State Farm "Save and Drive" issues

In reply to bobzilla :

I think you'll be more distracted worrying about upsetting your insurance overlord than you will be if you were watching a movie while driving.

There is a delete this trip on my watchdog app.  I inquired about it as I also use my phone as my lap timer, those repeated patterns of heavy accelerations would probably give me a bad rating for the day.

Also if one were to have in incident that included lawyers and lots of money there may be evidence to back up or refute a recollection of what happened.

Their apps already track your movements to begin with. The damn USAA app goes ballistic when you turn off it's access to GPS on your phone.  I canceled my auto insurance with them and simply need the app for banking, why they demend to require access to GPS for that is beyond me. 

Anyways, I would rather not give these companies any more data to utilize to raise rates (broadly speaking) or as a reason to drop me. 

State Farm will State Farm you.

Get another phone, put the app on that one, leave it at home. Drive to the store once a week with that phone. 

Appleseed said:

State Farm will State Farm you.

Sadly there isn't a single good insurance company left. You either pay for it up front or you pay for it when you need it. Some screw you from the beginning some at the end. 

I switched our house and both cars to State Farm last summer. Agent never even mentioned this. I suspect it's because we both work from home and don't put many miles on our cars and they stay in the garage. I've had my BRZ almost 18 months and just crossed 3200 miles. 

I wouldn't download the app even if it saved me $20/month. 

If I could get insurance for $110/month I'd be sending the agent birthday and Christmas cards. That aside, I get a report from GMC every month and in it they always ask if I'd like them to forward the data to insurance companies......uh, NO!!

In reply to DeadSkunk (Warren) :

You could, just have to leave michigan.

I try to avoid Jake, Flo, Gronk, Mayhem, the gecko, and any of the others that advertise non-stop on TV. I know a guy that runs a small chain of body shops and he says they are all a huge PITA to deal with. And they are the ones most likely to have intrusive apps or nanny devices spying on you. I'm fortunate that my wife works in the education industry so we are able to use a Michigan based firm that caters to that demo, and they've always been outstanding for us. Is something like that an option, Bob?

While I do love my wife, if she asked me to allow SF to track me to save $20 a month, I would laugh in her face and hand her a $20. There is zero chance I would let her or SF suck all the fun out of driving. No way, no how. I will happily pay the extra every month. 

John Welsh said:

I too didn't realize these are now phone based, not obd based.  

Your insurance rates are greatly affected by zip code.  I suspect that the insurance companies are very interested in where your phone spends the night.  

This seems like it could be very detrimental to business travelers who often find themselves in urban areas as opposed to the suburban or rural areas they "live" in.  

 

Add me to the group that doesn't trust the company to use this information in your best interest and not their own best interest.  

I agree, but so many things already track your poop schedule and send you Charmin ads.  I'm not concerned with what they do with my brake pedal information.

Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) said:

I try to avoid Jake, Flo, Gronk, Mayhem, the gecko, and any of the others that advertise non-stop on TV. I know a guy that runs a small chain of body shops and he says they are all a huge PITA to deal with. And they are the ones most likely to have intrusive apps or nanny devices spying on you. I'm fortunate that my wife works in the education industry so we are able to use a Michigan based firm that caters to that demo, and they've always been outstanding for us. Is something like that an option, Bob?

NEA here uses Safeco and they are budget Geico and Geico already sucked. We had them for a while, but their rates just kept climbing when we had older stuff. 

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

John Welsh said:

I too didn't realize these are now phone based, not obd based.  

Your insurance rates are greatly affected by zip code.  I suspect that the insurance companies are very interested in where your phone spends the night.  

This seems like it could be very detrimental to business travelers who often find themselves in urban areas as opposed to the suburban or rural areas they "live" in.  

 

Add me to the group that doesn't trust the company to use this information in your best interest and not their own best interest.  

I agree, but so many things already track your poop schedule and send you Charmin ads.  I'm not concerned with what they do with my brake pedal information.

But they're not measuring your actual pedal input. 

bobzilla said:

 

Anyone else have this issue? I bought the car BECAUSE it handles well, has good brakes and acceleration. 

I almost had that issue but then I told the insurance company that wanted me to use it that I would not be doing that. Then I dumped them for another provider that doesn't do that BS and took my foreign driving history into account, and that's how I saved almost 20% on my car insurance

I think it's pretty well-known that you have to drive like a grandma to appease those devices.

Toyman! said:

While I do love my wife, if she asked me to allow SF to track me to save $20 a month, I would laugh in her face and hand her a $20. There is zero chance I would let her or SF suck all the fun out of driving. No way, no how. I will happily pay the extra every month. 

 

 

We got a lot going on right now that is about to suck a lot of funds, so she's looking for every dollar we can save for the next 18-36 months. $240-350 enough times adds up. 

By the way, this is one of the reasons I'm with State Farm.  This is my 6-month premium.  Not monthly.  That's full coverage with low deductibles on the van and liability only on the Lincoln.... and WITH a misdemeanor moving vehicle charge on my record.

And for comparison... this is the 12-month premium on my motorcycle:

So the insurance companies say they won't increase your rates, but I am certain that if you could somehow attach one to an unlimited class time attack car going around a track and disabled the GPS (so they can't determine its on a track) but let it still track throttle input, braking and cornering g force loads, I can almost guarantee you'd at the minimum get an interesting phone call from them.

bobzilla said:

But they're not measuring your actual pedal input. 

Some do. Some of them are gizmos that plug into your OBD2 port, so they'd have access to all your inputs.

Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) said:

bobzilla said:

But they're not measuring your actual pedal input. 

Some do. Some of them are gizmos that plug into your OBD2 port, so they'd have access to all your inputs.

That's not what this is and not what they're using now.... Did you miss the whole thread? 

DjGreggieP said:

So the insurance companies say they won't increase your rates, but I am certain that if you could somehow attach one to an unlimited class time attack car going around a track and disabled the GPS (so they can't determine its on a track) but let it still track throttle input, braking and cornering g force loads, I can almost guarantee you'd at the minimum get an interesting phone call from them.

There's a reason the Rio does not have one. If it can pop 1.1-1.3g peaks it would freak that thing out. Of course it would never trip the acceleration one...... 

Does Erie write where you live? If so find an Erie Agent and see what the quote is.

Steve_Jones said:

Does Erie write where you live? If so find an Erie Agent and see what the quote is.

No thanks. Yes they do, they are more expensive and dealing with them on this side of the fence I would not want to be their customer. But again, there really are no good ones left. 

In reply to bobzilla :

Go figure, they're one of the best I've dealt with and on the low side $$ wise in MD. I do know they can be picky about claim history, credit, etc. but surprised to hear they suck there. Maybe it's just Agent by Agent.