Progressive Insurance Snapshot program may make it easier to lower auto premiums

The insurer is temporarily tweaking the rules of its UBI to better serve policyholders during the pandemic.

The Progressive Insurance Snapshot program is being temporarily altered as a part of a strategy to make it easier to reduce a customer’s premiums throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

This usage based insurance program was designed to help good driving habits to be reflected in premiums.

The Progressive Insurance Snapshot program uses either a mobile app or a device installed in the vehicle to track a policyholder’s driving behaviors. It detects occurrences such as hard braking, rapid acceleration, time of day that the vehicle is used, and the number of miles driven. Customers using the mobile app will also have their phone usage measured while they are operating a vehicle.

Following the completion of a measurement period, the driver receives a driving score. If that score reflects safe driving habits, the driver may be eligible for a discount on auto insurance premiums. That review period usually lasts at least 75 days. However, Progressive has announced its intention to reduce that period to 30 days for a rate recalculation. Customers can choose whether they would like to keep the standard measurement period or switch to the shorter period.

The new Progressive Insurance Snapshot rate will be applied if the customer is satisfied with it.

The new rate will be applied immediately so that the driver is not required to wait until the next policy renewal date in order to benefit from a rate reduction.

Customers who have already completed their initial review period will also be provided with the opportunity to choose to be re-monitored in an attempt to earn an improved rate based on a safer driving score. That said, if the score isn’t as good as it was initially, drivers do risk losing the depth of their initial discount.

According to filings made with state insurance departments, the reason the insurer is seeking to make these changes to its Progressive Insurance Snapshot score measurement period is meant to be a better reflection of an individual customer’s changing driving habits throughout the pandemic. The filings called adjusting the measurement periods “a highly manual process and will require specially trained customer service representatives to operate effectively and efficiently.”