Want To Pay Less Insurance?

Our good friend Mike is our guest blogger today as I felt he had some interesting things to say about the insurance company he is with for his truck.

From the Autograph Website:

Have you ever felt that your insurance company lumps you in with every other driver on the road, regardless of how you drive? Wouldn’t it be nice if more responsible driving habits could be reflected in the cost of your auto insurance?

Autograph will enable eligible program participants to accurately track their driving behaviours using a data-gathering device that plugs into the diagnostic port typically found under the steering column of most cars made since 1996. Then, they simply drive the car. The device records data on factors statistically proven to impact risk, including how much, how fast and when a car is driven.

You policy is renewed every 6 months at which time you can optionally upload your driving data to claim your discount. The insurance company (Aviva) will e-mail you a few weeks before you are due to renew your insurance to let you know to upload your driving data. You can choose not to share your information and get no discount but even if you see that you have bad driving habits you still get a minimum 5% discount just for sharing your data.

I just uploaded my information a few weeks ago and earned myself a 28% discount on my insurance for the next 6 months. Score!

Mike
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Editor’s Note – I must admit this seems like a win-win scenario. Now instead of paying $79.33/month, Mike is paying $65.80/month for the next 6 months (until they recalculate what he should be paying). Note that there is a clause that the fees will never go above the $79.33/month. So if you are a speed demon, they can’t screw you over.

Now, Mike and I were talking about it last night and thought the only downfall would be if they are using this information to screw you over in the long run – like if you had to actually file a claim under your insurance and they say “Hmm…looks like you speed all the time! No dice my friend.” This could very well be the case as the driver is willingly providing them information.

Let’s also note that Mike doesn’t necessarily follow the posted speed limit, so it’s not like he got the discount by driving the posted speed limit all the time. Also, this isn’t all about speed limits, they take a look at what hours you are driving (are you driving to and from work every day, or just using the vehicle for leisure?).

All in all, I think the system is pretty cool if you know you aren’t a speed demon all the time. But I would be wary if you are as I would put some good money on the fact that they would use this information against if you had to file a claim. Otherwise, it’s pretty swell.