California motorists will keep their premiums tied to the state’s point system after the Consumer Driving Data Protection Act died as the Legislature closed its 2026 session. Assemblymember Tina S. McKinnor’s measure would have let insurers pull speed, braking and other habits from telematics devices and use the data to price coverage for drivers who opted in.
The bill drew fire from two directions. Consumer groups said pricing based on driving data collides with Proposition 103, the 1988 initiative that anchors California auto rates to a driver’s record of violations and at-fault crashes. Data privacy advocates warned that third-party telematics firms collecting information for insurers could end up sharing it, with no guarantee that tracking would actually lower anyone’s bill.
State regulators balked too. The California Department of Insurance told the Senate Insurance Committee in a June letter that the measure handed compliance duties to telematics vendors while leaving the agency too little authority over them. A July analysis by the Senate Appropriations Committee put the cost in the tens of millions of dollars a year, part of it for wiring the state’s own vehicle fleet into the program.
Maryland’s 2023 experience shows why results were hard to promise. The Maryland Insurance Administration found 31.2% of telematics enrollees saw rates fall, 23.6% paid more and 45.2% ended up unchanged.
Consumer Watchdog’s Carmen Balber called the outcome a win for drivers, arguing the plan would have let insurance companies and big-data firms invade cars and personal privacy. Supporters countered that the bill carried the nation’s strictest privacy language and that participation stayed voluntary. Neither argument prevailed, and the proposal expired quietly as lawmakers left Sacramento.
