Auto insurers may be spying on your driving through your phone's apps
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- Auto insurers have asked hesitant customers to allow them to track their driving.
- The companies have found a way around that resistance by relying on driving data from other apps.
- Insurance rates, meanwhile, have hit a 50-year high.
Auto insurers have spent years appealing to customers to allow them to track their driving.
While many surveillance-wary customers have declined, insurers found a loophole: Monitor driving using quiet deals with other apps.
Auto insurance companies can then use that data to determine how risky a driver is to the company's bottom line, and how much those drivers should pay for insurance.
In 2024, car insurance rates soared to a 50-year high, surpassing inflation and leading to higher premiums and deductibles, Business Insider previously reported.
In a world where everything from the age of a driver to local climate events can be used to assess insurance rates, it might sound nice to have one's risk assessed on something you can actually control.
But most families don't realize that the phone apps they use in the background — such as Life360, MyRadar, or GasBuddy — are handing their driving data over to insurers, The New York Times reported.
The apps all rely on driving analysis technology operated by Arity, an Allstate company that collects data to form a driving score that can be sold to insurers to "help create future transportation solutions that are smarter and safer," according to Allstate's website, which says Arity has collected "more than a trillion miles of driving data."
The opt-in consent on the apps is small and vague about what information is shared, the Times reported, so many customers had no idea they were sharing driving data with insurers.
"People today are generating massive amounts of data, and we believe this data has significant potential value for businesses across transportation. Consumers stand to gain big too," Arity's website says, adding that customers can have "greater control to receive rates based on how safely they drive."
A spokesperson for Arity did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.