What if your car insurance company told you that you could get a discount of up to 25% on your next policy if you proved that you were a safe driver? It would seem obvious, wouldn't it? Isn't that what a no-claims bonus is all about, after all? Well, you can try again, because with the new "autograph" device, you will be able to get up to a 25% discount on your car insurance policy in the future.
What is an autobiography?
Basically, a "autograph" is a device that you ask a mechanic to plug into your car's diagnostic system (which can be found underneath your steering wheel). The signature will then keep track of all of your driving skills, including how fast you drive, your average speed, how often you have to brake suddenly (and if you do, how often), when you like to be on the roads, your average mileage, and your longest and shortest trips. In fact, the list could go on and on. After a certain amount of time, say three or six months, you go back to the garage where the autograph was put on and they take it off and put a new one on. The old signature is then plugged into a computer, and all the requested information is sent to your car insurance company. Your car insurance company can then look at all of this information and make a more accurate decision about whether you are a high-risk or low-risk driver.
What's good about the autograph?
If you are a good driver, it is easy to see why you should agree to use an autograph. After all, written data rarely lies. The bad thing about using an autograph is that it keeps track of the information it gets in the car. This has two effects: first, you need a car that can record this data (so it can't be too old), and second, the data collection can't tell which driver did what. So, if you have more than one person driving a car in your house, the autograph won't be able to tell who is driving the car at any given time. So, if your son or daughter is on your car insurance and they say they like to drive at 50 miles per hour, but their signature says they like to drive at 120 miles per hour, you probably won't get the 25 percent discount on your policy premium you were hoping for.
Overall, though, like pay-per-mile car insurance, using an autograph device to get cheap car insurance is the way of the future, but it's here to stay and will probably help far more drivers than it hurts.
