Becky Yerak reports:
Slamming on the brakes? Doing 100 mph on the highway? Maybe you won’t — if your car insurance company is watching you.
Allstate Corp. has launched a voluntary program that uses a device installed in a car to reward safe and low-mileage Illinois drivers with savings of up to 30 percent. The Northbrook-based auto insurer plans to expand the program, called Drive Wise, to other states as early as the second quarter of 2011.
[…]
For consumers concerned about Big Brother, Allstate said the device tracks only factors used to calculate a driving score, including mileage, hard or extreme braking, and maximum speed. Speeds of more than 80 mph hurt the score.
Read more in the Chicago Tribune.
Other companies are also starting to take this approach, but of course, it raises a lot of privacy concerns about who will have access to data, how else it might be used, etc. Read the whole article, particularly if you are thinking of signing up for this type of offer.