Drivers of cars manufactured by General Motors, Ford, Honda and other popular brands say that their insurance rates went up after the companies sent data about their driving behavior to issuers without their knowledge.
Kenn Dahl, 65, is a Seattle-area businessman who told The New York Times that his car insurance costs soared by 21% in 2022 after GM’s OnStar Smart Driver computerized system installed in his Chevy Bolt collected information about the particulars of his driving habits.
Dahl said that his insurance agent told him the price increase was based on data collected by LexisNexis, which compiled a report tracking each and every time he and his wife drove their Chevy Bolt over a six-month period.
According to Dahl, the 258-page report contained information about the start and end times of his trips, distance driven and other data detailing possible instances of speeding, hard braking and sharp accelerations.
The report contained information about one particular trip in June which lasted 18 minutes and spanned 7.33 miles
During that same trip, the LexisNexis report recorded two instances of rapid acceleration and two incidents of hard braking.
he LexisNexis report indicated that the details it had cobbled together were gleaned from the OnStar Smart Driver, the GM-owned subscription service that records driver information such as total miles driven, hard braking incident and other aspects of driver behavior.
According to its web site, OnStar Smart Driver “provides driving insights on how you can become a smarter, safer driver” while enabling users to “earn badges by completing challenges, build on streaks specific to different driving habits and view all your data in an intuitive dashboard.”
“It felt like a betrayal,” Dahl said. “They’re taking information that I didn’t realize was going to be shared and screwing with our insurance.”
Read the full story at the New York Post.
