US Car Insurance Folks...how is this legal

Looking for the place that doesn’t have its above-average share of idiots.
I think they’re all above average!!

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Nissan’s new privacy is we will inform anyone and everyone if any of the following happen:

You are a rogue driving a Rogue
You are a morano driving a Murano
You puke in your Juke
You have sexima in your Maxima
You catch any z’s in your Z
You perform path finding in your Pathfinder
You use your Armada in an armada

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As long as they’re not reporting on my Pathfinder games.

My sex life, DNA, medical history, take it. Just don’t look at my tabletop games, or the number of Google searches like “Dirty bomb how to create tutorial D&D 5e” or “what temperature to completely incinerate human bone D&D 5e” or “how long for human to die in total vacuum D&D 5e”

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I mean, do you get some free hard brakes before it starts counting against you? I think I only had the one. Won’t take the highway after a certain time bc there’s too much merging near my exit that I can’t avoid and it’s bad for my blood pressure. Probably also bad for my hard braking stats.

I assume depends entirely on the company. Some companies give you 1 free accident, perhaps only up to a limit of loss. I’d bet some companies rate on a continuous scale and others have buckets for 0-4, 5-10, etc.

I’ve started tracking my own driving habits through an app to see if I should switch to a usage-based policy, and I was surprised to see how often I was hard braking. It was happening most trips, but none of them were significant or memorable. So I guess my definition of hard braking doesn’t align with theirs.

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This.
I would consider “hard-braking” the kind that auto-stiffens my shoulder belt or enables the ABS.

I’d still like to see the data showing that people who hard-brake are due for an accident. Someone obviously has that data, else they would not be able to justify it in rating (unless justification is not required, just feels).

I mean, I’m guessing I hard-brake more than average in my 21-year-old car, and I have not been in a single accident in that car (or any other for that matter) in all that time. (So, I’m really due.) I chalk this up to big brakes, less than 3000 pounds for them to stop, and the anti-lock system works great. I do have a tendency to look pretty far ahead when I can, in order to anticipate things.

Probability waves, amirite?

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That’s going to suck for the kid that runs out on the road if someone has already reached their hard braking limit.

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Or the cat :scream_cat:

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Oh, and my app thinks that the exit ramp I have to take every day to get to work is a “sharp turn” so I get dinged for that every time!

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You are supposed to take it on 4 wheels. Doing it on 2 is a bit much

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https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/14/technology/gm-lexis-nexis-driving-data.html

Paywalled.

Is this an #ohnoconsequences situation?

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I am not a NYT subscriber so I thought it might be available to others. Maybe you used up your free views?

Dude claims he never consented to data sharing of his vehicle usage. He alleges he got 7 rejections from insirance companies, and when he got a quote it was nearly double. He is pushing for the parties to prove he consented.

Don’t click this link:
https://pdf.fivefilters.org/makepdf.php?v=2.6&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F03%2F14%2Ftechnology%2Fgm-lexis-nexis-driving-data.html&api_key=&mode=multi-story&output=pdf&template=A4&images=1&date=1&sub=&title=Your+Personal+Newspaper&order=desc&date_start=&submit=Create

don't read the text within here

Your Personal Newspaper15 March, 2024 | created using PDF Newspaper from FiveFilters.org
Florida Man Sues G.M. and
LexisNexis Over Sale of His
Cadillac Data
Mar 14, 2024 10:51PM
When Romeo Chicco tried to get auto insurance in December,
seven different companies rejected him. When he eventually
obtained insurance, it was nearly double the rate he was
previously paying. According to a federal complaint filed this week
seeking class-action status, it was because his 2021 Cadillac XT6
had been spying on him.
Modern cars have been called “smartphones with wheels,”
because they are connected to the internet and packed with
sensors and cameras. According to the complaint, an agent at
Liberty Mutual told Mr. Chicco that he had been rejected because
of information in his “LexisNexis report.” LexisNexis Risk
Solutions, a data broker, has traditionally kept tabs for insurers on
drivers’ moving violations, prior insurance coverage and accidents.
When Mr. Chicco requested his LexisNexis file, it contained details
about 258 trips he had taken in his Cadillac over the past six
months. His file included the distance he had driven, when the
trips started and ended, and an accounting of any speeding and
hard braking or accelerating. The data had been provided by
General Motors — the manufacturer of his Cadillac.
In a complaint against General Motors and LexisNexis Risk
Solutions filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District
of Florida, Mr. Chicco accused the companies of violation of
privacy and consumer protection laws. The lawsuit follows a report
by The New York Times that, unknown to consumers, automakers
have been sharing information on their driving behavior with the
insurance industry, resulting in increased insurance rates for some
drivers. LexisNexis Risk Solutions, and another data broker called
Verisk, claim to have real-world driving behavior from millions of
cars.
In his complaint, Mr. Chicco said he called G.M. and LexisNexis
repeatedly to ask why his data had been collected without his
consent. He was eventually told that his data had been sent via
OnStar — G.M.’s connected services company, which is also
named in the suit — and that he had enrolled in OnStar’s Smart
Driver program, a feature for getting driver feedback and digital
badges for good driving.
Mr. Chicco said that he had not signed up for OnStar or Smart
Driver, though he had downloaded MyCadillac, an app from
General Motors, for his car.
“What no one can tell me is how I enrolled in it,” Mr. Chicco told
The Times in an interview this month. “You can tell me how many
times I hard-accelerated on Jan. 30 between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m., but
you can’t tell me how I enrolled in this?”
A spokeswoman for G.M., Malorie Lucich, previously said that
customers enrolled for SmartDriver in their connected car app or
at the dealership, and that a clause in the OnStar privacy
statement explained that their data could be shared with “third
parties.” Asked about the lawsuit, she said by email that the
company was “reviewing the complaint,” and had no comment,
pointing instead to a statement the company previously gave about
OnStar Smart Driver.
“G.M.’s OnStar Smart Driver service is optional to customers,” the
statement said. “Customer benefits include learning more about
their safe driving behaviors or vehicle performance that, with their
consent, may be used to obtain insurance quotes. Customers can
also unenroll from Smart Driver at any time.”
LexisNexis Risk Solutions, which previously said it analyzed the
sort of driving data that Mr. Chicco found in his file to create a risk
score that it then sold to insurers, declined to comment.
“I would never have given permission for this data to go out
there,” Mr. Chicco previously said. Reached after the lawsuit was
filed, he said he had no comment.
David Vladeck, a Georgetown law professor who previously ran the
bureau for consumer protection at the Federal Trade Commission,
said that the driving data companies were collecting was
considered very sensitive, meaning there should be “clear notice”
to consumers and explicit consent for its collection and sale.
Mr. Vladeck said he would expect an investigation by the F.T.C., as
well as lawsuits by consumers against the automakers and data
brokers.
“Just wait for the avalanche,” he said. “It’s coming.”

This guy must be a truly terrible driver.

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Kinda makes me glad that I didn’t sign up for the State Farm tracking thing a while ago. It wouldn’t have saved me much anyway.

Maybe not any more. I wonder if the insurance that he eventually got required him to use telematics.

Here’s the lawsuit:
6c03d310-full.pdf (4.3 MB)

Gist is that the dude says he never signed up for OnStar (and thus never consented to data sharing). When his prior insurer withdrew from the state, he went shopping and the telematics data was passed along as carriers pulled CLUE reports, causing him to be rejected.

It’s been many years since I worked with personal auto in the US, but I am aware that Florida is a tough market right now, and personal auto has been ugly in the US, with carriers tightening underwriting restrictions and hiking rates. So, the number of rejections and the doubling of rates aren’t necessarily entirely caused by the telematics information.

But would a jury appreciate that rebuttal to his situation? Probably not. Insurers are evil, after all…especially in the minds of people from South Florida.

If OnStar has been sharing data without consent, even the “click through” / boilerplate agreements that everyone ignores…it’s a legitimate complaint, and the potential backlash would be NASTY.

Absolute worst case, CLUE reports go away, and auto insurance rates start to reflect insurers’ resulting inability to underwrite.

A more likely outcome is that legislators step in to prohibit sharing of telematics data for insurance pricing/underwriting outside the sandbox of people participating in telematics programs.

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