Susan Gibbons doesn’t drive much. She works from home. Sometimes she’ll swing by the supermarket or the doctor’s office, but that’s about it.
“All my driving is around my neighborhood,” says Gibbons, 55, of Philadelphia. “A few miles here, a few miles there.”
Being such an infrequent driver, she got tired of spending so much money on auto insurance.
“I was paying State Farm $1,100 a year so I could look at my car in my driveway,” she explains.
She got to thinking: What if, instead of paying a lump sum for car insurance, you could pay by the mile?
After all, the less you drive, the lower your odds of getting in an accident, right?
It made no sense to Gibbons that someone like her, who easily drives less than five miles a day, should pay the same rate as someone who drives 50 miles a day. But the way car insurance works, we all get lumped into the same broad category.
That’s why she Googled “pay-per-mile car insurance.” And that’s how she found Metromile.
Hey, Let’s Disrupt the Auto Insurance Industry’s Business Model!
Metromile is a San Francisco-based startup trying to revolutionize the auto insurance industry. It’s offering low-mileage drivers a unique new option: Pay-as-you-go insurance coverage.
Customers typically pay a flat fee of $35 per month, plus 5 cents per mile — although it varies depending on factors like your location and how long you’ve been driving.
Gibbons figures her car insurance bill has plummeted by $720 a year.
“It’s a huge savings,” she says. “It’s just money that I’m not spending every month. I’m a saver, and any time you can cut a bill, it helps you save.”
A Little Doodad that Plugs Into Your Car
How does Metromile know how many miles you drive?
It tracks your mileage through a device you plug into your car’s diagnostic system. This gizmo transmits your mileage to Metromile via a wireless network.
It’s been compared to Fitbit for your car.
Now, because we’re all flinty independent Americans who are wary of Big Brother, some potential customers might have privacy concerns about this system.
Gibbons isn’t worried about it. It’s not like anyone at Metromile is watching her. She knows the device installed in her 2007 Toyota Corolla simply tracks the number of miles driven for billing purposes.
“I understand that some people would never plug anything into their car to give someone access to their data, but it doesn’t bother me,” she says. “This is the 21st century. The younger generation, they’re all walking around with their location on their phone, and every app knows where they are.”
She’s also discovered side benefits to the device that’s plugged into her Corolla’s diagnostic system: It can connect with the app on her phone to remind her where her car is parked. And when her dashboard’s “check engine” light went on, she got a text message from Metromile telling her why.
A Customized Product, Like Cord-Cutting for Your Car
She used to drive more. But Gibbons, who works in finance for the federal government, can now do most of her work at home. And she lives within walking distance of plenty of shops and restaurants.
Before she switched insurers in 2015, Gibbons had been a State Farm customer since 1985. Yes, 30 years. Three decades.
But State Farm couldn’t give her the kind of discount she was looking for, and that’s what prompted her to look for alternatives.
She’s the kind of customer Metromile is built for — low-mileage drivers like urban dwellers, retirees and those who work from home.
Founded in 2011, the insurer is also betting millennials will be tempted by cheaper, customized car insurance — the same way they’re increasingly cutting the cord, ditching cable subscriptions and a million channels they don’t need.
Metromile’s pay-per-mile car insurance is currently available in California, Illinois, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington. Next, the company plans to expand into Florida, New York and Texas.
“I signed up on the waiting list before it was even available in my state,” says Gibbons, a Pennsylvania resident. “It’s a great deal for me.”
Mike Brassfield (mike@thepennyhoarder.com) is a senior writer at The Penny Hoarder. He’s clearly paying too much for car insurance.
This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, one of the largest personal finance websites. We help millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. In 2016, Inc. 500 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the No. 1 fastest-growing private media company in the U.S.
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