Agent☣Orange
07-10-2012, 05:26 PM
Lately, there have been some new devices introduced by car insurance companies that plug into your OBD port, monitor your driving and then report back with the data which is then used to determine if you qualify for discounts. One of these devices is the "Snapshot" peddled about by Flo, the nerve wracking, shrill Progressive Insurance spokestroll.
http://i1194.photobucket.com/albums/aa375/YellowYata/Misc/9faaf687.jpg
The idea is, you will receive a narc-in-the-box to plug into the OBD port of your 1996 or newer automobile. You use it for 30 days and send it back with your fingers crossed. A couple months later, you may see a discount on your insurance premium.
For now, the program is voluntary and only monitors how many miles you drive, how often you go hard on the brakes, and how often you drive between midnight and 4 a.m.
I see some problems right from the get go: What if that collected data doesn't qualify an unsuspecting participant for a discount but actually raises their premium instead? Progressive doesn't say that they wouldn't do that but what's to stop them after they have that info?
Who is deciding if people's braking habits and work schedule make them a high risk? Of course...someone with Progressive's interests at heart, not the customer's. Given the parameters the device monitors, a nurse who drives a winding road to work the graveyard shift at the hospital every night is surely a high-risk ne'r-do-well, deserving of a premium hike.
Another problem is, the relationship between insurance companies and their customers has always been tenuous if not adversarial. They employ sleazy tactics like basing premiums on one's consumer credit score which, despite their claims to the contrary, have nothing to do with how a person drives. So, if you get divorced or lose your job or have your identity stolen, your lowered credit score somehow translated into you being a bad driver as well.
Then there's the historic collusion between insurance companies and government with both parties profiting from such an unbelievable and unholy alliance. Government, which exists only to preserve iteself and to be served, makes it a law (that the insurance lobby wrote for them to rubber stamp) requiring people to buy insurance but regulating premiums people pay is left up to powerless state insurance commissioners, afraid to lose their jobs since they're politically appointed. Add to that, a manipulated public, hellbent on the spoon-fed rhetoric that any regulation of insurance companies is socialism.
Notwithstanding all that, behind Flo's (hideous) smile and pro-consumer message, there are a lot of calculator warriors, clicking away against your best interest. With government always eager cave in and cash in to the whims of insurance companies, this inoccuous little Snapshot poses some interesting questions:
How long before it becomes mandatory to carry an insurance company device just as it is to carry an insurance card and driver license? What else are next generation devices going to monitor? Will they have a camera? A microphone? Will it matter where you live, perhaps on the poor side of town? Will they track your movements by GPS, let's say to the bar after work on Friday?
Maybe it's not government we should worry about intruding into our lives as much as insurance companies and their retail partners. Private companies collect and aggregate much more data about you than government ever can. Drive by a Sears and suddenly you'll get cell phone ads from K-mart and Discover Card. Drive by a Payday loan office every two weeks and your credit score plummets causing your insurance premiums go up.
Government will always be there to make insurance company wishes come true and to cash in every way possible, perhaps making it law to carry the device at all times and to make it divulge your driving habits for governmental auditing and automatic tickets.
Using the lame excuse that driving is a priviledge and since you're driving in public, your information is therefore public as well, the electronic nark will create a whole new cottage industry to abuse by despotic agencies entitling themselves to your money.
For instance, if the device reports you doing 40 in a 35 every day on the way to work, you're obviously a wilful criminal and the speeding tickets you get in the mail will feed back into that convenient loop of higher insurance premiums from your insurance company. Government and their corporate puppetmasters win, you lose.
So what do you think? Is the cute little box with blinking lights there to help your or is it an arbitter of things to come?
http://i1194.photobucket.com/albums/aa375/YellowYata/Misc/6a51f69c.png
http://i1194.photobucket.com/albums/aa375/YellowYata/Misc/9faaf687.jpg
The idea is, you will receive a narc-in-the-box to plug into the OBD port of your 1996 or newer automobile. You use it for 30 days and send it back with your fingers crossed. A couple months later, you may see a discount on your insurance premium.
For now, the program is voluntary and only monitors how many miles you drive, how often you go hard on the brakes, and how often you drive between midnight and 4 a.m.
I see some problems right from the get go: What if that collected data doesn't qualify an unsuspecting participant for a discount but actually raises their premium instead? Progressive doesn't say that they wouldn't do that but what's to stop them after they have that info?
Who is deciding if people's braking habits and work schedule make them a high risk? Of course...someone with Progressive's interests at heart, not the customer's. Given the parameters the device monitors, a nurse who drives a winding road to work the graveyard shift at the hospital every night is surely a high-risk ne'r-do-well, deserving of a premium hike.
Another problem is, the relationship between insurance companies and their customers has always been tenuous if not adversarial. They employ sleazy tactics like basing premiums on one's consumer credit score which, despite their claims to the contrary, have nothing to do with how a person drives. So, if you get divorced or lose your job or have your identity stolen, your lowered credit score somehow translated into you being a bad driver as well.
Then there's the historic collusion between insurance companies and government with both parties profiting from such an unbelievable and unholy alliance. Government, which exists only to preserve iteself and to be served, makes it a law (that the insurance lobby wrote for them to rubber stamp) requiring people to buy insurance but regulating premiums people pay is left up to powerless state insurance commissioners, afraid to lose their jobs since they're politically appointed. Add to that, a manipulated public, hellbent on the spoon-fed rhetoric that any regulation of insurance companies is socialism.
Notwithstanding all that, behind Flo's (hideous) smile and pro-consumer message, there are a lot of calculator warriors, clicking away against your best interest. With government always eager cave in and cash in to the whims of insurance companies, this inoccuous little Snapshot poses some interesting questions:
How long before it becomes mandatory to carry an insurance company device just as it is to carry an insurance card and driver license? What else are next generation devices going to monitor? Will they have a camera? A microphone? Will it matter where you live, perhaps on the poor side of town? Will they track your movements by GPS, let's say to the bar after work on Friday?
Maybe it's not government we should worry about intruding into our lives as much as insurance companies and their retail partners. Private companies collect and aggregate much more data about you than government ever can. Drive by a Sears and suddenly you'll get cell phone ads from K-mart and Discover Card. Drive by a Payday loan office every two weeks and your credit score plummets causing your insurance premiums go up.
Government will always be there to make insurance company wishes come true and to cash in every way possible, perhaps making it law to carry the device at all times and to make it divulge your driving habits for governmental auditing and automatic tickets.
Using the lame excuse that driving is a priviledge and since you're driving in public, your information is therefore public as well, the electronic nark will create a whole new cottage industry to abuse by despotic agencies entitling themselves to your money.
For instance, if the device reports you doing 40 in a 35 every day on the way to work, you're obviously a wilful criminal and the speeding tickets you get in the mail will feed back into that convenient loop of higher insurance premiums from your insurance company. Government and their corporate puppetmasters win, you lose.
So what do you think? Is the cute little box with blinking lights there to help your or is it an arbitter of things to come?
http://i1194.photobucket.com/albums/aa375/YellowYata/Misc/6a51f69c.png