Most Americans (51%) say they would never consider enrolling in a pay-as-you-drive insurance program, a significant increase from 37% last year, according to a new insuranceQuotes.com report. Millennials are the most likely to sign up for pay-as-you-drive insurance and the least concerned about related privacy issues.
Pay-as-you-drive insurance is a relatively new offering (in most states) that tracks driving behavior. The data is typically monitored by a small sensor installed in a car or by an existing on-board communications system which feeds certain information back to the insurance company.
"Insurers are not allowed to use the information to raise rates," said Laura Adams, senior analyst, insuranceQuotes.com. She added, "Many carriers give a premium discount in exchange for signing up for a pay-as-you-drive program and subsequently raise or lower the discount according to a driver's mileage and performance."
Most Americans incorrectly think that pay-as-you-drive insurance programs monitor for drunk driving and driving in high-crime neighborhoods (they do not).
On the contrary, most pay-as-you-drive programs measure mileage, how hard drivers hit their brakes and what time of day they drive - but the majority of Americans answered those questions incorrectly as well.
Of the respondents who would never consider signing up for pay-as-you-drive insurance, 21% said their primary concern was sharing personal information. That was the second-most popular answer behind "I don't understand how it works" (26%).
Almost three-quarters of Americans who have heard of pay-as-you-drive insurance learned about it from a television commercial. Millennials were more than twice as likely as their older counterparts to hear about pay-as-you-drive insurance from friends or family.
