Progressive has come out with the usage-based insurance discounts in Florida and has helped drivers save money by agreeing to be tracked by up to 30% depending on when, how, and how much they drive. The program is called Snapshot and gives motorists a tiny gadget that is plugged into their vehicles and will store the driving data for 30 days. Motorists can easily avail discounts if they do travel at times when the crashes are less likely to happen and if they drive less and make lesser number of sudden stops.
Richard Hutchinson, GM for usage-based insurance, Progressive has stated that they are all very excited as Florida is the largest auto insurance market. He is a veteran and has been with Progressive for 25 years and was around when progressive started experimenting and decided to tie the driver’s driving habits to an electronic device and then determine the insurance rates, which happened during the 1990’s.
What is in Snapshot?
It has changed the way that one gets their auto insurance rates and the only thing that is different and new is using individual driving habits to arrive at a rate. This requires sharing some amount of the driving data and allowing the company to monitor driving habits for a particular time period and then determine the insurance rates after measuring their driving habits and quality of driving. This is not a GPS enabled device and hence does not determine where you are driving.
How it works?
This is a tiny little device that is plugged into the vehicle and in most vehicles it is under the dashboard below the steering wheel. This allows the access to the computer in the car. Speed per second is one part of the information that is pulled out and this is done not to check if you are speeding but to check the total mileage and the decelerating in order to calculate hard braking. The device is also a wireless phone connection and every time it is switched off, it will send the trip information to Progressive.
After the device has gathered the required data for 30 days, you can get a customized discount. You will be required to keep the device plugged in to the vehicle for the rest of the policy period of six months. After that the device will have to be returned. The discount can even go up to 30%.
