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Some commercial enterprises allow insurance companies access to data from GPS units inside their vehicles in order to qualify for discounts on their insurance rates. At the moment this type of discount is not being widely applied to individual drivers, but that could change in the future.

Think about it: right now your auto insurance rates are based on a number of criteria, including the number of claims you have filed with your insurance company. I don’t know about you, but there are many very good drivers who end up filing claims because of someone else’s negligence. A woman I know obeys the speed limit, follows traffic laws and overall is a respectful, careful driver. However, she has been rear-ended at stoplights twice. Through not fault of her own, her insurance rates went up, simply because she filed a claim.

The safe-driver discounts offered by most insurance companies are not based on what you do right; they are solely based on whether or not you have filed a claim. If insurance companies were to use GPS data to determine your rates, you might save a lot of money. GPS tracking devices can not only monitor speed, they can also provide data about hard brakes, turns and weaves.

Even if you are not willing to give an insurance company access to the data from your GPS system, this kind of information can still be very useful. A GPS teen tracking device can be used to monitor driving patterns within a household. You can make sure that your teen driver is not being reckless. But it is not just for teens, you may want to be assured that your spouse is not throwing caution to the wind. Or you may want to monitor yourself to see just how well you are driving.