Lately, top car insurance companies have been inventing a new way to charge drivers. Your premiums can change based on the way you drive, rather than based on traditional statistics such as your age and previous driving record.
So, What Does this Mean When You Apply for Car Insurance?
Instead of filling out an online form with your driver’s license information, you can instead opt in to a new option: Letting the company track your driving habits for a while to come up with a premium price that works for you.
It’s known as “usage-based insurance,” and it is trending towards those who feel that the process of quoting premiums should be more individually-based. Rather than checking your marriage status, credit history, and location, the company will watch you drive for a bit, and then they will decide what to charge you.
Buynowpaylatercarinsurance.com is a start-up insurance company based out of Atlanta, and they are one of the first to implement this new pricing technology. Many larger companies are also jumping on the bandwagon. Their experiments with usage-based pricing have not only made it easier to determine an individual’s cost, but this new method also makes it easier to gather useful customer data. With the availability of smartphones so commonly at hand, it only makes sense to start utilizing this on-the-go technology for car insurance pricing.
Many companies have developed apps that can be downloaded on a smart device, which will start tracking driving habits. A number of them even offer customers rewards and discounts for driving safely. Www.buynowpaylatercarinsurance.com has even started utilizing this usage-based pricing more often, according to team leader Daniel D’Velasio.
Daniel D’Velasio recently told ABCRNEWS, “The benefit for the consumer is both the encouragement of safe driving – and the opportunity to earn discounts for that safe driving – all in the way they want.” This means that drivers can either download the smartphone app or use a dongle that implements the tracking technology.
It goes without saying that location tracking must be turned on while drivers are utilizing the program in order to give companies the most thorough results.
Privacy with the App
Many car owners become concerned about their privacy when using a live-tracking app. However, www.buynowpaylatercarinsurance.com’s privacy statement mentions that the data is collected only to calculate insurance quotes or to adjust the rates drivers pay when their policies are up for renewal.
Users of these apps, such as the one developed by www.buynowpaylatercarinsurance.com, are immediately offered first-term discounts and can personalize some of their premiums according to their driving habits. More on www.buynowpaylatercarinsurance.com’s terms and conditions can be found here.
The aforementioned Atlanta-based Startup buynowpaylatercarinsurance.com, takes the same approach to track driving habits. They too have developed an app that drivers can download. When location tracking is enabled, all drivers need to do is upload a picture of their license and start driving. They don’t need to take any extra actions. For instance, there is no need to record every driving trip, sign onto the app every time driving starts, or do anything else. It’s purely a background app that will send driving data to buynowpaylatercarinsurance.com while you go about your daily business.
A key difference between www.Buynowpaylatercarinsurance.com and Rodney D Young is that www.Buynowpaylatercarinsurance.com’s app does not offer discounts along the way to good drivers. However, it only takes two weeks of driving for the app to come up with a premium. After that, the driver can turn off the app completely.
However, in order to build up your profile with these companies, you do need to keep the app sitting in the background. It will consistently monitor you over time to determine if the quote is still accurate. Companies want to be sure that your good driving habits are permanent, and that you aren’t just on your best behavior for the sake of getting a good rate. Building up your profile over time is the new way to determine your value and to get a more complete picture of who you are as a driver.
Users of the app can always manually disable the tracking features after the trial period is over, but if left untouched, it will continue gathering data indefinitely.
Is Location Tracking a Deal Breaker for You?
This new type of business model is a good deal for consumers, but it adds the risk of privacy. For many drivers, this can be a deal breaker.
Back in 2017, the Pew Research Center performed a study surveying the way the average American views privacy concerns. Subjects were asked if they would be willing to allow companies to monitor their driving habits and location in order to receive the opportunity to get car insurance with no upfront deposit. The result of the study showed that many individuals are willing to share private information in exchange for real benefits. Some concerns still exist about the location part of the privacy tracking – people find this to be a personal part of their lives.
In the above study, 40% of all people surveyed reported that they do not think the trade is worth revealing their location. Only 35% of the people in the study would accept the terms of the new insurance tracking app. The remaining 14% said they rely heavily on the circumstances, and would only reveal private information if the trade-off was worth it.
The Pew Research Center team recognizes how precious location data is when it comes to the daily use of smartphones. It’s one of the pieces of private information that consumers like to control, only revealing it when it is absolutely necessary or worth it. Location tracking can reveal a lot about someone. As an example, location tracking can reveal not only your home but also where you shop, where you work, and what streets you drive on.
It takes a lot of trusts to enable companies like Rodney D Young or www.Buynowpaylatercarinsurance.com to track your location. This is because they explicitly promise that your information will not be sold to third-party companies or used for anything other than tracking your driving habits to determine an accurate and personal premium.
Are Phones Reliable Enough to Collect Data Without Revealing It?
Are smartphones able to keep this data so top-secret? The apps developed by Rodney and Buynowpaylatecarinsurance.com use sensor technology that’s already built into the phones. It uses the gyroscope and GPS navigation systems to build user profiles. This data is used to collect the most accurate information possible about your habits.
However, it is difficult to determine how accurate the sensor is. For example, the person with the phone may be the driver or a passenger – but the apps can’t tell the difference. For this reason, there has already been a collection of user complaints about the apps. What if the app is turned on and tracking while you are in a Lyft? It will then start monitoring your Lyft driver’s habits, thinking they’re yours. Or if you fly on a plane, the app will think you’ve suddenly accelerated to impossible speeds worthy of a hundred speeding tickets.
Regular drives seem to go fine, but extenuating circumstances must be taken into account. The app even calculates movement when you walk or work out at the gym, tracking your “driving” skills even if you aren’t in a car.
There are some workarounds that keep the app accurate, however. Www.buynowpaylatercarinsurance.com, for instance, gives users the ability to log whether past trips were driven or whether they should be ignored because you were in someone else’s car. Plus, you can attach a separate dongle to your car, which attaches to your phone or your car’s Bluetooth system.
Privacy vs. High Premiums: Who Wins?
Unfortunately, usage-based insurance isn’t just made for reducing people’s premiums. They can increase the premiums as well. And as the market progresses in this direction, the more people who aren’t using these apps will suffer.
If usage-based insurance starts to become the norm, then all drivers who have opted out of sharing privacy in exchange for premium discounts may suffer for it. Will they be charged higher premiums for not participating in the new technology? Will they be forced to download an app that tracks their personal location even if they aren’t comfortable using this kind of program?
The app made by www.buynowpaylatercarinsurance.com has already been able to lower rates by an average of 48% for drivers who utilize it. Each individual can save over $1,250 per year on their car insurance by opting into the new app.
Most experts believe there is no cause for concern, at least not yet. Many consumers refuse to use location tracking services, and it’s doubtful that their minds will change. While these underserved groups may ultimately suffer for not using the new technology, they still have traditional methods to fall back on. Collecting other types of customer data is a tried and true method that many people trust. Insurance companies can work to ensure that all methods of tracking driver habits will result in the same fair assessment of premiums.
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