This may save some people some money, but I'm not crazy about insurance-company OBD-II devices in my car, either.
I suppose these technological tattletales will resign us to a future where we're either paying a premium for "bad" behavior (bad to an insurance company, anyway), or for privacy.
I await the lawsuits to expose insurance-company pricing models, when people figure out the industry isn't using the stated attributes for punitive pricing, because those attributes do not, in fact, correlate to claims. (Note that I'm not saying the insurance industry won't very quickly figure out which signals result in claims; I'm saying they won't reveal what those signals are.)
>I'm saying they won't reveal what those signals are.
I think they will if those signals are under the driver's control, because insurance companies want fewer accidents. They'd gladly trade higher premiums for fewer accidents--they do it all the time when they offer incentives for driver training courses.
If they could send out a report that says something like the following, they'd do it in a heart beat.
"You take a relatively dangerous route to work every morning. If you switch to this alternate, safer route, you'll save $25 a month on your premium."
Same happened to me and for a second there Apple was regaining a bit of ground for me. Then I thought "I must be misreading that" and went back and sure enough, it had nothing to do with hardware and tinkering.
Too bad, missed chance, though from a commercial perspective you can't fault them.
[+] [-] isomorphic|11 years ago|reply
I suppose these technological tattletales will resign us to a future where we're either paying a premium for "bad" behavior (bad to an insurance company, anyway), or for privacy.
I await the lawsuits to expose insurance-company pricing models, when people figure out the industry isn't using the stated attributes for punitive pricing, because those attributes do not, in fact, correlate to claims. (Note that I'm not saying the insurance industry won't very quickly figure out which signals result in claims; I'm saying they won't reveal what those signals are.)
[+] [-] learc83|11 years ago|reply
I think they will if those signals are under the driver's control, because insurance companies want fewer accidents. They'd gladly trade higher premiums for fewer accidents--they do it all the time when they offer incentives for driver training courses.
If they could send out a report that says something like the following, they'd do it in a heart beat.
"You take a relatively dangerous route to work every morning. If you switch to this alternate, safer route, you'll save $25 a month on your premium."
[+] [-] SixSigma|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seanmcdirmid|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jacquesm|11 years ago|reply
Too bad, missed chance, though from a commercial perspective you can't fault them.
[+] [-] fbomb|11 years ago|reply