Clark Howard's Tips

June 30, 2008

Clark felt like a lone wolf in the late '90s when he got excited about an experiment Progressive was running in Texas to track how, when and where you drove. Once they had this data, they were able to give a highly targeted auto insurance rate.

There's a certain creep-out factor in being monitored this way. Listeners at the time felt Clark was advocating Big Brother. But he rebutted by saying this is voluntary; you choose to let the insurer monitor you for a potential savings.

The Wall Street Journal reports other insurers such as GMAC, Hartford and Uniguard are also offering this type of monitoring and pricing in a number of states. Progressive had been operating this model under the TripSense moniker and will soon rechristen it as MyRate.

Insurers are looking for patterns of jackrabbit starts and hard braking, which both suggest that a driver does not keep a safe following distance. If your driving passes muster, you could enjoy rates that are up to 60% cheaper.

For example, one GMAC customer had been paying $2,000/year for 2 high-end luxury cars. When the system tracked the man and his wife in their daily driving routines, their insurance dropped to $866/year.

Insurers have found that people drive more carefully when they're being monitored. Clark originally predicted most drivers would start out safe and then soon forget. But that's not been the case. We do actually change the way we drive over time.

Consumer advice courtesy of