I’m a pretty simple guy. My car is over 10 years old and last year I hardly drove at all. Mostly because of the lockdown.
Prior to the Covid lockdowns, I would drive little compared to most people where I live. Most drive 10,000 – 20,000 miles per year. I usually drive much less than 10,000. I’ve driven about 6,800 miles per year on average in that car.
Recently I decided to switch car insurance and I decided to give this pay-per-mile insurance thing a try. I had heard about “pay per mile” insurance here and there but didn’t know much about it. I remember telling my friend about it a couple of years back when she decided to sell her car, and now she and her husband share just one car.
I thought it could save them money if they didn’t drive as much. I never checked with them to ask if they ended up trying it or not. Then I forgot about it until now.
As soon as I started searching for pay-per-mile insurance I found Metromile, they are the biggest company of this type. I used their website to get a quick quote and about 15 minutes later I had signed up for new insurance.
If you don’t want to sign up right away, they have a trial program called Ride Along where you can try out their service for two weeks.
Overall, I like the service so far. I’ve only been using them for a month, but If my driving patterns remain as they have been, chances are I will be very happy with them in the long term. Or rather, my wallet will.
By the way, this is not a sponsored post; it may sound like it but it isn't. I'm not an affiliate for them either, and unfortunately, it seems that they don't even have an active affiliate program. Their referal program is silly right now, but we won't get into that for now. 🤷♂️
Metromile is an online car insurance company. If you’re in the U.S., and you want to drive on public roads, you must have car insurance.
You’ve seen commercials with an animated gecko requesting 15 minutes of your time. Or you might remember President David Palmer trying to sell you insurance, reassuring you that you’re in good hands.
Well, that’s the same thing Metromile does, but in a slightly different way. They do it, the 21st century way.
Metromile is different from traditional car insurance in a few ways that I can tell right away. There are no third-party insurance agents or insurance brokers, you do everything online, directly on their website, and the most interesting part for me was that your bill is based on miles driven.
Mark Cuban is an investor, and they are one of those industry disruptors. They have their own insurance carrier. At first, when they started, I believe they had partnerships with existing insurance companies, but in 2016 they acquired a small insurance company so they could underwrite their own policies and process their own claims.
They believe that most people drive a lot less miles than they actually pay for. They claim that this group of drivers would save money if they paid per mile driven instead of a yearly or biyearly set price.
So how do they charge you per mile? That was my first question too, so here is how they explain it, better than me rambling on about it.
You'll pay your base rate to sign up. Then, at the end of your first month, you'll be charged for your mileage from that first month and a base rate for the upcoming second month. The same thing happens the next month: you'll pay a base rate to cover the next month and a per-mile charge for the miles driven in the previous month.
source: metromile.com
So after I signed up, they sent me a device that plugs into the ODBII port of the car. This is how they track the mileage accurately. Unfortunately, and this is the only downside I’ve found so far, is that it’s also a GPS tracker. This is how they track your actual miles driven.
They know where your vehicle is at any given time, and they can also track your speed and general driving behavior. An actuary’s dream.
From a privacy perspective, it feels a little intrusive, but then, if you think about it, our phones are tracking us 24/7 and in some ways we can’t even opt-out of some of that tracking without turning off our phones. This “intrusion” in this case, seems more justified and reasonable.
One of the downsides of Metromile is that they know where your car is at every given moment, they know your speed when you’re driving and where you go Friday mornings. One of the best things about Metromile is that they know where your car is at every given moment, they know your speed when you’re driving and where you go Friday mornings. Think about it, it really is a double-edged sword.
But I’m going with it for now. And I like the detail I can see in my dashboard. Remember, my car is 14 years old! so I don’t have any fancy on-board computer systems.
Metromile It really is an excellent service. Hassle-free, easy to sign up. Easy to get started and although at first, I found it a little concerning that they would know my driving behavior and where my car is at all times, I’m okay with that now.
The more I think about it, the more I wish they had an affiliate program. It would be a great way to make money by saving you some money.
I still have to wait a little bit longer to see if I will really save money. I’m thinking that I’ll need 3-6 months to get a more accurate assessment in that regard. Right now, it seems that I will end up saving money.
Maybe you want to check it out as well. Head over to metromile.com to check it out.
