Telematics Puts Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

I'm an honest guy when it comes to my skills—or lack thereof—at driving a car. This is a statement that not many men are willing to make: “I'm not the greatest driver in the world.”

You'll notice I didn't say I was a lousy driver—that would be my wife who would say that—just not the world's greatest. Even to admit such a thing is a violation of my man card, I know, but as all of us come closer to some type of usage-based insurance or telematics, it is an issue we are all going to face.

I've been involved in my share of collisions over the years and I have to admit I believe I have nine lives when it comes to dealing with other motorists who are impaired. Over the course of my driving career, my car has been struck by not one, not two, but three drunk drivers, so I do know a thing or two about recognizing lousy drivers. I won't bore you with the details of the ones that were actually my fault.

Before too long, many of us are going to have to put our money where our mouth is when it comes to our driving skills. In a discussion concerning telematics that I had with Matt Josefowicz of Novarica last week, he brought up the issue of drivers being willing to reject old underwriting methods and embrace telematics.

“A policyholder who is willing to be a telematics customer is already an indicator theydon't mind being watched and are probably a better risk,” says Josefowicz. “It's one thing to say you're a good driver and another to put a machine in your car and validate that.”

The fact that you are willing to embrace telematics may indeed make an insurer believe you are a quality risk, but whether you actually are a good risk—even with a fairly clean driving record—is another matter.

Have any of your friends ever admitted to being a poor driver? I know guys who have been in multiple accidents for which they were cited by the police, but still believe it was the fault of the other guy who was driving too slowly or some such excuse.

I might eventually opt for a usage-based policy and hope that somehow my driving has improved with age. That's probably a ridiculous notion—sort of like my other plan to win the lottery to pay for my retirement—but it's all I've got for now.

Technology marches on.