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Don’t let insurance companies “Drive” with you

Would you be willing to let an insurance company place a device inside your car to monitor your driving? Would you if they offered a lower insurance premium?

Recently, insurance companies such as Progressive and State Farm have created programs that place monitoring devices inside of driver’s cars in exchange for reduced rates for “safe” drivers. Progressive offers a “Snapshot” program that requires drivers to keep a monitoring device plugged into their cars for no more than six months. State Farm also offers a highly intrusive “Drive safe with In-Drive” program that requires that the device stay in your car as long as you want the discount. Safe driving is based on a number of factors: how often you drive, driving speed, speed at which you take turns, how fast you break, how fast you accelerate, ect. Sounds like a deal right?

This is where we urge consumers to steer clear- pun intended- of these devices.  Although this may seem like a great deal, there are many outside factors contributing to how you drive that could affect your rates.

Say for example, you’re driving home from work when someone runs a red light, and you have to slam on your breaks and swerve to avoid being hit. The insurance’s monitoring device will pick up and record that you slammed on your breaks and swerved, but won’t know WHY it was that you swerved. So you may end up with higher rates even if you were swerving to potentially save your life.

What’s even scarier about these programs is the lack of restrictions on how this data can be shared, stored, and used by the insurance company. These monitoring devices are a threat to consumer’s privacy. Companies like Progressive and State Farm continue to encroach on consumer’s privacy, and sadly, most of the time it’s unknown to the consumer.

Additionally, there have been reports of data collected by these devices being used against drivers in court. So beware, because the data collected by these devices can be used in claims disputes by the insurer and others against you.

With that being said, we urge you to think about the ramifications of installing one of these devices in your car.  Don’t let the insurance companies “drive” with you.

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