In class on Thursday, we briefly discussed how insurance companies have been offering monitoring devices in order to monitor their customers driving habits.
Progressive Auto Insurance’s MyRate provides data to the insurance company that details the driver’s speed, number of miles driven, the time of day the driver drives, and how “aggressively” they drive. The insurance company presents MyRate as a way to promote safer driving and clean up the environment. They even received an award from Fast Company for their new and innovative ways to provide an incentive for individuals to choose alternative means of transportation and drive safer. When you visit the Progressive website you are inundated with quotes from Progressive Execs stating how much they care about the consumer and want to offer as many insurance options as possible while still protecting the environment.
I may be cynical, but I really don’t believe any of the goals of the MyRate insurance program. There is no way that I can believe that the MyRate general manager and his team sat down and said to each other, “How can we make the world a better and safer place?” The conversation probably was more like, “How can we reduce our costs by separating the low risk drivers from the high risk drivers without explicitly stating it.” Don’t get me wrong, I know some of the main goals of the insurance company are to minimize costs and risk; however, I dislike the fact that they present their product as a “we-care-so-much-about-our-customers” type of thing. The fact that people may become safer drivers or drive less is merely a positive side effect, not something that was intentionally planned.
http://auto.progressive.com/progressive-car-insurance/myrate-device.aspx
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