Insurance company tracking devices

Eldon (WA)

Well-known Member
Anyone here let the insurance company track your vehicle and driving style with a monitor? Talked to an agent today, said he would give 5% discount now and up to 30% discount in 3 months. I guess there are pros and cons...may get the wife to think a little more when she is driving :) , but not sure I want them to know everywhere I go.....
 
Yes, have been tossing those same thoughts around for some time now. May ask about it next time we're in town and see what kind of deal they'd make. Sure do hate paying higher insurance for reckless drivers!
 
I sure would not want them to do that with me and my car. But my car has a bad transmission as in 3rd and 4th gear went AWOL before I got it and I have been driving it that way for years. So you have to wind it up real good in 2nd before shifting to 5th or you do not get up to speed like you need to and I am sure they would see that and call me an aggressive driver or some such thing
 
The monitors offered here track only your driving style and times, but not your
location. 10 percent discount, adds up when you are paying for 3 kids'insurance. Ben
 
I always figured they were a gimmick just to make you stay aware of your driving habits. As far as knowing where you're at, who cares? I'm sure if someone wanted to know your whereabouts you can be tracked by the phone in your pocket or onstar
 
(quoted from post at 15:19:58 04/21/17) Not hooking up any of that monitoring junk on my car and truck.

It is like a little memory stick that you plug into the obd II port...so you need obd II on your car. The said I wouldn't have to put one on my 97 Geo Tracker, even tho it has obd II
 
I did it had one in my truck for about
4-5 months. Nationwide said I get to
save 30 some percent. It's about time I
was rewarded for driving a company
vehicle. I always seemed to have "just
missed the cutoff" for the discount
with State farm. I literally drive a
couple days a week and then it's only
putting around home. Like others have
said if they were wanting to know where
ya were there are plenty of other ways.
 
Another way for them to deny coverage for bad driving habits or some other excuse. You can bet your bottom dollar it is to
benefit the insurance company and not the customer.
 
Let's imagine that in the future the government mandates a device on your car that monitors everything and automatically fines you for an infraction. You do a rolling stop and you automatically get a ticket. Cross the center line, don't signal when you pass a vehicle, go one MPH over the speed limit, you name it, you automatically get a ticket.
Would anybody like to drive a vehicle that automatically gets you in trouble? Then why would you voluntarily put something like that on your car?
 
Not all of them "track" your whereabouts but some of them do. What most if not all of them do is gather data on the vehicle and driving habits. How much you drive, speed, throttle and brake usage are the priority items. The amount of data available through an OBD-2 port on modern vehicles is amazing, no telling what all they are looking at or capable of looking at.

I also wonder about the insurance apps you can put on your smart phone, one of the big companies uses a smart phone based app to collect data, what about the others?
 
Changed my insurance carrier to Allstate about a year and a half ago. Got the monitors for my truck and my wife's car. My discount went up and my
wife's went down. Seems that she is a worse driver than I thought. .. mostly hard breaking( and I presume erratic). I broached the subject/issue a
few times... but now I won't go there... much too painful. However, the "hard" breaking threshold is a bit "tight" .. and I now surmise it may just be a
bait and switch scenario ..an excuse to raise your rates...and then be able to pin the reason for increase on the customer. Fascinating.. don't you
just love unbridled Capitalism... what a ride.
 
Edit I have a company supplied vehicle as well as my own. Thiers gets the snot ran out of it and mine sits all week.
 
The data from your vehicle from your vehicle can be used against you in a court of law.
Led
 
Discount? Probably like the one I got from State Farm last year. Called them to see if they gave a discount for taking the AARP Safe Driving course. Yes, they gave a five or ten percent discount, forgot now exactly what it was. So the boss and I go and take the class. Sent in the paperwork from the class after we took it. I was all excited about the next insurance bill being lower. Got the bill in December and guess what it was. The turkeys raised the insurance on each vehicle about twenty dollars. So much for their discount. Then the agent had the gall to send me a letter about those tracking devices a couple of months later.
 
Sad thing is the auto manufacturers are making self driving cars. Who gets the ticket then? Can you blame the driver? The company? The car? I'm agreeing with you in another way. Driving used to be a fun, and earned privilege. I'm hoping my '97 Ram will be going strong but too old to accept computer modifications. A bit off topic maybe but still
 
(quoted from post at 18:49:36 04/21/17) Changed my insurance carrier to Allstate about a year and a half ago. Got the monitors for my truck and my wife's car. My discount went up and my
wife's went down. Seems that she is a worse driver than I thought. .. mostly hard breaking( and I presume erratic). I broached the subject/issue a
few times... but now I won't go there... much too painful. However, the "hard" breaking threshold is a bit "tight" .. and I now surmise it may just be a
bait and switch scenario ..an excuse to raise your rates...and then be able to pin the reason for increase on the customer. Fascinating.. don't you
just love unbridled Capitalism... what a ride.

Sounds like my situation....I cannot stand to ride with my wife driving, I try to put my foot thru the floorboard. I'm afraid she will get dinged for too fast excellerating and on the brakes too hard. Just told her about it tonight, she is not too happy....
 
Ok folks. Now for those of you who think you are NOT monitored let me
clew ya in. If you have a full size GM car crawl into the trunk and
look up into the parcel shelf. See if you track some of the wires to a
little box about the size of a big pac of cigarettes. See if the
lable says TRW ON IT. Here is one in another vehicle. Has two little.
Linking LEDs in it. Red and green. No one at Ford knew what the heck
it was even with the part number. Can tell you where there is one on
a Ford Explorer too. If your car has ANY computers in it you can bet
there is a tracker somewhere. Most new cars are comming with a flight
recorder. After an accident they plug in and it plays back like a
black box recorder. This stuff has been around for awhile and it is
not James Bond anymore.
a157953.jpg

GM unit and where to look.
 

Yeah WA state is trying to use these to track how many miles you drive a year and tax us accordingly....
 
Yep, data collection will almost always be used against you......why else would they invest in collecting it??? duh! :roll:
 
I got nothing to hide with the way I drive. If I do something wrong I should expect to be punished. I wouldn't mind getting a cheaper insurance rate and looked into it once. I was told with my work hours I do a lot of night driving and that would go against me.
 
OK KIDDOS THIS STUFF IS GOING TO BE STANDARD EQUIPMENT AND SOON. REMEMBER WHEN PEOPLE WOULD NOT BUY A CAR THAT HAD ELECTROIC IGNITION, FUEL INJECTION, FRONT WHEEL DRIVE, OR AUTOMATIC TRANS??? ONLY ONES OF THEM I SEE NOW ARE AT AN ANTIQUE SHOW!!! RANT OVER!!
 
Nobody can just pull data from your cars black box. Not even your insurance or police without your permission or a court order. If you
drive like you should there is no problem.The black boxes do a lot of good like if your car is stolen you can have it traced down and even
shut down. Those black boxes can also help you if your in a bad accident and you can't call help that black box sends help.So if your doing
nothing wrong there is nothing to worry about.
 
(quoted from post at 18:49:36 04/21/17) Changed my insurance carrier to Allstate about a year and a half ago. Got the monitors for my truck and my wife's car. My discount went up and my
wife's went down. Seems that she is a worse driver than I thought. .. mostly hard breaking( and I presume erratic). I broached the subject/issue a
few times... but now I won't go there... much too painful. However, the "hard" breaking threshold is a bit "tight" .. and I now surmise it may just be a
bait and switch scenario ..an excuse to raise your rates...and then be able to pin the reason for increase on the customer. Fascinating.. don't you
just love unbridled Capitalism... what a ride.

Unbridled Capitalism? Hmmm....

I don't need to be monitored, however it is coming along with nanny government. Pretty soon you'll be penalized for NOT having a driving monitor. Sounds like gun control, must-have health insurance. And lot's of other capitalistic controls.
 
Well, one thing for sure ..... the conspiracy theories are alive and well. Evidence of severe paranoia in several of the
posts below.
 
If you do it, make sure you have your insurer tell you the exact parameters that will lower your rates. Article I read a few months ago said they are very subjective and rarely do they work for the driver. I lowered my rates by going with AARP. Their 1 year policy was the same price as Farmers was charging me for 6 months. This 2005 Ranger (SE MI) costs me $250 a year for PL and PD.
a157982.jpg
 
Actually doesn't take much to get a judge to OK getting data off the "black box" in your car. Almost any serious accident where they are trying to establish fault when the accident cause serious injury or death is a good enough reason.

Anyone who's worried about the government tracking you should stop and think about something. The FBI has repeatedly begged for more money to fund monitoring of the kiddie stuff on the net. Sure they have software that alerts them to the possibility of something going on but then a HUMAN has to look to verify what's going on. They don't have the funding for enough people to actually verify most of the software hits. Now if they can't track a small percentage of the population who look at that garbage how many people would it take to track each vehicle? So they may be able to track and record on a computer where you have been unless law enforcement is watching you or you are on a terror list all you are is data on a computer that no one is looking at. No agency, not even the entire government employee pool can track the whereabouts of every vehicle in the US even if everyone of them has a device that allows tracking. What? You think you are so important they want to know where you are at? I can see it now "boss, farmer Brown went to the feed store at 12:11 PM today"! Worst case only if they suspect you are involved in terroristic activities or committed a serious crime would they even check the data to see if your car was in the vicinity of a certain location at a certain time. Basically if you are not on the no fly list or a known gang member they don't really care where you are at. No way, even with the latest technology do they have enough people to know where you are at or what you are doing.

You can get rid of the tinfoil hats now.

Rick
 
People worry about car being tracked but do they understand if you have a cell phone you are being tracked.
 
"[i:e95b1a39b5]The FBI has repeatedly begged for more money to fund monitoring of the kiddie stuff on the net. Sure they have software that alerts them to the possibility of something going on but then a HUMAN has to look to verify what's going on. They don't have the funding for enough people to actually verify most of the software hits. Now if they can't track a small percentage of the population who look at that garbage how many people would it take to track each vehicle?[/i:e95b1a39b5]" Sadly, this is a much larger problem than most realize. Back in the 90's I was quite computer savvy. Was active on IRC (Internet Relay Chat) on multiple help channels. Spent a good deal of my time going after kiddie p__n ([i:e95b1a39b5]can't use the word due to filters[/i:e95b1a39b5]) spammers and sites and getting them shut down. After a while, just got tired of the whole mess and went 15+ years without using internet.

"[i:e95b1a39b5]What? You think you are so important they want to know where you are at? I can see it now "boss, farmer Brown went to the feed store at 12:11 PM today"! Worst case only if they suspect you are involved in terroristic activities or committed a serious crime would they even check the data to see if your car was in the vicinity of a certain location at a certain time. Basically if you are not on the no fly list or a known gang member they don't really care where you are at. No way, even with the latest technology do they have enough people to know where you are at or what you are doing.[/i:e95b1a39b5] "

True. Very true. But here's the problem - It is computers that are programmed to do the tracking. The computers are set to look for certain things. When a computer finds a match (doesn't even need to be anywhere near complete), then a human has to get involved and decide whether it warrants continued investigation or not. So the real problem of the matter is, neither computers nor people are perfect. Computers are getting closer and closer to artificial intelligence, but that is also suspect due to the fallacies and the trial-N-error learning involved in programming and such. Now, when/if a computer happens to notice something, even if a human looks at it and discounts any further investigation, the computer retains that 'hit' in its memory. Just hope you don't happen to have any normal "life stinks" problems around one of these times. Bad things "do" happen.
 
Anyone who thinks the insurance company is doing any of this to help you is daydreaming. Anyone who thinks he is such a good driver that he isn't going to do something that gives the insurance people an excuse to up your rates rather than lower them is fooling themselves.
 
(quoted from post at 10:02:16 04/22/17) Anyone who thinks the insurance company is doing any of this to help you is daydreaming. Anyone who thinks he is such a good driver that he isn't going to do something that gives the insurance people an excuse to up your rates rather than lower them is fooling themselves.
nything you say & do can & will be used against you if someone else can benefit by it. So why reveal anything?
 
You do know that insurance companies pull 10% of their policy holders and run a back round check on them for any traffic violations every year?
 
agreeed ,,. 30byrs ago ,,. my pal in the insurance biz,told me about such a idea ,,.at 1st blush , it does indeed seem that one cdould pay only for miles driven and wherever risk was greater the rate would incraese ,,. Lone country miles driven at safe speeds would be dirt cheap ,,. but as it was 1984 ,,,. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU ,,the idea got no traction from good wise heads
 
(quoted from post at 11:58:33 04/22/17) That is waving your fifth amendment rights . No thank You.

OK, I'm not saying let them monitor your driving habits, I myself wouldn't do it, but.....

What are you doing that someone monitoring your driving habits are an issue? Please explain just how this is "waiving your 5th amendment rights".

Rick
 
The idea of the fifth amendment is that you don't have to testify against yourself. Placing a device that monitors your activivty [which may or may not be criminal ,either way doesn't matter] is jeopardizing that right . Plain as day.
 
Verizon has those as well. The kid at the
store kept trying to put one on my sister's
plan when she upgraded her phone. She had
to get right on the manager's case about
it.

They make 35 a month from you on it, then
probably more than that selling your data.

Tow and repo companies put plate readers in
cars and pay people to drove around all
day, and put them in their trucks. Data
storage is so cheap now, if you live in a
city of any real size, anyone who wants to
find you at any given time can call the tow
companies. Enter your plate number, boom,
there's date- and gps-stamped records of
every time your plate has been read.

What's scary is there are no limits to what
they can do with that data. Sell it to
isis, blm, intifa, nnalert Clinton's
suiciders, don't matter, its all legal.
 
What we know is AT LEAST 5/10 years behind what they have.
Remember the HUGE building HSA built in utah? Full of computers?
 

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