Anyone else do the Insurance driving monitor program to save money?

[MOXJO7282]

With Liberty Mutual it's called RightTrack and you have to keep it in your car for 90 days. It records sudden stops and accelerations, how much you drive especially 12am-4am.

We figured we'd try it after insurance rates sky-rocketed when adding 18 yr old son on plan that also has my 24 yr old daughter. So far we've done it for 75 days and on track to save 17% (5% to sign up and up additional 30% they say depending on driving statistics from the tracking device.)

It definitely changed our driving habits and possibly for good but I am disappointed in the discounting because it is only my wife and daughter's cars and they are slow drivers for sure and I'm included but I work out of my home so do very little driving and also have been very good about my driving so to only be tracking for 17% out of possible 35% is BS.

anyone else do this and if so what were the results?

 

[artringwald]

I had it through State Farm for a couple of years. It was a module that plugged into the service port and used Verizon to upload the data. When they ended their agreement with Verizon and wanted me to put an app on my smartphone, I switched insurance companies.

 

[Snazzylass]

With your number of drivers and cars and a possible 30% savings, it must be very tempting! I passed. Progressive offered it to me, but I was also warned that it could work against me. It's the slamming on of the brakes that gets a lot of people in trouble. Happened to a friend. Gee, and if I'm slamming on my brakes, it's to AVOID an accident which has been successful for me. Why allow my rates to increase when I'm not filing a claim?

 

[controller1]

With your number of drivers and cars and a possible 30% savings, it must be very tempting! I passed. Progressive offered it to me, but I was also warned that it could work against me. It's the slamming on of the brakes that gets a lot of people in trouble. Happened to a friend. Gee, and if I'm slamming on my brakes, it's to AVOID an accident which has been successful for me. Why allow my rates to increase when I'm not filing a claim?

We have State Farm's Drive Safe & Save app and GPS tracker. The slamming on the brakes appears to be the number 1 or 2 in cost/cost-savings. The other is number of miles driven. I've played around with the hypothetical numbers to see what the discount would be and slight improvements in braking make some big differences in the discount.

 

[Panina]

With Liberty Mutual it's called RightTrack and you have to keep it in your car for 90 days. It records sudden stops and accelerations, how much you drive especially 12am-4am.

We figured we'd try it after insurance rates sky-rocketed when adding 18 yr old son on plan that also has my 24 yr old daughter. So far we've done it for 75 days and on track to save 17% (5% to sign up and up additional 30% they say depending on driving statistics from the tracking device.)

It definitely changed our driving habits and possibly for good but I am disappointed in the discounting because it is only my wife and daughter's cars and they are slow drivers for sure and I'm included but I work out of my home so do very little driving and also have been very good about my driving so to only be tracking for 17% out of possible 35% is BS.

anyone else do this and if so what were the results?

Whereas I would like to save money, this rubs me the wrong way and should be illegal. Another way of having surveillance on us with us agreeing. Who knows what else they are tracking?

For all the customers getting lower rates, my guess is more are getting increases. My gut says somewhere profit of this procedure is happening, either with increases or selling our info.

Another important question, once they have this info, and let’s say they determine you are a risk and they raise your rates, if you try to go to another company, do they now have this info because it was shared?

 

[CanuckTravlr]

I passed on this with our insurer. Way too intrusive. After over a half-century of insured driving, my long-term record should speak for itself, not whether in Toronto rush-hour traffic I had to do an emergency brake or some other thing that they don't like in their convoluted logic. IMO, none of their business. Way too Big Brother for me.

 

[DrQ]

They are licking their chops to get hold of the connected vehicle data which the car companies will be happy to sell as an income stream.

 

[pittle]

We tried it a few years ago, but sent them back. We have Allstate insurance.

I kept getting "dings" for hard braking in parking lots!!! I was going 10-15 mph and people were backing out of spaces!! DUH! Would they rather I hit the car instead of hitting the brake hard??? My 2015 vehicle has 20,000 miles and more half are for vacation travel.

 

[WinniWoman]

Allstate and Progressive both wanted us to have that. I just don't like the idea of them tracking our every move. Hell- I hated EZ Pass when it came out and it took a long time for me to even put that in my car. (Now pretty much forced to).

I don't turn on location service on my cell phone either.

 

[tompalm]

I have State Farm and very low rates on two cars. I think we have a lot of discounts to begin with and when I asked about it, they told me I might save $5 per month or about $2.50 per car. I decided to pass.

 

[#1 Cowboys Fan]

We did it with Liberty Mutual about three years ago. I had very few instances that they regard as 'bad', but DW had quite a few (and she did NOT like doing it). My discount I think was 18%, hers 11%. I thought my discount would be higher.

 

[wackymother]

We did it with Liberty Mutual over two or three cars. We got like...7 percent off, 8 percent off. In our defense, we live in a very congested area--it's one step below real city driving. So lots of braking, from my husband, who's been driving for more than 40 years, down to our youngest, who's been driving for one.

 

[MOXJO7282]

We're on target to get an extra 12% on one and 15% on another plus the 5% sign up so that is not a small amount to save when you cars are close to $3k each to insure because of the 2 young drivers. I think it was well worth it for 90 days (only 11 days left in the testing) of slow driving to save approx $1k and don't think it should be something people are concerned with from a sharing data perspective because what data are they gathering that is so sensitive?

 

[Passepartout]

Forward thinking and innovative trucking companies have been measuring drivers' safety performance for years. Including scoring such things as consecutive hours driving time, 'panic' braking. Aggressive driving of commercial vehicles should not be tolerated. Just 3 convictions for speeding (15mph over posted) or following too closely, one for reckless driving or DUI in ANY class vehicle will cost a driver his(her) CDL for 6 months to permanently.

Most truckers are self-insured to some extent, so the savings effect the bottom line directly. No little plug-in device needed. The measurement software is built into the vehicle management system and uploads constantly via the telemetry system (that cake-pan looking device on the roof) along with location, oil pressure, speed, engine coolant and oil temps and a lot of other stuff.

Jim

 

[bnoble]

No. I'm getting crotchety about privacy in my middle age.

 

[Sapper]

I talked with USAA about something like this a couple of years ago. I have to give the person I spoke with credit for being honest, said I had been with them for 20+ years, they have never paid out on an at fault type auto claim... my rates were as low as they were going to get. I could still participate, however, the program would not save me any money. Easy pass.

 

[CanuckTravlr]

I talked with USAA about something like this a couple of years ago. I have to give the person I spoke with credit for being honest, said I had been with them for 20+ years, they have never paid out on an at fault type auto claim... my rates were as low as they were going to get. I could still participate, however, the program would not save me any money. Easy pass.

Yes, my house and car insurance agent suggested much the same to me when I asked about what was involved. When i get my renewal each year it lists the discounts for which we qualify. If every one of them was applied it would add up to more than a 100% discount. They would owe me money for insuring with them!!

He basically said we were already getting the maximum combined discount possible, so going through the hassle and the intrusion of signing up for and installing the monitor would probably have little or no effect. That sealed it for me, since I didn't like the idea in the first place.

 

[Brett]

I'm also skeptical of plugging in one of those driving tracking devices. Maybe in the future if I could become convinced it would save me a lot of money but not now

 

[bbodb1]

I have State Farm and very low rates on two cars. I think we have a lot of discounts to begin with and when I asked about it, they told me I might save $5 per month or about $2.50 per car. I decided to pass.

Our experience with the State Farm program mirrors this - it isn't worth it.
In fact, our agent told us the program (the app) still doesn't produce reliable or useful data in terms of significantly helping to reduce rates.
The app is hamstrung because it depends on bluetooth (a power drain on your phone) connection to the transponder (whatever it is called...) in your car, plus it only seem to work if your device is on High Accuracy (another power drain) as opposed to Battery Saving.

Nice concept - exceedingly poor execution by State Farm.

 

[controller1]

Our experience with the State Farm program mirrors this - it isn't worth it.
In fact, our agent told us the program (the app) still doesn't produce reliable or useful data in terms of significantly helping to reduce rates.
The app is hamstrung because it depends on bluetooth (a power drain on your phone) connection to the transponder (whatever it is called...) in your car, plus it only seem to work if your device is on High Accuracy (another power drain) as opposed to Battery Saving.

Nice concept - exceedingly poor execution by State Farm.

The State Farm app also tends to interfere with your car's hands-free phone capabilities.

 

[MOXJO7282]

The Liberty app I think is very good and tells you the exact time and date of the infractions. As I said you only need to keep it in for 90 days and we only have 9 days left. I must say it definitely changed my driving habits because I am so intent on saving the money. We'll see if it is a permanent change because the reality is slower driving can save so much in wear and tear it is well worth it to sacrifice a few minutes time by driving slower.

Since I reported this my discount has gone up 1% and DD up 2% so total discounts are 18% for our CRV and now 20% for my DD's Mercedes. We're really going to drive like turtles the next week or so to see if we can drive it down even further.

In my opinion overall well worth it for the hassle if you have high car insurance.

 

[#1 Cowboys Fan]

We're really going to drive like turtles the next week or so to see if we can drive it down even further.

/QUOTE]


Oh, so that was YOU that I got stuck behind doing 15 mph in a 40mph zone today---haha!

 

[MOXJO7282]

The Liberty app I think is very good and tells you the exact time and date of the infractions. As I said you only need to keep it in for 90 days and we only have 9 days left. I must say it definitely changed my driving habits because I am so intent on saving the money. We'll see if it is a permanent change because the reality is slower driving can save so much in wear and tear it is well worth it to sacrifice a few minutes time by driving slower.

Since I reported this my discount has gone up 1% and DD up 2% so total discounts are 18% for our CRV and now 20% for my DD's Mercedes. We're really going to drive like turtles the next week or so to see if we can drive it down even further.

In my opinion overall well worth it for the hassle if you have high car insurance.

So this was the final tally after finishing the 90 day test, 18% off our CRV cost of $2021 and 20% off DD C300 cost of $2350 for a total savings of $833.78. Not bad for having to drive like a turtle for 90 days. Now I need to get my son to do it on his vehicle so we could save another $500 or so.