'Insurance companies around the world are promising lower rates on car coverage. The catch is they want to install the equivalent of an airplane's black box to track how and where you drive.
Smartphone applications and devices that record trip and vehicle data are set to infiltrate auto insurance at a rapid pace, bolstered by discounts of as much as 30 per cent.
For insurers, it will provide fine-grained information on an individual's driving style, like flooring it to beat a red light, to improve returns in the competitive segment.
For drivers, Big Brother-like monitoring offers the prospect of lower rates and faster response time in the event of an accident, including medical assistance and repairs. In any case, the shift away from standard practices of rating customers by age and driving history might be unavoidable.
'In the not-so-distant future, it will become a market standard,' said Domenico Savarese, who heads vehicle-data efforts at Zurich Insurance Group, which provides auto coverage for about 15 million drivers in as many as 30 countries. As autos become increasingly equipped to gather and transmit data, 'motor insurance will by definition need to change.' http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11368244
Given the high premiums many of us pay, which are based on other perhaps less careful drivers, 'black-box' technology would likely bring much lower premiums for many. How do we balance a potential benefit like that with the intrusion of 24/7 monitoring? Would you opt for 'Big Brother' insurance?
How far away are mandatory insurance monitor Apps or easy to fit tracker devices?
Image source
It is proposed that car insurance companies should be able to require drivers to have an in-car monitoring device