51% of drivers willing to let insurers track driving, MoneyGeek

More than half of drivers would let an insurer track their data for a discount, according to a survey from MoneyGeek, a financial literacy company. The results include responses from 1,194 drivers, who own or lease a vehicle. 

Younger people are the most willing to share their driving data for lower premiums while older people prefer traditional pricing methods, according to the results. 

The most common reason for not wanting to share telematics data with an insurer was related to potential litigation, followed by data being exposed during a breach, and it being used for marketing. Respondents were least comfortable with insurers tracking location, acceleration and hard braking or cornering. 

“As the average cost of car insurance continues to rise, the question that both drivers and auto insurance companies want answered is: what percent of savings would make telematics tracking worth it? The short answer is that it only takes an auto insurance discount of 5% for 39% of people to accept telematics,” the report states.

However, nearly the same amount of people, 37%, said that no discount amount is enough. 

The survey suggests that drivers seem most comfortable sharing information about mileage, time of day driving, frequency, duration and speed. 

“Nearly 70% of all survey respondents weren’t willing to have markers of risky driving — including acceleration, hard braking/cornering and phone usage while driving — tracked. This data stands in spite of the fact that 45% of respondents believed they were better drivers than 80% of the population,” according to the report.