A July 26, 2024 letter to the Federal Trade Commission details the arrangement: Verisk handed Honda $25,920 for driving data drawn from about 97,000 cars. Senators Ron Wyden and Edward Markey wrote it, and their arithmetic works out to 26 cents a vehicle. Hyundai fared better on both counts, with 1.7 million cars bringing $1,043,315.69, or 61 cents each.
A discount programme with a second customer
Driver Feedback, an optional feature inside Honda’s mobile app, generated those records. Enrollment was never automatic. What drivers agreed to on the sign-up screen was tracking in exchange for a score and a shot at insurance discounts.
Behind that screen sat legal terms naming Verisk as a recipient, buried, the senators charge, where almost nobody would look. Their conclusion is that informed consent never happened.
What the broker did with it next
Verisk turns around and sells those histories to auto insurers. Staff at the company told the senators’ offices that nothing in its contracts limited telematics data to discount math, which means the record a discount produced can resurface when a competitor quotes the identical driver.
The paper trail drivers can still pull
The FTC’s GM complaint alleges Smart Driver data reached Verisk and LexisNexis Risk Solutions. Reports from it typically carried six months of driving events, and some drivers found hundreds of entries. Policies were canceled or premiums raised off them, per the allegation.
Adverse action notices are the lever. Insurers taking adverse action must disclose it and identify the agency supplying the report. As for the broker, Verisk says GM data stopped arriving March 18, 2024, and Honda and Hyundai data on April 9, 2024.
