Progressive wants to use my OBDII port

Usage based insurance, also known as pay as you drive (or PAYD) is a type of automobile insurance whereby the costs of motor insurance are dependent upon type of vehicle used, measured against Time, Distance and Place.

Pay as you drive (PAYD) means that the insurance premium is calculated dynamically, typically according to the amount you drive. There are three types of usage based insurance:

1. Coverage is based on the odometer reading of the vehicle.
2. Coverage is based on the number of minutes the vehicle is being used as recorded by a vehicle-independent module transmitting data via cellphone or RF technology.
3. Coverage is based on other data collected from the vehicle, including speed and time-of-day information in addition to distance or time travelled.

Potential drawbacks

• Prepaid insurance (usage based or not) charges for future rather than past risk, and inevitably predicts some drivers' risk imprecisely. For example, a distance-based system may not distinguish between highway, city street, or rural back road driving. (Premiums can vary by zone to minimise this effect.) A telematic system may charge a driver who speeds, but otherwise drives in a safe manner, more than a slower driver who changes lanes abruptly, or drives in an inattentive or careless manner.
• Some systems (but not all) use continuous GPS tracking of vehicles, which may constitute an unacceptable infringement on customers' privacy.

Be careful how you drive, or find another insurance company!!

 

I think all you really need to know is the last four words of this post.

 

Well I'm paranoid.

But I don't care how much "savings" I may or may not get. I wouldn't want my insurance company hooked into my vehicle logging every aspect of my driving.

It if becomes inevitable? Then I guess I'll deal with it. But in the meantime? It's not something I would embrace. My guess if you were ever in a large wreck, or expensive pay-out situation any and all information gathered could be used for your defense but also against you...

 

I like the idea, since one of my cars is used very little. I wonder how much less than $25/month they might offer

 

Here are some details from Progressive --
Use Less, Pay Less: A Simple Concept That Reduces the Cost of Car Insurance Now Available to Michigan and Oregon Drivers

For now, just signing up nets you a 5% discount, and sharing the car data is voluntary. So if you do something stupid you can keep it private. For now. Needless to say that the company in the future will look for uses of the data that enrich them and harm the customer.

I sure do favor a system that identifies drivers who text or talk while driving, and makes them their own nice little risk category. Along with the drunks.

 

The reason they call that insurance company "Progressive" is that's how their rates go up, every 6 months.
A little at a time, always with an excuse, blame NY State, blame the area I live, blame the cost of living, blame the cost of repairs, etc.

Finally got a quote from Liberty Mutual and saved 40%
Read that again 40% from what I was paying Progressive.

Insurance companies depend on us getting complacent.
While the value of my vehicles decreased every year, my rates went through the roof.
They kept offering to save me money by increasing my deductible or lowering coverage.

Plug into your OBDII?
I think not, that would be "Big Brother" watching............

 

I still don't trust it. They still are talking all "carrot" and not revealing much about the stick.

Plus sharing the data is all voluntary? Then why have it at all? If I chose to NOT share my data, my rates won't go up? But I'm assuming I then get no discount.

I still don't trust it. Seems to me if Progressive or any Insurance Company wants to offer me a discount for driving less, there is already a device in my automobile that defines useage very well, it's called the odometer.

 

To the OP --

You don't happen to be a veteran (or spouse of a veteran) do you? If so, look into USAA. Saved my family and I a bundle, and service has been first rate.

 

Why not get it, then wrap the thing in tin foil and put a switch on the constant +12v power signal to the device. One a week, flip the thing on and remove the foil so there is "some" usage recorded, but not all. Only used by your grandma to go to church right?

 

Checked into that very thing last summer, and asked if their device would share the port with a ScanGauge via a "splitter". The answer that came back (eventually....) was NO. Since than I found that my house insurer would give me a better rate than Progressive, so end of story.

 

Have you read the actual contract, not just the glossy sales literature? It is likely that they could also use the data to reduce or deny payouts if they somehow disagreed with any tiny detail of your driving. Didn't signal 5 seconds before that intersection? Spent a suspicious amount of time tuning around on the radio? Volume on the radio is what they consider unreasonably high? Windows were set to a "distracting" configuration? Get ready for a fight.

If their scanner gets that information, Yes.

For as long as they keep the results of their study. Quite possibly for your lifetime.

Probably not unless requested by some branch of the law. The ins. company has their own interests to tend, and this new technology would be difficult to use to write tickets from at this point in its development.

Depends on what deals they make with the other companies.

If I were the company, I would set the device to vacuum up every possible bit of data and later on I would have my technical people frolick and gambol amongst the resulting fields.

Bear in mind that they are a for profit operation. This is another tool that they think can help increase their revenue. What it might do to you is not their problem.