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GM to leverage driver data as it jumps back into the insurance business – TechCrunch:
General Motors is launching an insurance service, returning to a business that it abandoned more than a decade ago, but this time more in step with the connected-car era.
The service, called OnStar Insurance, will offer bundled auto, home and renters' insurance, starting this year with GM employees in Arizona. GM's new insurance agency, OnStar Insurance Services, will be the exclusive agent for OnStar Insurance. Homesite Insurance Group, an affiliate of American Family Insurance, will underwrite the program.
The services will be available to the public nationwide by the end of 2022, including people who drive vehicles outside of GM's portfolio of Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC branded cars, trucks and SUVs. The aim, however, is to leverage the vast amounts of data captured through its OnStar connected car service, which today has more than 16 million members in the United States.
GM's pitch is that this data can be an asset to drivers and help them cash in on lower insurance rates based on safe driving habits.
"Our goal is really to create greater transparency and greater control for our customers in influencing what they pay for insurance and their total cost of ownership on the vehicles," Russell Page, GM's head of business intelligence said in a recent interview.
The data play is substantial. The company has logged more than 121 million GB of data usage across the Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, and GMC brands since the launch of 4G LTE in 2014.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by ElizabethGreene on Thursday November 19 2020, @09:58PM (1 child)
My first thought on this, based on my experience with GM's issues with their 2.4L 4-cylinders, is that GM should focus on making reliable cars before they expand into new businesses.
My second thought is that GMAC is what killed GM in the financial crisis, and insurance is indistinguishable at most distances from a financial product.
Last but not least, how many of those GM consumers knew they were shitting back petabytes of probably-not-anonymized data to GM?
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Thursday November 19 2020, @10:53PM
I'm pretty sure those consumers are paying for the privilege to send GM that data. It's part of the OnStar service, which can't try to reach you in case of an emergency if they aren't constantly monitoring whether you're in an emergency.
I'd wager that in this day and age where we all have cell phones for emergencies and are increasingly aware about data privacy, the number of active OnStar subscriptions is a reasonable measure of how many Americans really just trust the system to keep them safe. Apparently still it isn't zero yet.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?