Tesla Insurance uses the Safety Score tool to analyze real-time driving behaviour to determine your monthly premium, that is except if you live in California.
Due to California’s Department of Insurance, insurers are not allowed to use any actual usage information in pricing their policies, with the exception of the number of miles driven.
Despite this, Tesla has now added the Safety Score tool for their insurance customers in California, but only for “educational purposes.”
According to a screenshot of the new prompt in the mobile app shared on Reddit, the tool does not affect your premium.
Customers have the option to add the tool, and can opt-out at any time.
Canadians that have been subject to the Safety Score tool for the past month in an attempt to get FSD Beta will wonder why anyone would voluntarily want to add it, but it could provide some benefits.
One is that (for now) it has no impact on Californians insurance premiums. This could be a good way for those customers to test out the tool to see how their driving style impacts their Safety Score, which would in turn impact their premium.
It could also be that Tesla is doing this as a case study to see how driver behaviour is impacted when customers know there is no impact on their premiums.
They could then use this data to show insurance regulators in the state that even with no incentive, drivers still change their behaviour for the better when they know it is being monitored.
If you don’t live in California, or are not a Tesla Insurance customer in the state, you could soon have the option to add the Safety Score tool to your mobile app.
Last month Elon Musk agreed to make the tool available to all owners in an effort to promote safe driving.
