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TomTom Satnavs To Set Insurance Prices
nk497 writes "TomTom has signed a deal with an insurance firm that will see its satnavs used to monitor drivers. Fair Pay Insurance, part of Motaquote, will use monitoring systems built into the TomTom PRO 3100 to watch for sharp braking and badly managed turns, rewarding 'good' drivers with lower premiums and warning less skilled motorists when they aren't driving as they should. 'We've dispensed with generalization's and said to our customers, if you believe you're a good driver, we'll believe you and we'll even give you the benefit up front,' said Nigel Lombard of Fair Pay Insurance."
For all those of us who keep saying that this sort of technology will be abused, and all the folks that keep saying it won't - I guess it is our turn to say "I told you so."
My prediction, sales of this SatNav will plummet if people know that they will be monitored constantly.
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And not to mention _speeding_! The Nav knows what's the speed limit at your location an instead of beeping when you overdo it, it will raise your premium each time, perhaps even rat you out to the cops.
Most of the time sharp braking is for something which shouldn't be in front of the car,
if anything this sounds like it will reward drivers who aren't as focused on the road,
blindly running over pedestrians and driving dangerously slow to avoid "badly managed
turns."
So if say, some idiot pulls out in front of you and you swerve or stop quickly, your insurance company will consider you a bad driver?
Wonderful, a system that will save the company a metric fuckton of cash and they'll pass on some unspecified fraction to us. How noble. I'm not saying it's a useless or immoral thing (quite the contrary), but it's hardly cause for public celebration when a company does something to increase their profits and it coincidentally helps the rest of us.
Now how about using that system to charge someone like me, who drives maybe 1,500 miles a year, less than someone who drives at or above the American average of ~12,000 miles a year? No, see, that's crazy talk. That would be something that doesn't save Fair Pay any money!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/08/tomtom_insurance/
From the article intro:
>The idea has been hovering in the ether for some time, but TomTom is the first satnav firm to sign on the dotted line and bring insurance to drivers through their GPS.
>The Dutch company has joined up with Motaquote insurers to offer UK drivers "Fair Pay" insurance, where customers pay lower premiums because their satnav monitors how they're driving.
This is actually a really bad step down a steep slope, even odds within five years at least one state requires this to run a motor vehicle (or tries to).
But... I can see one possible silver lining in all this. Recording what the driver is doing, and see what the profile of a driver who actually gets into accident does might dispel some myths. For instance, if you get too many speeding tickets most insurance companies will raise your rates. But I have always been of the mind that people speeding are paying WAY more attention to the road than the average driver, and in the end probably are not as likely to get in an accident. Well, with these devices, now we would know...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If it's watching for badly managed turns does that mean I get deductions from my next bill every time I nail the apex?
http://www.fairpayinsurance.co.uk/Frequently-Asked-Questions/
Oy, pretty low-quality website there, mate.
Theres a huge difference between sharp braking and dangerous driving.
I may be slightly biased because I can be a bit of a hoon myself, but I really believe that the most dangerous type of driving is the burger and cellphone type.
Additionally, what is the definition of a badly managed turn? I presume faster than what the system thinks is safe but its very vague.
I once heard from a police officer "If I want to pull you over, I just have to follow you for five minutes." There are so many minor infractions that you make every day that are normally overlooked. Maybe this is just an excuse to raise rates, with the vast majority being lumped in with the "bad drivers".
All privacy questions aside, are sat nav devices reliable enough for this purpose?
I purchased a TomTom device new within the last year. On complex intersections - and sometimes just on parallel roads - it can "snap" the car back and forth between pieces of roadway on the display. Sometimes it seems to think you're starting a turn you're not actually making and then eventually snaps the car back onto the correct road later. When exiting a parking lot it sometimes isn't certain about which direction you're really moving in until you've drove a little. It has also tried to direct me down a variety of local roads that don't actually exist. I imagine at least some of these issues are somewhat common among sat navs, and this is only part of my anecdotal experience with one device.
The point is, when these things become a significant input into insurance rates, who can actually inspect them and certify them for such purposes?
Is there a EULA that comes with TomTom devices that allows monitoring me in perpetuity with no restrictions? If I promise to send some candy to good drivers, can I also have all the TomTom GPS data for their customers?
Observation: Insurance rates are currently set at a level that the market and competitive pressure will bear, without this additional information.
Prediction: Early adopters will see some benefit in lowered insurance costs, but once most people are enrolled, insurance rates will creep back up to previous levels (that being the established level that the market will bear). Insurance companies will create additional rules that will facilitate a greater rate of insurance claim denial based up the new information, and will see greater profits arise due to this. Consumers overall will see no benefit in the long run.
"Tom Tom declared bankruptcy today, citing the boycott initiated
by angry consumers whose insurance had been canceled as
the primary reason for their failure." - Wall Street Journal, 8 February 2014.
I use a GPS to track my runs, it's frequently off a lot. When I run laps around a track I am guaranteed that it will sometimes think I cut across the track. And most GPS devices aren't made to be highly accurate so it will be providing false data a lot. Than I am assuming it's tracking the sensors in the car, in which there are too many varibles to monitor to find out what is truely reckless driving when all you have to look at is numbers.
If you're a good driver you should be driving properly. If you're an unsafe driver then you DESERVE to have your costs raised.
A very accurate accelerometer in three axis, that is used as a solid-state gyro. You can't predict exact location with it if you lose GPS for too long, but it's perfect for measuring G-forces.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Every time i see someone have this in their car... I'm going to grab it and shake the crap out of it for 20 minutes.
That should help their rates.
(this is a very very bad idea and we should never allow it to be used ever. Because it WILL bite us in the ass. It's going to happen and it's going to cost you alot.)
would I give a private company the power to track my every move. Pretty soon the police would be sending subpoenas, or piggy-backing on the monitoring.
If it was a simple accelerometer and speed monitoring system, in return for much lower premiums, I'd be in it, but actual co-ordinate info? not gonna happen!
...as a "discount" for those exhibiting the behavior they want. In fact, they simply raise prices for everyone at such a rate that the discount is in fact the lack of a penalty. Yet, somehow, dressing it up in this way avoids backlash and consumer protection lawsuits, while convincing people to give up their privacy in ways they would have never considered has it not been for the phantom carrot of a "discount".
Before someone says "free market!", keep in mind that nearly every insurance company does this to some extent, usually with no proof of their claims, and insurance is legally required to some extent in most of the country. The free market does not exist, never did, and never will.
Great Intellect...
I happen to be a 20+ years experienced driver, that drives about 3 times the average distance each year. Right now, I have a maximum no-claim insurance fee, because I haven't been in a crash that I was legally responsible for for over twenty years. However, if you would use the accelerometer in my satnav to judge my driving, or for that matter, the rate of wear on my tires, you'd be putting me in the most expensive insurance category, or maybe even not insure me at all.
Just because I have had extensive training on how to make a car handle best in several safety trainings, race trainings and alike and actually use that in daily traffic, does not make me a bad driver. Just because I choose to buy a car and tires that can handle larger G-forces does not make me a bad driver. However, if you take statistics of all drivers that have proven to be crash-prone, you will find similar high g-force readings, if you decide to look at only g-forces and not at the full circumstances where those occur. Sure, for generic profitability an insurance company would do fine, but you would also be discriminating against people that have taken extra trainings and are in fact your best customers, since they pay their premiums and never ever claim.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Is what will happen next, because faking good driver behaveor will give you lower insurance ratings.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
If the US wants to take away freedoms and monitor the internet, it is to protect the children. Then once is in place, they use it for other things down to political influence.
If they want to monitor your driving, you get rewarded to do it now. Then once everyone is doing it, you'll still get bonuses for being a polite sheep, but they'll jack the other rates up calling it inflation or something.
Wall mart seems like such a great place for low prices, but once they kill the competition they jack the prices up so you're really not saving anything from the competition they killed. Actually you're probably losing out since there is no one to compete with them anymore.
God spoke to me
Leave the TomTom at home.
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
If the insurance company I use announced they'd start doing this, I'd cancel and switch to someone else immediately, and I'd recommend the same to everyone I know.
JUST SAY "NO" TO BEING TRACKED EVERYWHERE YOU DRIVE
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
This is how privacy dies.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Similar insurance scheme was already tested in UK 7 years ago by Aviva. It was called PayAsYouDrive where GPS device would trace your route and your insurance will be paid based on your route and time of the day. This was designed for young drivers which insurance premiums are high. If they would drive during the daytime insurance would be lower compared to night time when most accident happen for young drivers.
There was a talk that government could use the same principle for charging us for using roads. In this case it would be compulsory for every vehicle in UK to have GPS. Different charge would be for different roads and different times. This would be used to stop people using main roads during rush hour and help road overcrowding. Obviously, the charge per mile of road during rush hours would be much more expensive and people would plan their trip after rush hour. Also they could use the same data for issuing speeding tickets too.
Would you like your country to start similar schemes or this is too much control?
I speed regularly, but I hate tailgating and leave a lot of room between myself and the next driver. If it's not possible to speed I don't press on the guy in front of me by driving close (all that does is make people slow down anyway).
I see LOTS of people who do not speed tailgating like hell and really compressing up on peoples bumpers. Also another bahviour I've witnessed is non-speeders simply riding on someones bumper for miles even with an open lane beside them - the speeder would simply get over and pass whereas the non-speeder spends much more time in a dangerous situation.
Although the device as described would not be able to directly measure who is tailgating to find out how much that behavior relates to accidents, I still think it would show that people who speed exhibit a markedly lower accident rate, part of that being a side effect of the aggregate population of speeders not tailgating as much.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
And basic literacy.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Where I live several roads are missing in TomTom maps. A lot of speed limits are not correct (too high and too low). This means TomTom will send wrong speeding information to the insurance companies unless TomTom updates their map data.
What I mean is consumers like them because they feel they are saving. For tracking your purchasing habits they just use your credit cards. Much easier and more reliable. That's why Albertsons didn't need loyalty cards. They finally got them not out of need for tracking, but because people bitched they weren't getting discount prices.
The worst part is that, as a customer, your are entering a deal based on your self-assessed driving-skills, but are charged on a complex model of objective measures that will be different from your own assessment.
A more fair model with be that some authority (government, car/insurance industry...) would come up with a an open and shared model that maps the driving-pattern into to a risk-factor ( a lot like a standard for fuel efficiency). Companies could build certified "black-boxes" (that would be a lot lighter in color), customers could measure their own risk-factor and choose the insurance that fit their needs.
In the model of the OP insurance companies biggest win is to have customers paying for their own wrong assessment of driving-skills.
this could be less about privacy and more about safe roads. if everyone drove as safely as they could...
"What Are They Gonna Do When Were All Using Freenet"
What happens if you use a car-plug version of the miniature GPS jammers? (Yes, illegal by FCC rules and whatnot, but still available for sale online) They only have a range of a few feet. If you screwed with the GPS, could you still get a discount without giving away positional data?
Who knew? I think that's amazing.
Insurance is a business and the more they can cut outlays to premiums the more profits they make. I'd rather they more closely aligned risks with claims than they just denied fair claims, which saves mone on the other side. In case I didn't make this clear: I'm OK with insurance companies making money off me, even if they turn a profit because I have low risk. I'm paying over a thousand dollars a month for medical insurance, and using about $500 worth a year for my family - with no pre-existing conditions or reoccurring need for medical care. And to me it's money well spent because in America today you can't get treated if you don't have insurance. Almost everybody gets sick now and then, kids break their arms or legs or whatnot, and to take them to the emergency room without insurance would cost me my house.
Ten of my coworkers and I could pool our contributions together and BUY a doctor and all his gear - and he'd work six days a year, but that's a whole other issue. We're talking about insurance now.
You can't deny that the closer to fact they gauge the risk, the more they diminish the "uncertainty" that motivates the buyer of their product. Defending against the slings and arrows of uncertain fortune is their value-add.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
"TomTom has signed a deal with an insurance firm that will see its satnavs used to monitor drivers."
vs.
"We've dispensed with generalization's and said to our customers, if you believe you're a good driver, we'll believe you and we'll even give you the benefit up front"
The latter indicates that the former isn't necessary - they don't *need* to believe you if they're monitoring your driving - as well as highlighting that the poster doesn't know where an apostrophe is supposed to go.
I have a GPS that only gets plugged in when I don't know where I'm going. But, being the old timer that I am, I can go retro and use this low cost alternative called a "map". They are getting harder to find now. Should I really need a GPS that isn't being monitored by an insurance company, I have a $15 Bluetooth GPS that plugs into my laptop and works with Google Earth. Monitoring driving is just another gimmick to charge you more money, nothing more.
There's still benefit in insurance even if you think you can self-manage your risk.
1) You cant actually calculate your own risk without a statistically significant number of events, and by then you are probably finished using the item.
Is that really true?
If they are going to crawl so far into my underwear with me that they can get actual numbers, why wouldn't I just get a quote from them and then not buy from them?
I mean if their quote honestly represents their assessment of risk plus a small profit, then haven't they just done the calculation for me that you said I couldn't do myself? And I didn't even have to pay my own actuary!
-- Terry
My Red Barchetta and I tend to disagree...
The Co-operative has been offering this insurance for nearly a year already in the UK:
http://www.co-operativeinsurance.co.uk/servlet/Satellite/1286521010203,CFSweb/Page/Insurance-Car
Get free bitcoins: http://freebitco.in
I had a TomTom, it kept getting my speed wrong, saying I was going 70+ in a 65 zone.
But having accelerometers recording our driving could produce some interesting data to play with.
The idea of insurance is shared risk. If everybody pays the same, accidents by the minority are covered for by everybody in the same proportion.
Once you start differentiating the prices, the minority that are bad drivers suddenly need to pay more or get less cover. The risk that's supposed to be carried by the insurance company is suddenly carried by the customer, i.e. the whole benefit of having insurance gets diminished.
This particular thing of "opt in monitoring" for a better rate reminds me a lot of what energy providers do:
1. Fix the tariff for the people that opt in.
2. Make the other customers pay more to offset the lost income.
3. Once the fixed-price term is up, have opting-in people pay what everyone else is paying
4. Now everybody is paying more than before. Profit!
In the case of opt-in insurance, it would be something like
1. Give discount to people that opt-in
2. Sharply raise the insurance price for the others.
3. Effectively, this makes clients who refuse GPS-tracking screw themselves over.
This will be an incentive for them to either opt-in to GPS tracking, or leave.
4. Now you're insured by Orwell Insurances, ltd where everybody is tracked.
5. Everybody gets a discount = nobody *really* gets a discount.
6. Profit!
the insurance industry is brib^H^H^H^H lobbying to get real-time surveillance to be a legal requirement.
I have two, and although they are less sophisticated than the model mentioned in the press release, I will dispose of them because of the lack of thought put into this. If you don't like it, let them know and specifically, let them know if the marketplace. That will be the only way that they will respond. Engaging in actuarial quibble will solve nothing.
No tracking.
Boycott TomTom guys!
wikipedia calls it at 1/10th the amount -- 500,000 deposit...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_insurance#United_Kingdom.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Yeah... "generalization's" were dispensed. But what was it belonging to "generalization" that they dispensed? I couldn't find that in the article. Or should I start spelling that "A-R-T-I-C-A-L'-S" now?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
One important thing to keep in mind about insurance as a product: A lot of people have the mindset that insurance companies are trying to punish or reward good or bad drivers. And that couldn't be farther from the truth. Insurance companies are in the very unusual position of trying to set a price on a product that they don't know the cost of. That's a difficult concept to wrap around, but it's the basis of the industry - they're trying to figure out how much it's going to cost them to sell you this insurance. Some of the costs are known (payroll being a biggie), but most, they can only make educated guesses at. This is just another way that they're trying to better the information at hand to make a better educated guess. Segmentation (dividing people into smaller and smaller groups to price most accurately) favors safe drivers, to a point. Of course, if it went to its logical conclusion, and they knew exactly how much each person would cost them, insurance could not exist - because people who are going to cause three or four accidents are not going to be able to afford insurance. However, it will never be able to get to the point of segmentation that's that predictive. Due to competitive forces, though, the market will always trend that way when regulations don't interfere - and that's the cause of another important insurance term, adverse selection. If all of the good drivers are with a different company (due to their superior segmentation), the only customers you'll be left with are the bad drivers, and thus, you'll be the one paying all of the claims, and eventually will be unable to compete in the industry (except for an occasional niche company). So the short of it? If you don't like this, the target shouldn't be the insurance companies doing this - this comes down to your legislators, and their regulations. Because no insurance company is going to want to be left out - but as long as there's a level playing field, certain aspects don't need to be used. If you need further proof as to how competition forces insurance companies to use factors to increase segmentation, do a search to try to find out how many insurance companies DON'T use credit scoring for rating these days.
I drive a high performance car. I drive what I consider a safe speed for it and me, which is hardly ever as slow as what is written on the speed limit signs. I've driven in many different countries the same way,
However because I make a point of knowing my and cars limits, keeping good situational awareness, looking a long way ahead and not taking risks, I have had absolutely no accidents in over 35 years of driving,
Regardless of what the nanny-state says, my lack of accidents over that length of time cannot just be put down to 35 years of good luck. My figures prove I am actually a safer driver the vast majority of ignorant drivers that plod along at 10 mph under the speed limit, thinking they're being safe, while pissing off everyone behind them, yet getting high safety scores with their tomtom.
How does this monitoring system cater for actually safe drivers again?
In the US, auto insurance is usually required by law to have a minimum amount of coverage. This amount would in no way cover the cost of hitting and totaling a Ferrari. The driver is still responsible for the difference between actual damage and the coverage by their insurance.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Shouldn't that be 2nd party or are you insuring collateral damage to bystanders? Maybe it's just a UK thing.
What I think you are describing, we call liability insurance here. To cover your own car, we call that collision insurance.
hey. 200 miles ago you made a bad turn??? How does it reinforce behavior???
Soon they will raise your premium just b/c prices go up and pocket the margin from your driving profile.
Or you may not get insurance b/c of your driving profile.
What is next? Employer will not hire you b/c of your risky driving profile (same as doing background check)?
Where are we going?
Thing is, if the insurance companies use the base actuarial data to set the "good price" and then charge premiums on "bad actors" they only win.
Your Bad Presumption(tm) is that the monitoring will be used to -lower- prices. This is known bad because of the language. The "fair pay" insurance -starts- at the "good driver cost" and only gets worse with measurement.
The system is, simply, a scam to cherry pick people to overbill, while providing a "see, we even warned you, the evidence is right there in that dingus" justification for taking people and charging them -more- than their actuarial risk assignment.
Sure, -IFF- good driving could reduce your payment below your actuarial designation then this would be a formula for cascading failure. As it is stated, however, its a creaming strategy for company profit taking.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
Frankly, I'm tired of dealing with retarded drivers. The only way to communicate with the guy tailing you or trying to cut you off is with your lights or your middle finger - but such actions are usually met with road rage, and usually do not result in a change of behaviour. After all, in the eyes of the other driver, you're the idiot who is going too slowly/waiting too long/doesn't know how to drive. In the end, the habits of poor drivers only change after they get into a serious car accident - and sometimes not even then, especially if they can profit from the event in court. So I say, good on TomTom and good on the insurance companies who adopt this. Maybe having this month-to-month (or even instant?) feedback on money lost due to poor driving habits is what it takes for people to learn. Only time will tell if this system is abused, but if properly administered, I'll take four.
"Fifteen Million Merits"
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
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As others have stated, its very easy to see the writing on the wall. Getting your same level of insurance coverage for the same inflation-adjusted price is going to be impossible once the dam has broken and these tracking devices flood onto the market. The "discount" is simply an avoidance of penalty for those that are willing to capitulate to be monitored everywhere they drive. As technology marches on and it has become financially and technically possible for basically monitor everyone as they drive, we have a responsibility that, just like SOPA/PIPA/ACTA/PCIP, we make our objection known to make it a bigger pain in the ass for invasive implementation like this. Otherwise, the next step is the Demolition Man / Fifth Element "One Point Has Been Deducted From Your License" or remote speed limiting/deactivation on behalf of next-gen devices that have become truly mandatory after industry-led "studies" proving their effectiveness. Lets not forget that, aside from groovy middle eastern music, "He's got a scan blocker. Must be a criminal. Blast him!" is how future "peace officers" will likely judge those who don't wish to be tracked every second as they drive.
For the past half-century or so driver's insurance has been computed based upon a handful of metrics (some, outdated or misplaced correlation) but mostly by the actual events that occur regarding an account holder. If you wrap your car around a tree frequently because you're drunk, your insurance goes up. That is how it should be. With all the financial services (ie insurance) and corporate money invested in this catastrophe, you can guarantee there's going to be something that kicks your insurance up a few bucks because of some fallacious study done by GoodYear that proves that tire wear equals more accidents. Every part of the automobile is now becoming computerized or at least computer-monitored, and each of those companies is going to want to "prove" that these devices should monitor for things that mean more auto hardware replacements. Don't have the high-end GoodYears with computerized monitoring? Up go your insurance rates. Don't change them when the completely spurious requirements tell you its a "safety" issue to do so? (ie. Tire wear parameters set well in advance of any problems that ultimately will require you to replace your tires 1.5 to twice as fast as you do now). You're a "bad driver for not maintaining your auto" and your rates go through the roof. Soon automobiles will be just very expensive game consoles, where everything within is really owned by someone else and subject to their rules, you just have the "privilege" of paying for them, and this insurance scam is just part of the racket.
This needs to be cut off at the knee-level before the tide can rise any higher. Lets be honest here, we have a small window of opportunity because the majority of the population at this point isn't going to be outraged about this - the frog is being boiled too slowly - so those in the know of the current ills and most likely future implications of this path need to start making a stink about it now. Call your insurance company and ask if they have any plans to implement a plan like this. If they do, explain your displeasure in a mature manner and ask to be escalated up the chain until you can speak to someone who is normally insulated from the displeasure of the policy holders. If you can switch away from a company that has this kind of monitoring to a company that doesn't (and doesn't have it on the table at the moment), tell them you switched specifically because they respect your privacy. For decades insurance has been calculated based on a variety of actual payouts, without the need to track every time you make a hasty turn will no ill effect. Things are changing now because insurance companies figure they can justify overall rate hikes and bigger profits with this spurious policy and most drivers are willing to bend over and give up their privacy just to maintain similar rates. We must show them this is not a profitable course of action!
I have an accident on my record plus 3 speeding violations from two years ago when I was in college. Now I've "chilled out" but am locked-in paying $150.00/mo. for insurance for another year, despite the fact that I have changed my driving habits, no longer speed and drive conservatively. As I am still entry-level and insurance accounts for a good portion of my income, it would be well worth it for me to sacrifice my privacy for some months in order to obtain lower premiums.
Glad I could help.
The problem ends up being that whatever you are paying NOW, you'll be paying in the FUTURE (adjusted upwards for "all of the things", of course)... and that is assuming you switch to this plan (which will eventually become ubiquitous without a fight). If you DON'T want the nannybot watching you, well, we have plenty of evidence that only terrorists, hackers, and speed demons don't want to be watched, so we'll raise your premium 800%....
And then they'll tell us on blogs and shit that it's a good thing that no one can afford to get out from under the thumb of the nannybot until they are established and in their 30s (40s... 50s... isn't it safer we have them mandatory now) by attacking a class of people "you" are scared of (teenagers, young folks, men in general).
Oppose this now.
F***k them,can you say big brother? This s**t makes me mad.Just how much of this will people put up with?
Because I drive on a 35 MPH road every other day that has high speed bumps. Five, unnecessary but still existing, speed bumps. Keep in mind this road is residential but the bumps are about 30 seconds apart, so there is plenty of time to get back up to speed. Am I going to have it counted against me for obeying the speed limit but not wanting to kill my shocks?
A business is NEVER going to lower prices or offer discounts unless it stands to gain more money elsewhere. This is the golden rule of business, it's all about the bottom line.
Every single time an insurance company offers more "rewards" to safe drivers, that just means they are jacking up higher and higher premiums for anyone that fails to be part of the ever shrinking window of "safe drivers". It used to be that you were considered safe if you never got into an accident or filed any damage claims. Now you'll only be deemed safe if you met all the previous requirements AND you perform less than x hard breaks and travel less than x mph. Following this path, it will ultimately mean that you're only deemed a "safe" driver if you never use your car and keep it parked in a secured garage 24/7.
I can see it now "Oh we're sorry Mr Smith, you drove your car for more than 15 miles this week which means you no longer qualify for the super ultra safe driver program discount of $350, but don't worry, you'll qualify for this program again if you don't drive your vehicle for the next 6 months."
From the Article:
"Drivers on the scheme will be given a TomTom PRO 3100 as part of the package, and the device will include Active Driver Feedback and LIVE Services to warn drivers when they were cornering too sharply or braking too hard."
I wonder if they take into account the type of vehicle?
A "sharp" turn, at say 20mph, in an SUV is more dangerous than the same "sharp" turn in a sports car.
"We're gonna need a bigger boat"
Pay up.
Maybe you were. Speedometers aren't perfect so unless you've had your speedo checked against a calibrated device it could be wrong.
This sig is exactly seventy characters long and a real waste of space!
I drive a sport compact that does 0-60 in 5.7 seconds and can top out at 157mph.
Yeah... my insurance premiums are lower without the GPS intervention....
Uuung, late post, but South Africa's Discovery Health already has this kind of system for their vehicle insurance. It's common for vehicles here to be installed with some kind of tracking system, so they use the tracking system to determine how you drive and evaluate you from there. This is nothing new in the World...