Sunday, May 3, 2009

What is Pay as You Drive Insurance

By Tom Martens

Pay As You Drive insurance rates are based on the number of miles you drive. Simply put, the less you drive, the less you pay for auto insurance. Pay As You Drive ties the vehicle owner?s insurance premiums to how much the driver uses the vehicle. The premiums can be specifically tailored to meet a driver?s needs.

Pay As You Drive insurance premiums can be in determined in several ways: within a specific range of miles, by number of miles actually driven in a given time period, or by the number of hours driven in a given time period. Premiums for Pay As You Drive insurance can also be based on just the mileage without a fixed time period.

Since mileage determines the cost of the premiums for Pay As You Drive insurance, this requires that a vehicle?s mileage be monitored. This requires only periodic mileage readings and can be done with certified odometer readings, GPS based monitors, or an upload of the vehicle?s computer data.

Mileage monitoring causes concern in some potential Pay As You Drive customers. Not without reason, some customers worry that the devices used to track distance or time used could also be used to track where the insured motorist drives, violating privacy. However, Pay As You Drive only uses the numbers of miles or hours driven and nothing else. Privacy is simply not an issue with this new form of insurance.

You can benefit several different ways by switching to Pay As You Drive coverage. Your insurance premiums will be based just on your miles driven, not on your age, gender, or where you live. Pay As You Drive gives you a real incentive to drive less. And when you drive fewer miles, not only do you pay less for your insurance, you save on gas and maintenance and the wear and tear on your car. Pay As You Drive plans are good for the environment, because fewer miles driven means less greenhouse gas emissions, and less congestion on the road.

And Pay As You Drive restores fairness to the insurance system. With Pay As You Drive, low-mileage drivers don't have to subsidize high-mileage drivers. Under traditional insurance schemes, drivers pay the same premiums whether they drive 200 miles a year or 200,000. Pay As You Drive is an equitable, fairer way of computing your insurance costs. You only have to pay for what you use in the Pay As You Drive system.

According to a report from the Brookings Institution, two-thirds of U.S. households would save an average of $270 a year on auto insurance under a Pay As You Drive insurance system.

If you are interested in learning more about Pay As You Drive insurance, or to see if it is available in your area, contact a qualified insurance provider. He or she can help you tailor a Pay As You Drive insurance program to fit your specific needs.

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