Auto Insurance Discount Programs

and I installed their APP on my phone, (I think it is called Safe Drive), and on three separate occasions, I have received a refund posted to my bank account.

I was offered a similar program once, and I adamantly declined, citing a privacy concern.

The agent said, "if you aren't breaking any laws, you have nothing to worry about."

I told her, "I may not be breaking any laws by going to the public restroom, but I still don't want a security camera stuck in my face while I take care of my business."

Opps

Require you you to plug a thing into the OBD-II port so they can see all kinds of stuff.

Apparently, if you have to sla. On your breaks for any reason it's "outside" their programs "accecptable" parameters, you get dinged. Similarly for acceleration or centripitlal forces or angular accelerations.

My answer is not only no, but HELL NO and NFW!

But then again, all autos built after 2026 are supposed to have technology where Law Enforcement can call and shut-down your vehicle.. I suspect in reality it doesn't kill the engine as doing that would stop your ability yo use the breaks or steer..so it's more likely it will disengage the transmission some how.
I ain't no mekanik, so it's just my guess.

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…which she agreed to after they informed her that she could save $25.00 per month on her monthly bill. After using it for 6 months, her monthly bill increased by about $30.00. When she asked about the increase, they told her that she had made several hard stops. I am thinking that she probably was approaching a traffic light when it changed or someone in front of her did a quick stop causing her to hit the brakes. My insurance company has offered me the App for my car but I refused. I don’t want my insurance company raising my rates because I had to hit my brakes to prevent an accident. My granddaughter is currently searching for another car insurance company and I doubt that she will fall for the same spiel again.

I have no interest in these offers for the same reason. I live in one of the fastest growing areas in the country, and there have been many traffic modifications made in my almost 8 years here. Streets that were two-lane sleepy back roads a few years ago are now 4-lane major streets. And speed limits on every street I drive every day to get most anywhere have increased by 5 or 10 mph. However, the speed limits in the GPS databases have not kept up. So according to one of these insurance gadgets I am speeding everywhere I go, which is not the case. My new Hyundai does read speed limit signs and displays those limits on the map, so that's a slight improvement, but far from foolproof.

I wish all of drivers in my neighborhood have this installed.

Kill switch after 2026, not true at all. It doesn't allow law enforcement to disable a vehicle. Specifically, Section 24220 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act mandates that by 2026, all new passenger vehicles shall be outfitted with “impaired driving prevention technology” systems that passively monitor drivers’ performance, detect whether a driver is impaired and prevent or limit operation if the system detects impairment.

Alternately, the systems can be outfitted to detect the driver’s blood-alcohol concentration and shut the vehicle down if the driver is over the legal limit, the law says.

More at https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2023/01/19/fac...

When these things first came out this was my exact thinking, they'd use it against you and have probably raised more rates than they've lowered.

My GPS stores my maximum speed. I always wonder what would happen if law enforcement saw that info.

Yes, it shows your current speed, but where does it store that information, and have you ever seen it?

If it were true, it would at least save some lives lost due to drunk driving.

I don't think it is just drunk driving - it is impaired driving which means if you are high (or any impairment) determined by monitoring control inputs and if it falls outside the envelope it will limit your speed and in the future will contact law enforcement. This will cost you as a vehicle purchaser, this mandate will add thousands to a new car. Large trucks currently have this technology on 99% of them.

about these devices...I remember when I first heard about some high end rental cars having similar speed monitoring devices..trusting, aren't we?

This is interesting information.

I can't recall where but I do remember seeing that info before. Things like max speed, idle time etc.

The legitimate interest of the insurance company in observing events from your car arises from logging things which modify their default estimate of risk of loss associated with your vehicle. It does not matter whether hard braking, for example, arises from your imprudent behavior and poor planning ahead or from bad other drivers or bad road design.

For quite a few months Tesla limited participation in the beta-testing of their Full Self-Driving software using monitoring somewhat similar to Progressive's. They looked at just 5 parameters and used coefficients they had derived from correlation with accidents in actual observation. In their case none of the 5 parameters had anything to do with the speed limit.

Since my time of participating to qualify for FSDb, they have introduced a revised system. It does now include a speeding measurement--but it simply penalizes you for the fraction of the time you are over 85 mph. Again not relying on a possibly faulty speed limit database.

https://www.tesla.com/support/safety-score#version-2.0

Different programs/companies may look at different things. Whether it's the app or a plug in to the OB11 on your vehicle. I would choose the plug in because it stays with the vehicle. I told the company when I did it I didn't have a smart phone.
The company I had at the time looked at speed, acceleration, braking, time of the day vehicle was used. This particular company penalized for driving later at night/early in the morning. I was starting work at 4am and would have been dinged for driving at 3:30am.
If you are a driver that drives fast, brakes hard or drives late night or early in the morning best thing is to pass on these programs. If you can drive within the speed limit, don't brake hard, drive within the hours they like it might be worth it. Usually it's for 45 days-90 days. Again, I would not install the app. Use the plug in device.

I just tell 'em I use a flip phone.

Years ago we plugged one of these obd things into dad's car. After a few weeks the whole dash lit up like a christmas tree. No more obd dongles.

As for the phone app, in all seriousness, just more spyware. I keep my phone in airplane mode most of the time except when I need to make a call and am out. At home, my voip set up shares the same number. I'd get noise on the cell phone when im on a call already, that got annoying fast. I charge the phone about once a week now.

Progressive has such a program but I declined.