Give or take a credit score, underwriting personal auto policieshasn't changed much through the years. Lower premiums weredependant on your driving record—tickets and accidents—and lessso on things such as where and when you drove your car and howmany miles you racked up.

For many of us, that's about to change—if it hasn't already.Piling up speeding tickets will certainly keep you on the path tohigher premiums, but the world of personal auto insurance is goingthrough a disruption that hasn't been seen in any lines ofinsurance since risk modeling for wind storms came into vogue.

This week, I'll be in Chicago for Insurance Telematics USA 2012,a conference that brings together insurers, solution providers, andeven automobile manufacturers to discuss an issue that willtransform this line of business greatly over the rest of thisdecade.

Personal auto insurance is in flux. Carriers are competing forpolicyholders with huge investments in advertising as they try tolure consumers to their company with promises of great savings. Itall sounds good, but it is making for a chaotic marketplace.

Throw in telematics, which insurers claim will offer consumerseven lower rates if they are good drivers, and you have to wonder,like the old limbo dance, “How low can you go?”

John Lucker, a principal with Deloitte Consulting, wonders ifdrivers are becoming wary of the amount of personal informationthey are willingly surrendering to insurance carriers and otherbusinesses in order to save a few dollars.

“There is a desirable pocket of customers that are completelydisinterested in giving their data to an insurer just so they cansave $100 a year,” says Lucker. “From a privacy perspective, theydraw the line. They may be good drivers, but they don't want toprovide their data.”

Lucker believes it is important that insurers better understandwho this group of customers is that declines to participate in thistechnology rather than assume they have something to hide. On theother hand, there are many people who tend to be over-confident intheir abilities or their image.

“How many of the people who volunteer to try these telematicsdevices prove to be bad drivers—the ones who would be typicallyavoided?” asks Lucker. “Those are the things that have to be sortedout through a study of the customer segment.”

So there is plenty to sort through for insurers—not the least ofwhich is establishing some sort of telematics strategy—which is whythis week's conference should be illuminating. I'll be reportingfrom Chicago and hope to have more insight on the direction—and thedisruption—telematics is causing in the insurance industry.