Usage based insurance can be a great way to save money on your car insurance. Many insurance companies, including Plymouth Rock, offer a usage based insurance program that promotes safe driving and rewards safe drivers with savings. Here’s how usage based insurance works, the advantages it provides and how you can make the most of it.
What is usage based insurance?
Usage based insurance, or UBI, provides you with a personalized insurance rate based on your actual driving habits. Traditionally, insurance companies use a variety of factors about you and your car to evaluate the risk of insuring you. Factors like your age, the type of car you drive and your driving history affect how much you pay for insurance.
Under traditional insurance, your rate is based on the historical data of people like you. While you can control some of these factors, factors like your age or where you live aren’t always up to you. With usage based insurance, your insurance company can better rate you based on how you drive, rather than how people with similar demographics as you drive.
At Plymouth Rock, we believe safe drivers should save money. That’s why we designed our usage based insurance program YUBI® to help improve your driving skills and reward you with savings for safe driving.
YUBI stands for Your Usage-Based Insurance. It’s our proprietary telematics program that gathers information about your driving habits to help you become a smarter, safer driver.
How does usage based insurance work?
Typically, your insurance company will provide either a plug-in device for your car or a mobile app to track your driving. Plymouth Rock’s YUBI program is a mobile app that uses the GPS in your compatible mobile device*.
When activated, the YUBI app will monitor how smoothly you drive, your speed, total miles driven, mobile phone use, time of day and driving fatigue. Good drivers will receive a lower rate or discount**, while poor drivers may see increases in their premiums. Give us a call for more details on YUBI and how you can save money on car insurance.
- Smooth driving
- Speed
- Total miles driven
- Mobile phone use
- Time of day
- Fatigue
Trip details are provided after each drive, along with a score based on your driving performance. YUBI provides valuable feedback to help improve your safe driving skills.
Advantages of usage based insurance
Usage based insurance offers drivers a lot of advantages, from developing better driving habits to saving money on car insurance.
Encourage safe driving
A key benefit of usage based insurance is that it promotes safe and aware driving. UBI programs will typically monitor how you drive, rewarding you for smooth driving and other good habits.
Our YUBI program provides feedback on your driving after each trip, so you can improve the more you drive. When you’re more aware of how you drive, you’ll be safer on the road.
Enhanced transparency
With usage based insurance, you and your insurance company can understand each other more clearly. You get insight into how you’re rated and have more control over how your rate is determined. Your insurance company can price your insurance based on how you drive, not how others with similar demographics drive. UBI systems are fairer for both you and your insurance company.
Help with accidents and crashes
Without evidence, it can be tricky to establish the facts about a crash. Data gathered with UBI can provide valuable insight for your claims adjuster. This information may resolve claims more quickly and fairly, which benefits everyone.
Save money
The most important advantage of usage based insurance is that you can save money! By pricing insurance based on how you drive, you can save money on your car insurance if you drive more safely than others like you.
While safe drivers save money, the opposite is also true. A possible disadvantage to UBI arises if you drive unsafely – you can expect to pay more if you often brake and accelerate hard, or if you often speed.
How to make the most of usage based insurance
With usage based insurance, you have more control over your car insurance rate than with traditional car insurance. Here’s how to make the most of it and maximize your savings.
Know how you’re scored
UBI uses a variety of factors to determine how safely you drive. Plymouth Rock’s YUBI program assesses your driving based on six key factors: smooth driving, your speed, total miles driven, mobile phone use, time of day and fatigue. It’s important to understand how these factors are scored and how to improve them.
Smooth driving is determined by how hard you accelerate or brake. Avoid slamming on the accelerator unnecessarily and avoid hard braking by leaving plenty of following distance to allow more space to slow down. You can also improve your score by driving within the speed limit and avoiding unnecessary trips, especially at night.
While activated, the YUBI app tracks mobile phone use while driving. Keep your phone stowed away so it does not pose a distraction while driving.
Log your trips
Most usage based insurance programs, including YUBI, assess your overall driving habits over time. By remembering to log all of your trips, you can better demonstrate how safely you drive.
With YUBI, there is a minimum amount of trips you must log in each assessment period. In some cases, all drivers on your policy must log a certain amount of trips to maintain your rate or savings at renewal.
Conclusion: Advantages of Usage Based Insurance
Usage based insurance provides a more personalized and fair approach to car insurance for both drivers and the insurer. This allows insurance companies to provide you with pricing based on your actual driving. It helps you develop better driving habits, all while potentially saving you money on car insurance.
If you know you’re a safe driver, you can prove it and save with usage based insurance.
Now let’s talk about you
Do you have the right coverage for your vehicle? We’d love to chat with you about it. Call us at 800-516-9242 or speak to a local agent.
If you’d rather not talk, you can get a quote quickly and easily online. Just enter your ZIP code to get started and see how much you could save!
*A compatible mobile device (iPhone or Android running the current or previous 2 operating systems, along with GPS and accelerometer capabilities) is required.
**At new business, any applicable participation discount is applied for each participating driver on standard coverages excluding expense fees. At renewal, each participating driver’s discount may increase or decrease based on their driving habits, and may include a surcharge of up to 31% for a small percentage of participating drivers.
