Pay-As-You-Drive Car Insurance

Sipos writes "The BBC has a story about pay-as-you-drive car insurance. There is not that much detail about how it would work but it seems that a black box in your car monitors your position using GPS. This information is then reported to a insurance company computer which then works out which roads you used and then bills you accordingly. The article seems to suggest that this will make insurance cheaper. Surely this will only happen for people who drive on dangerous roads less than average, after all there are no less accidents as a result? It also makes no mention of the potential for abuse of privacy this could involve. Are people really prepared to let insurance companies track their every move to save money on car insurance?"

Comments

Big brother-in-law, the insurance salesman

[qmchenry]

I'm already thinking of hacks... I wonder how hard it would be to spoof GPS signals? Of course, 5 cents worth of aluminum foil over the sensor would work, too. Only if they correlate their measure of distance versus the car's odometer would they know if the system had been duped.

They could also know if you were speeding on a certain stretch of road and up your premium accordingly. "We noticed that you failed to signal your intention to turn 18 times last month. Tsk tsk. Oh, and apparently you've been eating at McDonald's quite frequently, so we've increased your health and life insurance premiums, too."

Re:Big brother-in-law, the insurance salesman

[Anonymous Coward]

"Of course, 5 cents worth of aluminum foil over the sensor would work, too."

Great, so it's not enough anymore to just make a tinfoil hat for myself. Now I have to make one for my car, too!

Re:Big brother-in-law, the insurance salesman

[CristalShandaLear]

Umm.. so don't speed and use your turn signal?

Seems like a fair trade for lower insurance premiums.

How much are you willing to trade for life, liberty and the pursuit of happines? How big of a blue light special discount are you willing to trade for your privacy and personal information?

What if your life depended it, would you speed? What if every time you turn in the supermarket parking lot you don't use your turning signal, does the discount go away? Have they really thought this through? Have you?

First it was the little forms on the bottom of coupons. Then it was shopper cards. Then hidden little black boxes in cars. Then exposed little black boxes and let us use the info since we were going to anyway. And unconstitutional searches everywhere you bloody go from the movies to the airport.

Why don't we just have a sale. All Americans who are willing to give up ALL of their civil liberties in exchange for no taxes and discounts on everything you buy, please raise your hand. The line for your government implant is to the right (where else would it be?). The rest of you on the left are unpatriotic and can check in your citizenship unless you choose to join those on the right.

Don't you understand that what they are "requesting" today will be "mandatory" tomorrow? All these little chips and digs at our rights are just tests to see how much like sheep they can get us to act like before it's too late.

Call this flamebait, trolling, tin-foil-hat, wearing, whatever you want.

But every day we use a piece of our liberty that NOTHING short of complete and entire revolution can give us back.

So yes. Go ahead. Trade your every movement and purchase on this planet for a discount. And next year when the discount disappears but you still have to report your every move, remember this post and all the others like it that called you a fool.

Wrong turns

[Anonymous Coward]

So what happens when I make a wrong turn in LA and end up in watts or compton, does my insurance skyrocket?

Pay As You go eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is my idea. Pay as you go sex. If you last 3 minutes you pay for 3 minutes only.

Bad idea

[bobetov]

My wife and I were discussing a different take on this concept a couple of days ago, and came to agree that this kind of thing is a *bad idea*.

Our conversation was about health care premium reductions for opting out of "maternity" services. But I think the same arguments apply here. Basically, this kind of system defeats the core purpose of insurance; namely, to share risk.

There are times when charging more for a given behavior makes sense (eg quitting smoking) and times when it doesn't (eg driving in safer neighborhoods). Basically, given that people for the most part can't choose where they drive, this amounts to a violation of the risk sharing priciple. It doesn't drive down overall premiums, simply shifts those premiums to an unlucky subset, while getting others a break the didn't earn.

And of course, the system is designed to encourage safer driving, but we already have that in the form of accident reports and moving violations, which bring up your premium dramatically when you commit them.

I don't want to see a system where the rich folks get lower premiums due to driving in suburbs, while urban drivers get nailed. It leads to that insurer ending up with safer drivers overall (as the higher premiums for those in Compton drive them out of the insurance pool). In fact, in most cases such preferential insuring is actually illegal.

You can't accept only low-risk drivers as an insurer, because doing so breaks the risk-sharing concept that underlies the whole system.