Carmakers sell your driving data, affecting insurance premiums, finds report

Auto giants including GM, Honda, Kia and Hyundai are sharing their customers’ driving behavior with data brokers, who in turn provide it to insurance companies, affecting drivers’ premiums, found a New York Times investigation.

One GM Chevy Bolt driver experienced a 21% increase in his car insurance premium at age 65, despite having no accidents. Another Cadillac driver noticed a doubling in insurance premiums after being enrolled in GM’s Smart Driver feature without his knowledge.

Smart Driver tracks hard braking, hard accelerating, speeding and drive time, and shares it with data brokers LexisNexis and Verisk. They then provided this data to insurers who use it to create risk scores—hiking up premiums.

As of 2022, LexisNexis has “real-world driving behavior” from more than “10 million vehicles,” according to its news release.

The justification
Automakers justify their in-car programs as promoting safer driving.

However, critics argue that internet-connected car buyers are often unaware that driving data sharing with third-party data brokers might impact their car insurance premiums.

The data sharing has also raised privacy concerns, prompting investigations by California’s privacy regulator and calls for action from policymakers like Senator Edward Markey.