Car insurance, love it or hate it, it’s a fact of American life. We’re not going to go into a debate over car insurance but you might get into a debate after reading this report. Some drivers of several popular brands of cars, EV and gas, claim their rates went up after insurance companies were sent data about their driving habits.
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According to the New York Post, Kenn Dahl says his car insurance costs soared by 21% in 2022 after GM’s OnStar Smart Driver computerized system installed in his Chevy Bolt collected information about the particulars of his driving habits. Dahl said that his insurance agent told him the price increase was based on data collected by LexisNexis, which compiled a report tracking every time he and his wife drove their Chevy Bolt over a six-month period.
Car insurance telematics trackers
We’ve written about telematics trackers and what they do here. Telematics trackers installed by your insurance company are one thing, but systems like GM’s OnStar are now not only collecting data about you, but selling it to a third party who then sells it to the car insurance companies.
The New York Post went on to say; According to Dahl, the 258-page report contained information about the start and end times of his trips, distance driven and other data detailing possible instances of speeding, hard braking and sharp accelerations. The report contained information about one particular trip in June, which lasted 18 minutes and spanned 7.33 miles (11.8 km). During that same trip, the LexisNexis report recorded two instances of rapid acceleration and two incidents of hard braking.
OnStar and other in-car telematics are supposed to be there to help the consumer, not sell the consumers’ data. With the economy in the shape that it is in, we’re not surprised that insurance companies are trying to squeeze every dollar they can out of consumers. This could also be a tactic to upsell insurance company telematics systems, which will entail even more tracking and data collection.
Data is king
This is the world we live in though, data is king and data collection is only going to get more intense with AI. It won’t be long until companies like Microsoft and Google start scanning your emails to train their respective AI programs. I guess the only solution is to live off-grid. But they’ve got us so engrossed into the ecosystems of technology, it would be hard for most of us to get out of the mire.
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