According to a recent report, the average U.S. driver pays $1,084 for six months of car insurance--up 18% from a year ago, just as gas prices are now hovering around $5 per gallon. That amount could absolutely gut families’ ability to pay for food, shelter, utilities, and other life essentials, let alone vehicle maintenance. Yet the funding formulas, pricing algorithms, and claim-handling metrics by which auto insurance companies calculate their rates and the amounts per individual claim that consumers and insureds will be forced to pay are a mystery.
 
Some auto insurers now offer safe-driving discounts that are dependent upon drivers allowing insurers to install electronic monitoring devices in their vehicles. These monitoring devices measure, evaluate, and judge every perceived movement of drivers’ steering wheels, gas pedals, and brakes in order to calculate individual insurance rates using metrics, algorithms, and formulas that are not divulged to customers. Although participation in these programs is voluntary, the promises of cost savings coupled with the lack of information surrounding the compiling and evaluation of consumers’ driving experience places all Pennsylvania drivers at a distinct disadvantage when evaluating whether to participate in these programs.
 
Without any transparency from insurance companies, there is simply no way for Pennsylvanians to shop around for insurance plans that can best meet their needs and legal requirements at the best possible cost. While insurers claim this information is a trade secret necessary for competitive advantage, risk management, and maintaining stable, long-term solvency, those stated corporate goals should be secondary to the solvency of ordinary Pennsylvanians. Accordingly, I will soon introduce legislation that would require insurance companies to provide to every consumer who participates in a safe driver electronic monitoring program a report that would include a breakdown of the information gathered from the electronic monitoring devices, an explanation of the analysis used to determine the impact of driver actions on their insurance premiums, and how the driver’s actions positively or negatively impacted the cost of their premiums, as well as specific recommendations for how a driver can improve their results and an appeals process for times when the electronic monitoring may register an unsafe driving action but the action was reasonable given the unique conditions of a road that the electronic monitoring may not be able to take into account. I invite you to join me in co-sponsoring this legislation.