Bicycle Austin forum

damicoaustin

Member

From: Austin, TX

Registered: 2008-05-27

Posts: 143

Website

Pay by the Mile Auto Insurance

This is an interesting concept (pay by the mile auto insurance)

Since I'm actively bike commuting again, I did a quote for 2,000 miles, which I figured would allow for...
1) One 10 mile auto commute to work each week with a an accompanying 10-mile errand.
2) Two 20-mile trips per week
3) One 200 miles trip each month (I go somewhere, like Dallas, about once every two months, so that would work)

It came out at $152/6 months for 2,000 miles, or about $25/month, which is less than the $50 or so I pay on my current policy for my '98 Subaru Outback. Not a huge savings, but not bad.

And for those of you who rarely drive, you can get it down to $76 bucks/6 months for 1,000 miles.

-----

We are going to announce the launch of its business which offers to reward drivers who drive less.  I thought you might be interested in hearing about this because of your involvement with the Austin bike community.  Austin specifically is full of bike commuters, some who own cars and some who don't, so this type of insurance that benefits those who drive less is really exciting.  Bicycle enthusiasts all over the US are talking about MileMeter - read this blog post from Bike Portland if you have a minute:  http://bikeportland.org/2008/10/21/pay- … -in-texas/. 

To give you some more background, this is the first time Texas consumers are being offered a real choice in the purchasing alternatives for their automobile insurance product. The Texas legislature passed legislation enabling by-the-mile insurance in 2001 in the form of H.B. 45 and S.B. 14, but no conventional auto insurance companies have chosen to offer this industry-changing type of insurance, because of its low cost. 

MileMeter is the first, true, pay-by-the-mile automobile insurance company in the U.S. and the first such company licensed in Texas.  MileMeter is targeted at individuals who carpool, work from home, take public transit, own one or more cars that might just sit in the garage, or those who are just trying to be environmentally conscious.  This type of by-the-mile insurance promotes driving less and thus benefits the environment.

Check out www.milemeter.com. (Although a new, more informative Web site will launch before the announcement event.)  For individuals who drive less than 12,000 miles a year there is typically a 10-40% cost savings over traditional auto insurance.

It is very exciting to make this statewide and national announcement for MileMeter.  We believe one of the most effective marketing and sales tools are great customer service, fair pricing for the miles you drive, and an exciting word of mouth grass roots campaign.

Shelby

Shelby Tuttle
C. Pharr & Company

dougmc

Administrator

Registered: 2008-06-01

Posts: 631

Re: Pay by the Mile Auto Insurance

I put my figures into it, and it looks like it breaks even with my USAA insurance at about 3000 miles/year for similar coverage -- for fewer miles than that, it costs less, and for more miles it costs more.

Looks like I won't be switching quite yet ...