King Gets Car Insurance Test

King County just got a $1.9 million car insurance program. There is a statewide program that they are trying, that would link the car insurance rates with the number of miles that you drive. The million dollar federal grant has been awarded to King Country so that they get to test it out first.

Unigard Insurance and Washington State DOT have partnered up for the five year program, which is going to keep track of driver behavior when car insurance rates are actually based on vehicle usage. It is called the Pay-As-You-Drive project. It starts next year, and will be used across Washington State with 5,000 recruited vehicle owners.

All participants will get a GPS kind of device in their car that will keep track of how they drive, where they drive, how often, when, etc. and will report the data back. This information will then be used to base their insurance premiums on. The more a participant drives, the more they will pay, and vice versa.

The initial project will just collect data, and then move on from there. The goal is to both cut car insurance costs, but also to change the way people drive once they have become aware of it. They say this program could end up saving people up to $100 in annual car insurance premiums as well as cutting the amount they drive by 15%.

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