State Farm has a brand new program called Drive Safe & Save. Those who use this program have the potential to save money on their car insurance premiums, based on how many, or how few, miles they drive. In order to take part in this program you either need to get OnStar, or you need to self report how many miles you drive.
State Farm isn’t the first insurance company to offer what is essentially a “pay as you go” type of program. Progressive has a program called Snapshot which is available for consumers in most, if not all, states. They have been working on making this a nationwide program. In order to take part in Progressive’s Snapshot program, you need to have a little device, called a Snapshot, plugged into the on-board diagnostic port in your vehicle. The device collects certain kinds of data, which will be evaluated by the Progressive insurance company, in order for them to determine if you qualify for a discount on your car insurance premiums.
The Drive Safe & Save program from State Farm insurance is only available in a few states right now: California, Illinois, Ohio, and Texas. This program is designed as a way for people to save money on their car insurance premiums. The less miles you drive, the more money you save.
In order to take advantage of this program, you need to do one of two things that will enable State Farm to know, for certain, exactly how many miles you actually drive. One choice is called the “OnStar Option”. In order to do this, your vehicle has to be one that is equipped with OnStar. If you have it, then you need to authorize OnStar to provide State Farm with odometer readings from your vehicle. OnStar will take it from there, as far as reporting things to State Farm.
There are two more requirements if you choose to do the OnStar Option. You must have an active OnStar subscriptions on a “qualifying vehicle”. This means vehicles that were made in 2004 or later. It also means your vehicle must be a Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, Hummer, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Saab, or Saturn. You also must be enrolled in the OnStar Vehicle Diagnostics Program. You must have a valid email address in order to enroll in that program.
If your vehicle isn’t one that comes with OnStar, there is a second choice. You can use the “Self-Report Option”. With this option, you report your odometer readings from your vehicle to State Farm yourself, prior to each six-month policy renewal. State Farm will send you a reminder when you need to report to them.
When you start the Drive Safe & Save program, you will get a 5% initial participation savings on your car insurance premiums. This specifically is for your premiums related to bodily injury, property damage liability, uninsured motor vehicle, medical payments, comprehensive, and collision coverages. In general if you drive 500 miles or less, you can save $405 annually. The more you drive, the less of a savings you can get from this program.
Image by Lin Mei on Flickr