Filed under: Transportation

Progressive insurance has been testing out the MyRate driving monitoring system for a few years now (it used to be called TripSense), but it’s finally taking the system national, bringing pay-as-you-drive insurance into the mainstream. The little blue box plugs into your car’s ODB II diagnostic port (all automobiles made after 1996 have one), and studiously records your driving habits, wirelessly sending the data back to Progressive HQ (it’s not clear exactly how). Each six months, Progressive will crunch the numbers and issue a new rate for you based on how you drive — savings of up to 40 percent are possible. That’s pretty tempting, depending on your current rates and driving habits, but we’re not so sure we’re willing to share that much data for an unspecified discount — especially since we’re confident the MyRate box will get cracked nearly immediately.

[Thanks, Mike; image courtesy of Aaron Landry]

- MyRate press release
- MyRate video
- How MyRate works

Popularity: 4% [?]