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The Marketplace Reader

Slow down, your auto-insurer is watching

Richard Core Jul 28, 2008

Would you be willing to have your auto-insurance company install a monitoring device in your car, on the chance that you could get lower rates? If so, the Associated Press reports, here’s your opportunity:

Auto insurer Progressive Corp. has begun offering its drivers the chance to cut their costs based on how they actually drive, not only on their age, credit score and number of tickets or accidents on their record.

The monitoring device _ sort of like a black box for cars _ tells Progressive what time people drive, how many miles they’ve driven, how fast they accelerate and how often they hit the brakes. It does not track where people go.

Progressive is now offering the program in Alabama, Minnesota, Oregon and Michigan, and it starts in New Jersey next week, with a national roll-out planned to go through 2009.

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