As we once reported, Progressive is paying some of its policyholders to be the Guinea pigs in a research study into usage-based insurance. Blogger mnot now points us to details of Progressive's TripSense data recorder — a dongle connected to a car's data port that collects information on driving habits. According to Progressive's terms and conditions, the device will record information on "each individual trip you take in your vehicle" including "trip start time, duration, and speed" "trip distances, estimated annual mileage, weekly trips, time spent in different speed bands, and daily travel," and must be in use 95% of the time. It's all in the name of collecting vehicle usage data to "perform additional research and analysis" on a possible plan to adjust rates based on actual driving data. Personally, we're more comfortable paying higher rates than having a gang of suits second-guess our driving skills. That's what wives/girlfriends/mothers-in-law are for. Dongle this, Prog-rock.
via mnot's Web Log
Related:
Progressive Testing Black Box to Calculate Insurance Rates [internal]