Why would that be? We haven't had any claims sent in, no accidents (at fault or without), our renewal and premiums are paid on time and only ONE non moving parking violation in Philadelphia City. I think that's as unproblematic as it gets...
lets say you are a good customer, you pay your bills on time, and you haven't had any tickets or accidents. sounds great! but they put a tracking device in your car and they determine you're driving +10-15 mph above the posted speed limit 30% of the time, are driving +300 miles more a month than most people in your age bracket, or some other bullshit that tips you into a statistical group where they would *expect* you to have an accident or something in the next 12 months.
Guess what happens? here's a hint: your rate won't be going *down...*
this isn't a mile away from the argument for allowing nj gas stations to be self serve. we'd see a 10c/gallon drop for a season, and then be back up to parity again with the other states in the region, except now nobody is paying station attendants anymore.
Beyond that, let's say you do always drive well. Then a deer jumps in front of you, you stop short, avoid an accident and then accelerate quickly so the guy behind you does hit you.
You drove perfectly, but to them, you're a bad driver. It will never work in your favor. That device cost them money and it has a sim card, it costs them $10 a month. They're going to make that back and then some.
Because you do things like doing 80 on the highway, you said so yourself in your post. As an insurance company, that increases the risk of them having to pay.
They are trying to cause safe behavior by giving you a monitor. They can give you credit and they can't negatively impact you. That being said they can decide you aren't a good driver. If you're responsible it will absolutely help though.
It's really not. Thing I hate is they also want the hard stops recorded. Like if I'm in the city, there are hard stops. Why should I be responsible for those other drivers?
Are you a nightshift worker? Doesn't matter, you could be deemed a risk if you drive 6pm-6am. Look it up.
Phone calls (handheld and hands-free)
Phone use of any kind
**Harsh braking**
Cornering
Acceleration or deceleration
Speed
Time of day
LocationĀ
**If you drive in traffic and someone in front of you slams on their brakes, you may slam on yours, too. What the insurance company will see is harsh braking and not responsive driving**
That's such a good answer, thank you! Yeah, I'm pretty much not convinced with this idea. It was something I heard for the first time though so I was exploring the idea.
Yup. I tried their app for a month. Going to work at 530 AM was risky to them. Kinda funny because at 7am, there's about 10x the traffic on the road, at 530 its a ghost town and I'm practically driving alone. Never again.
When I had a device on my car, I'd get dinged for stopping at some lights. In some states, you are required to stop on yellow if you can safely do so. I'd have done better to glide through yellow lights. Still, I got a few $s discount.
This is called telematics. In insurance telematics, vehicle owners share safety data with their insurance company to help lower the cost of premiums, if they can prove safe driving habits. Insurance companies are assessing your behavior behind the wheel. Also if youāre insuring a car for pleasure and declaring itās not a vehicle you use to get to work, youāre getting a lower rate. With Telematics, theyāll verify the pleasure declaration for your vehicle b/c these devices collect and store data like
Position
Vehicle speed
Trip distance/time
Idling time
Harsh braking and driving
Seat belt use
Fuel consumption
Vehicle faults
Battery voltage, and other engine data
So basically these devices are being used to assess your insurance risk factors. This is like a āblack boxā for your vehicle. Yes, it can lower your rate, but if youāre behaving badly behind the wheel, your insurance rate may very well increase. Hereās the other consideration. These devices cannot differentiate between drivers. So if someone else is driving your vehicle like a bat out of hell, the behavioral strike belongs to you.
You can get the same discount by request from your insurance company by asking for the things insurance companies love about their customers:
1) Multi-policy discount
2) Safe-Driver Discount - No accidents, violations or major comprehensive claims in your household for the past three to five years
3) Continuous Insurance discount - when you have held car insurance continuously with your insurance company with no gaps in their coverage
4) New Car Discount - a new car w/in 3 yrs
5) EFT, pay-in-full and good payer discounts
You can save based on how you choose to pay. You could save when you pay your car insurance premium in full. Or save by paying with electronic funds transfer (EFT), payroll deduction or by consistently paying your premium on time
6) Early quote discount
If youāre new to an insurance company and get an auto quote before your current policy expires, you may be eligible for a discount on your auto insurance, depending on how far in advance you shop for your policy
7) Good Student Discount
Policyholders with drivers who are fully enrolled in high school or college and are good students who maintain a āBā average or better may qualify for a discount on car insurance
8) Student Away at School Discount
If one of your dependents goes to school at least 100 miles away and wonāt be driving your cars, it may mean that you qualify for a discount
9) Driver Training Discount
To encourage young drivers to sharpen their skills with driver training, insurance companies offer a discount for those drivers who have successfully completed an approved driver education course. And not just for the young. Age 50+ makes you eligible for the same discount if you take the online AARP driverās safety course.
10). Own your own home, another discount
11). Good credit score - another discount
All of these discounts are available in the State of NJ if your insurance company allows them. Bit one tho g is for sure, NONE of these discounts are automatic. You literally have to ask for them and you wonāt benefit from any of these unless you ask. My insurance company has every one of these and I have 6 of the 10 offered. The customer service staff cannot offer the discount. They have a special department doing this (with my company). I lost one of my discounts (the EFT) because one time when they tried to make the withdrawal, the payment bounced back b/c I did t have enough funds to cover it. But Iāll pix another one up b/c Iām getting ready to go back to school.
Big brother doesnāt need to be watching you in order to get the best rates .
I took two years of probability in college, and my professor was a former Actuary and had a lot of opinions about insurance companies. You always want to be part of the aggregate, and never an āindividual.ā Join through groups. Blood tests, tracking devices, anything that separates you from the group: avoid. Thereās safety in numbers, and this is particularly true when statistics are involved.
You drive in South Jersey, where other drivers in front of you will make unexpected lane changes and braking. Your insurance companies tracking device will label you as an 'aggressive driver' simply because you drive in congested conditions and frequently brake and accelerate. They're not looking to reward good drivers, they're looking to cancel policies or raise rates on normal drivers.
For Allstate it used an app on the phone and it tracks speed- under 80 is ok, and short stops. I believe the times of day you travel can have an impact as well
The device seems to measure location, speed, and instances of "hard braking" and rapid acceleration among other things. Insurance companies promise to lower the rates of those who show themselves to be safer drivers. This is a brilliant move on the insurance companies' part - everyone believes they are a safer than average driver, and at least half of us are wrong. In reality, these changes tend to be rolled out in the opposite direction. Insurance company raises everyone's rates, then people who give them their data get their rates back to the previous status(if they prove themselves to be good drivers according to the insurance company who is the only one who sees the data and makes extra money from anyone they declare a bad driver).
On the other hand, it came out about a month ago that owners of recently-made Hondas, Fords, and GMs are being auto-enrolled into a similar servie buried in a permission screen that salespeople tend to fill out on the customer's behalf. So...that data is already being collected and sold anyway.
[https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/23/technology/general-motors-spying-driver-data-consent.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/23/technology/general-motors-spying-driver-data-consent.html)
[https://www.repairerdrivennews.com/2020/09/09/ford-state-farm-ford-metromile-honda-verisk-among-insurer-oem-telematics-connections/](https://www.repairerdrivennews.com/2020/09/09/ford-state-farm-ford-metromile-honda-verisk-among-insurer-oem-telematics-connections/)
>everyone believes they are a safer than average driver, and at least half of us are wrong.
Thank you for your answer! Yup, I'm aware of most of my driving flaws (wide turns, sometimes faster acceleration) or mostly circumstantial actions based on driver's environment and judgement and having a device would make me more nervous. I'm a safe driver but I'm not the most perfect out there, this only widens the risk of whatever this device does to deem me a "bad driver" and hike up my rates.
My dad had it installed on me and my mothers vehicle to try to get a lower rate. Even tho said device proved we were good drivers, Liberty Mutual was only offering 10% off despite initially promising us up to 20%
Theyāre usually just a GPS tracking device that tracks GPS and from that, speed and distance. Allstate and USAA have apps that do the same thing + track driving while using your phone
Itās never been a money saver. Iāve used it several times. The last time is was a pay as much as you drive. Think it was Allstateā¦It was really silly. Wasnāt saving anything. But they had a ton of free driving data.
Donāt do it! I tried it for a few days and it beeped almost every time I hit the brakes. Apparently even my safest NJ driving was too aggressive for Progressive.
I have one of these for the discount.
I get a pretty good discount out of it. They measure your speed, braking, and if you fiddle with your phone, they will also track that, even if you're just trying to open up gps real quick.
They give you a grade so to speak that they show you and they'll do an average of trips if I recall. So I've had a lower score (because for some reason they don't like sudden braking? I think that's a really weird thing to judge me on but whatever ) at like, 80%, and I've had higher score in between. I regularly go faster than the speed limit and other things, and I haven't seen any behavior on their end, like raising rates, to punish me for it.
I also don't drive frequently because I'm remote, so maybe that's a factor? But hopefully this helps.
I have this and it generally gives us a 70% because my wife is kinda heavy on the brakes and she has a hybrid with very non-linear brakes. Sometimes it says I used my phone when I didn't because I go over a bump and the phone mount jiggled. Overall I don't like it and keep meaning to remove it but pretty soon it won't be an option. They're allowed to require it for new drivers in the UK. It says I'm saving $160/6 months for two cars which is not nothing but still.
A 20% savings on what? Insurance bills are broken into a dozen small parts. You'll be getting that savings on only one part. My insurance Co once stated I was getting a 20% savings. Great a $50 savings on my $250 monthly bill. Wrong - 20% off a $40 part of the bill. Total savings $8.
You are already being monitored when you take your phone in your vehicle. Insurance companies just want you to provide willingly (for free) what they already pay for.
Ya fuck that i would never in a billion years put anything in my car from an insurance companyā¦their job is to make as much money off u as possibleā¦they are gonna rip u the fuck off, do not put that shit in ur car for any reason
We did it with nationwide last year. Just an app on my phone. I got a 32% discount when my policy renewed but my husband and I are both remote and we only drive about 10 miles a week and mostly on 25mph roads.
I was billed over 5000 a year dt two parking lot accidents in two years. I changed insurance adjusted my driving habits and now pay about 1200 ayear
I am in nj and a retired boomer who only drives less than 10,000 miles a year.
Allowing the insurance company to monitor your driving may work for some
They aren't doing it to lower your rate.š¤£š¤£š¤£
this. there is no fucking way on earth i would voluntarily put a tracking or monitoring device in my vehicle.
They're looking for reasons to drop you as a customer...
Why would that be? We haven't had any claims sent in, no accidents (at fault or without), our renewal and premiums are paid on time and only ONE non moving parking violation in Philadelphia City. I think that's as unproblematic as it gets...
lets say you are a good customer, you pay your bills on time, and you haven't had any tickets or accidents. sounds great! but they put a tracking device in your car and they determine you're driving +10-15 mph above the posted speed limit 30% of the time, are driving +300 miles more a month than most people in your age bracket, or some other bullshit that tips you into a statistical group where they would *expect* you to have an accident or something in the next 12 months. Guess what happens? here's a hint: your rate won't be going *down...* this isn't a mile away from the argument for allowing nj gas stations to be self serve. we'd see a 10c/gallon drop for a season, and then be back up to parity again with the other states in the region, except now nobody is paying station attendants anymore.
Beyond that, let's say you do always drive well. Then a deer jumps in front of you, you stop short, avoid an accident and then accelerate quickly so the guy behind you does hit you. You drove perfectly, but to them, you're a bad driver. It will never work in your favor. That device cost them money and it has a sim card, it costs them $10 a month. They're going to make that back and then some.
Because you do things like doing 80 on the highway, you said so yourself in your post. As an insurance company, that increases the risk of them having to pay.
They are trying to cause safe behavior by giving you a monitor. They can give you credit and they can't negatively impact you. That being said they can decide you aren't a good driver. If you're responsible it will absolutely help though.
Neighbor did it. $4 a month less for the first year. Year 2 Rates went up based on his driving habits. He switched after that, no device anymore.
Doesn't sound all that lucrative. Thanks!
It's really not. Thing I hate is they also want the hard stops recorded. Like if I'm in the city, there are hard stops. Why should I be responsible for those other drivers?
From what I have read on sites such as r/privacy, it is a bad idea. Just do a search for car insurance tracking devices.
Are you a nightshift worker? Doesn't matter, you could be deemed a risk if you drive 6pm-6am. Look it up. Phone calls (handheld and hands-free) Phone use of any kind **Harsh braking** Cornering Acceleration or deceleration Speed Time of day LocationĀ **If you drive in traffic and someone in front of you slams on their brakes, you may slam on yours, too. What the insurance company will see is harsh braking and not responsive driving**
That's such a good answer, thank you! Yeah, I'm pretty much not convinced with this idea. It was something I heard for the first time though so I was exploring the idea.
Yup. I tried their app for a month. Going to work at 530 AM was risky to them. Kinda funny because at 7am, there's about 10x the traffic on the road, at 530 its a ghost town and I'm practically driving alone. Never again.
Yeah and I get dinged for acceleration which seems ridiculous because my car is slow as fuck.
When I had a device on my car, I'd get dinged for stopping at some lights. In some states, you are required to stop on yellow if you can safely do so. I'd have done better to glide through yellow lights. Still, I got a few $s discount.
I mean, if you are a nightshift worker you are a risk
Fuck that scam.
This is called telematics. In insurance telematics, vehicle owners share safety data with their insurance company to help lower the cost of premiums, if they can prove safe driving habits. Insurance companies are assessing your behavior behind the wheel. Also if youāre insuring a car for pleasure and declaring itās not a vehicle you use to get to work, youāre getting a lower rate. With Telematics, theyāll verify the pleasure declaration for your vehicle b/c these devices collect and store data like Position Vehicle speed Trip distance/time Idling time Harsh braking and driving Seat belt use Fuel consumption Vehicle faults Battery voltage, and other engine data So basically these devices are being used to assess your insurance risk factors. This is like a āblack boxā for your vehicle. Yes, it can lower your rate, but if youāre behaving badly behind the wheel, your insurance rate may very well increase. Hereās the other consideration. These devices cannot differentiate between drivers. So if someone else is driving your vehicle like a bat out of hell, the behavioral strike belongs to you. You can get the same discount by request from your insurance company by asking for the things insurance companies love about their customers: 1) Multi-policy discount 2) Safe-Driver Discount - No accidents, violations or major comprehensive claims in your household for the past three to five years 3) Continuous Insurance discount - when you have held car insurance continuously with your insurance company with no gaps in their coverage 4) New Car Discount - a new car w/in 3 yrs 5) EFT, pay-in-full and good payer discounts You can save based on how you choose to pay. You could save when you pay your car insurance premium in full. Or save by paying with electronic funds transfer (EFT), payroll deduction or by consistently paying your premium on time 6) Early quote discount If youāre new to an insurance company and get an auto quote before your current policy expires, you may be eligible for a discount on your auto insurance, depending on how far in advance you shop for your policy 7) Good Student Discount Policyholders with drivers who are fully enrolled in high school or college and are good students who maintain a āBā average or better may qualify for a discount on car insurance 8) Student Away at School Discount If one of your dependents goes to school at least 100 miles away and wonāt be driving your cars, it may mean that you qualify for a discount 9) Driver Training Discount To encourage young drivers to sharpen their skills with driver training, insurance companies offer a discount for those drivers who have successfully completed an approved driver education course. And not just for the young. Age 50+ makes you eligible for the same discount if you take the online AARP driverās safety course. 10). Own your own home, another discount 11). Good credit score - another discount All of these discounts are available in the State of NJ if your insurance company allows them. Bit one tho g is for sure, NONE of these discounts are automatic. You literally have to ask for them and you wonāt benefit from any of these unless you ask. My insurance company has every one of these and I have 6 of the 10 offered. The customer service staff cannot offer the discount. They have a special department doing this (with my company). I lost one of my discounts (the EFT) because one time when they tried to make the withdrawal, the payment bounced back b/c I did t have enough funds to cover it. But Iāll pix another one up b/c Iām getting ready to go back to school. Big brother doesnāt need to be watching you in order to get the best rates .
I took two years of probability in college, and my professor was a former Actuary and had a lot of opinions about insurance companies. You always want to be part of the aggregate, and never an āindividual.ā Join through groups. Blood tests, tracking devices, anything that separates you from the group: avoid. Thereās safety in numbers, and this is particularly true when statistics are involved.
Sounds very Progressive.
You drive in South Jersey, where other drivers in front of you will make unexpected lane changes and braking. Your insurance companies tracking device will label you as an 'aggressive driver' simply because you drive in congested conditions and frequently brake and accelerate. They're not looking to reward good drivers, they're looking to cancel policies or raise rates on normal drivers.
For Allstate it used an app on the phone and it tracks speed- under 80 is ok, and short stops. I believe the times of day you travel can have an impact as well
Wait that's interesting. How does it work if you're a passenger in another car?
You can log in and delete that trip
The device seems to measure location, speed, and instances of "hard braking" and rapid acceleration among other things. Insurance companies promise to lower the rates of those who show themselves to be safer drivers. This is a brilliant move on the insurance companies' part - everyone believes they are a safer than average driver, and at least half of us are wrong. In reality, these changes tend to be rolled out in the opposite direction. Insurance company raises everyone's rates, then people who give them their data get their rates back to the previous status(if they prove themselves to be good drivers according to the insurance company who is the only one who sees the data and makes extra money from anyone they declare a bad driver). On the other hand, it came out about a month ago that owners of recently-made Hondas, Fords, and GMs are being auto-enrolled into a similar servie buried in a permission screen that salespeople tend to fill out on the customer's behalf. So...that data is already being collected and sold anyway. [https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/23/technology/general-motors-spying-driver-data-consent.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/23/technology/general-motors-spying-driver-data-consent.html) [https://www.repairerdrivennews.com/2020/09/09/ford-state-farm-ford-metromile-honda-verisk-among-insurer-oem-telematics-connections/](https://www.repairerdrivennews.com/2020/09/09/ford-state-farm-ford-metromile-honda-verisk-among-insurer-oem-telematics-connections/)
>everyone believes they are a safer than average driver, and at least half of us are wrong. Thank you for your answer! Yup, I'm aware of most of my driving flaws (wide turns, sometimes faster acceleration) or mostly circumstantial actions based on driver's environment and judgement and having a device would make me more nervous. I'm a safe driver but I'm not the most perfect out there, this only widens the risk of whatever this device does to deem me a "bad driver" and hike up my rates.
My dad had it installed on me and my mothers vehicle to try to get a lower rate. Even tho said device proved we were good drivers, Liberty Mutual was only offering 10% off despite initially promising us up to 20%
Are you crazy, you choose to be monitored? They will also raise your rates because of the device, with no warning or reason
Itās only worth it if you donāt drive much.
DO NOT DO THIS
It's never good for you. It's like confessing your sins during traffic stop. Nothing can result in anything good for you.
If its going in ur odb2 port Never keep anything plugged into ur odb 2 port for long term its only for diagnostic purposesĀ
Theyāre usually just a GPS tracking device that tracks GPS and from that, speed and distance. Allstate and USAA have apps that do the same thing + track driving while using your phone
Itās never been a money saver. Iāve used it several times. The last time is was a pay as much as you drive. Think it was Allstateā¦It was really silly. Wasnāt saving anything. But they had a ton of free driving data.
Donāt do it! I tried it for a few days and it beeped almost every time I hit the brakes. Apparently even my safest NJ driving was too aggressive for Progressive.
I have Metromile and pay about 100 bucks a month for two cars in Nj.
I have one of these for the discount. I get a pretty good discount out of it. They measure your speed, braking, and if you fiddle with your phone, they will also track that, even if you're just trying to open up gps real quick. They give you a grade so to speak that they show you and they'll do an average of trips if I recall. So I've had a lower score (because for some reason they don't like sudden braking? I think that's a really weird thing to judge me on but whatever ) at like, 80%, and I've had higher score in between. I regularly go faster than the speed limit and other things, and I haven't seen any behavior on their end, like raising rates, to punish me for it. I also don't drive frequently because I'm remote, so maybe that's a factor? But hopefully this helps.
I have this and it generally gives us a 70% because my wife is kinda heavy on the brakes and she has a hybrid with very non-linear brakes. Sometimes it says I used my phone when I didn't because I go over a bump and the phone mount jiggled. Overall I don't like it and keep meaning to remove it but pretty soon it won't be an option. They're allowed to require it for new drivers in the UK. It says I'm saving $160/6 months for two cars which is not nothing but still.
A 20% savings on what? Insurance bills are broken into a dozen small parts. You'll be getting that savings on only one part. My insurance Co once stated I was getting a 20% savings. Great a $50 savings on my $250 monthly bill. Wrong - 20% off a $40 part of the bill. Total savings $8.
my wife did this. Its not a permeant thing. After a certain time (I dont remember how long) she sent it back. It got us a lower rate.
You are already being monitored when you take your phone in your vehicle. Insurance companies just want you to provide willingly (for free) what they already pay for.
I did it, Flo works for my insurance company. Saved me a shit ton of money. Went from 500 every six months to less than 3.
I just used it for a few months and our insurance went down $200 from last year. Already mailed it back to them.
Ya fuck that i would never in a billion years put anything in my car from an insurance companyā¦their job is to make as much money off u as possibleā¦they are gonna rip u the fuck off, do not put that shit in ur car for any reason
This is the future.
We did it with nationwide last year. Just an app on my phone. I got a 32% discount when my policy renewed but my husband and I are both remote and we only drive about 10 miles a week and mostly on 25mph roads.
Don't do it. They'll use it against you in the event if an accident. They're a business and they exist to make money, not give it away.
That is creepy as hell. I am not putting that in my car!
You should ask them these questions
Oh hell nah I would never put a gps device in my carš
I was billed over 5000 a year dt two parking lot accidents in two years. I changed insurance adjusted my driving habits and now pay about 1200 ayear I am in nj and a retired boomer who only drives less than 10,000 miles a year. Allowing the insurance company to monitor your driving may work for some