wouldn't even be a choice.

[Scandium]

That's not a discount, it's a threat: "you'd better let us track your every move or we'll hike your rate." Fuck that voyeuristic bullshit!

If we had reasonable privacy right protections in this country, it wouldn't even be a choice.

ehh, much as I'm concerned about privacy, which is more than most people, this is voluntary so I don't really have a problem with it (unlike the NSA..). I don't this is something the government needs to "save" us from. I don't consider lower cost car insurance a human right.. And seeing how most people drive definitely not.

The companies have said this is (currently..) only to offer a lower rate, not to increase it if you drive like an idiot (but even if they did that still seems fair to me). Not sure I would sign up for it, but it doesn't really sound like an awful deal if the savings are good, which I don't know. At least for me most of insurance cost is because other people are idiots, so something like this that would reward responsible people I view as a good thing.

[nawhite]

I absolutely would do this if available in a reasonable form in my state. My smart phone already tracks far more information than these do. Most of them you can set to only record: "is the car started", "how far down is the accelerator", "what is your current speed", and "how hard are you braking." Most of them don't actually track you with GPS.

I thought about doing Progressive's program but I heard too many reports like Scandium's (took too long to get the info and then not enough of a discount to make it worth it).

What I do instead is use Geico and sign the car up as a "pleasure" vehicle rather than a "personal" vehicle and list it as driving less than 5000 miles per year. That change dropped my insurance 40+%.  Much easier to just tell Geico the truth compared to letting progressive try to find the truth.

[CarDude]

I'd consider one of these if it were cheap enough for the amount I drive. Not much of a speeder, as you might imagine.

[daverobev]

Perfect for the car-lite out there! Well, this might be old hat to some, but I just heard about 'telematics' here for car insurance in Ontario... get a car insurance discount if you drive infrequently, during daytime, and avoid hard acceleration and braking. All signed up, expecting to pay about $40/month for insurance in Ontario after my year of monitoring has elapsed.

What car, what coverage?

We were paying $120 I think for two cars, only one used to commute. I had one car off the road over winter and it dropped to $50. So it doesn't sound *that* cheap? This is with co-operators.

[Scandium]

Perfect for the car-lite out there! Well, this might be old hat to some, but I just heard about 'telematics' here for car insurance in Ontario... get a car insurance discount if you drive infrequently, during daytime, and avoid hard acceleration and braking. All signed up, expecting to pay about $40/month for insurance in Ontario after my year of monitoring has elapsed.

What car, what coverage?

We were paying $120 I think for two cars, only one used to commute. I had one car off the road over winter and it dropped to $50. So it doesn't sound *that* cheap? This is with co-operators.

That sounds high. We have an 04 golf and an 09 subaru, both used for commuting. We now pay $50/month with geico, but also have homeowners with them. Comprehensive/collision only on the subaru.

Unless the spy device could bring this down by, say 20% or more I'm not terribly interested.

[daverobev]

Perfect for the car-lite out there! Well, this might be old hat to some, but I just heard about 'telematics' here for car insurance in Ontario... get a car insurance discount if you drive infrequently, during daytime, and avoid hard acceleration and braking. All signed up, expecting to pay about $40/month for insurance in Ontario after my year of monitoring has elapsed.

What car, what coverage?

We were paying $120 I think for two cars, only one used to commute. I had one car off the road over winter and it dropped to $50. So it doesn't sound *that* cheap? This is with co-operators.

That sounds high. We have an 04 golf and an 09 subaru, both used for commuting. We now pay $50/month with geico, but also have homeowners with them. Comprehensive/collision only on the subaru.

Unless the spy device could bring this down by, say 20% or more I'm not terribly interested.

GEICO don't insure in Canada so a comparison is not helpful, unfortunately. Insurance in ON is not cheap.

[Scandium]

Sorry didn't catch that you're in Canadia. Yes comparison is a bit meaningless then.

[igetit]

I just signed up for Allstate's drivewise program.
I will receive  $50 as a sign up bonus and then up to 30% off of my premium (in the form of a reimbursement check) twice a year.

I have read some reviews online from different participants and I guess it's hard to get the 30% discount but money is money and anything coming back to me is a good thing.

I'll be curious to see how it all works. We just "plugged in" last weekend.

[coffee_sipper]

When I was with Progressive, my wife and I opted for having the metering sensor installed. Saved 30% off of our insurance at the time, which resulted in something $150-$200 off of our six month premium (I was in a high risk area, 20 years old, she was 21, etc.). In the end, I don't mind people seeing how I drive when it can save me a little bit of money, it's simply tracking your driving statistics, not where you are located. The only thing that bothered me was braking hard to avoid an accident; they see it as you simply braking hard/late when it wasn't really a choice.

I am highly interested in Metro Mile, which charges to a flat fee for insurance and then charges you based on your miles driven. (https://www.metromile.com/) Sadly it is only available in Washington, Illinois, and Oregon.

[BlueMR2]

My car is too old for those monitoring programs.  All the ones I've seen require an OBD-II port.  My car is only OBD-I...  :-)