I first learned of this company after reading an article that appeared in the Money section of CNN.com about a year ago (2009). It spoke of a Texas company called Milemeter.com that was offering car insurance by the mile. After doing more research, I found out just how lucky we Texans are. You see, Milemeter currently only does business in Texas. Additionally, they are first insurance company in the United States to offer such a product.
This PAYD (pay as you drive) type of Insurance was only made possible by the passage in the Texas Legislature of House Bill 45 in 2001 which allowed for its creation. The entire premise behind the bill was that it would encourage people to drive less. Basically, people who drove less could now "reward" themselves for their good environmental behavior by purchasing cents-per-mile policies (versus the traditional and more expensive dollars-per-year type policies).
Now, before you get too excited, know that this type of insurance is typically NOT a good deal for anyone that drives a car regularly. That being said, its absolutely GREAT for those that have cars they don't drive much (examples: retirees, two person households with three cars, people with "garage queens", etc etc). For example, I own a seldom driven 2007 350Z that mostly just sits in the garage. When I switched this vehicle over to MileMeter.com, my 6-month insurance rate dropped from $350 to $115! This was not some barebones policy either... this was for the EXACT same coverage as I had before.
Before I learned of MileMeter I'd typically have a yearly discussion with my agent what went something like this...
Me: "What I don't understand Mr Agent is why I'm not getting a bigger discount for insuring three cars with you guys. We are a two person household, we can't drive more than two cars at a time and one of the cars is always in the garage."
Typical response: "You're already getting a multicar discount. That's the best we can do".
Don't you think it's a bit funny how your current auto insurance company doesn't offer this product? They could if they wanted to. But you see, that's just it, they don't want to. This PAYD type of insurance is a potential profit margin killer to the big guys. They don't want to offer it and they don't want you to know about it. Well, now you know about it! :) FYI: We now let our traditional agent insure two of our cars, the third is now with Milemeter.com.
HOW TO SIGN UP AND/OR GET A QUOTE:
http://www.milemeter.com/
This PAYD (pay as you drive) type of Insurance was only made possible by the passage in the Texas Legislature of House Bill 45 in 2001 which allowed for its creation. The entire premise behind the bill was that it would encourage people to drive less. Basically, people who drove less could now "reward" themselves for their good environmental behavior by purchasing cents-per-mile policies (versus the traditional and more expensive dollars-per-year type policies).
Now, before you get too excited, know that this type of insurance is typically NOT a good deal for anyone that drives a car regularly. That being said, its absolutely GREAT for those that have cars they don't drive much (examples: retirees, two person households with three cars, people with "garage queens", etc etc). For example, I own a seldom driven 2007 350Z that mostly just sits in the garage. When I switched this vehicle over to MileMeter.com, my 6-month insurance rate dropped from $350 to $115! This was not some barebones policy either... this was for the EXACT same coverage as I had before.
Before I learned of MileMeter I'd typically have a yearly discussion with my agent what went something like this...
Me: "What I don't understand Mr Agent is why I'm not getting a bigger discount for insuring three cars with you guys. We are a two person household, we can't drive more than two cars at a time and one of the cars is always in the garage."
Typical response: "You're already getting a multicar discount. That's the best we can do".
Don't you think it's a bit funny how your current auto insurance company doesn't offer this product? They could if they wanted to. But you see, that's just it, they don't want to. This PAYD type of insurance is a potential profit margin killer to the big guys. They don't want to offer it and they don't want you to know about it. Well, now you know about it! :) FYI: We now let our traditional agent insure two of our cars, the third is now with Milemeter.com.
HOW TO SIGN UP AND/OR GET A QUOTE:
http://www.milemeter.com/
