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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.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
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?
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.
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?
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.
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.
Insurance companies have always profiled drivers and charged them as much as they can get away with in a competitive market. The only change here is they'll have better information for profiling the driver. Good news if you're a lower risk driver, and vice versa.
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?
Obviously milage is one of the many risk factors they can and no doubt will take into account wit this system.
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?
...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?
Because the grainy data given by a GPS should not be consider legal reason to charge higher or lower prices for customers. Because if you are a truly unsafe driver, your costs will be raised because you have made claims. Because this is an insane violation of consumer privacy. Do you need more reasons or did you just see this as a good opportunity to flog a witch?
Great Intellect...
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?
And basic literacy.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
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.
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"
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.
uh.. it's also here in the states too..
http://www.progressive.com/auto/snapshot-common-questions.aspx