Car insurance premiums have less to do with your driving and more to do with gender, age, if you are married, the garaged address, and type of car.

GPS based discounts are becoming more popular for good reasons. Insurance carriers offer discounts. Progressive’s system called Snapshot, is in 37 states. With Snapshot, you plug a palm-size tool into the diagnostic port in your car and it pulls data from the car’s computer and sends it to Progressive over a cell signal. The tool tracks the time of driving, mileage, and hard acceleration and hard braking. After 30 days, you can earn a safe driving discount; after 6 months, you send the tool back and save up to 30%. There’s no cost for the hardware, and (supposedly) Progressive won’t raise your rates if it turns out you are hell on wheels.

Allstate offers Drive Wise in Arizona, Illinois and Ohio. The tool collects similar data as Snapshot, and the number of times you exceed 80mph. Allstate will give you a 10% for installing Drivewise, and 30% on your renewal.

Allstate charges $10 to get started in Drivewise, but need to keep it installed to keep the discount every policy renewal. Neither Progressive nor Allstate tracks GPS location info, so your travels stay private.

General Motors’ OnStar system offers discounts to low-mileage drivers. OnStar is free for the first year for new GM vehicles; subscriptions cost $19 to $29 per month.

State Farm’s Drive Safe & Save program is being offered in California, Colorado, Illinois, Ohio and Texas. They also use OnStar. You get a 5% discount for signing up and after 30 days the discount can go up to 44% based on mileage. The discount is recalculated with each policy renewal, so you have to keep the onstar subscription.

GMAC Insurance offers customers in 35 states and averages an 8% discount only for having an active OnStar subscription. You have to enroll in OnStar and drive under 15,000 miles per year, to get at least a 13% discount. If you drive under 2,500 miles per year, the discount could be as large as 54%.

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Filed under: Allstate • California-pay-per-mile • GMAC • Milemeter • Progressive Insurance • State Farm

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