Progressive Insurance has thrown down a new Scruples question: Would you give up privacy about your driving habits if you could earn a greater discount?
With the introduction of its new driving monitor, Progressive is offering a more subtantial discount on auto insurance – advertised as “up to 30%” off premiums – for users who install the company’s device, dubbed “Snapshot“. After a 30-day period, drivers return the device and Progressive may offer a discount which subscribers can keep as long as they are Progressive customers.
The device watches driving habits such as time of day, braking, and how many miles driven per day during a 30 day period. According to Progressive, those are the only metrics their monitoring, but there’s really nothing to prevent the device from noting other items, such as top RPM, top speed, and other metrics.
So… would you trade-in a little privacy to save up to 30% on your car insurance?
I’d guess one thing preventing them from measuring top RPM would be that the device doesn’t appear to hook into the engine or transmission in any way.
…but yeah, I’d be shocked if the device didn’t record more than just time of day and mileage.
Pete – It connects to the ODBII port, which definitely has RPM in it. I have a Scanguage in mine and it certainly can monitor all of these metrics.