Drive less during rush hour, get a lower insurance rate

Drive less, pay less for car insurance -- especially if you drive less at rush hour.

That's what King County Executive Ron Sims hopes will be the outcome of a high-tech, $6 million pilot program the county is participating in with other government agencies and Unigard, a Bellevue insurance company.

The bigger payoff will be cleaner air and less global warming, owing to reduced exhaust emissions, and less traffic congestion, freeing up additional highway capacity without the high cost of construction, Sims said Tuesday.

"We want to discourage peak-time use," Sims said.

The plan is for Unigard to sign up 5,000 drivers from across the state for the pilot program next year and equip their cars with Global Positioning System devices that will track mileage driven and when. After collecting data for three years, the company hopes to design "pay-as-you-drive" policies and seek approval to sell them from the state Insurance Commission. The potential benefit to insurers is reduced accident risk, Sims said.

The idea is to provide economic incentive for people to drive less. The upshot may be a 15 percent mileage reduction and a savings of $50 to $100 in individual annual insurance costs, the county said.

The federal government agreed Monday to provide $1.9 million for the five-year pilot program. Unigard is putting up $3.3 million, including in-kind services. The state is adding $616,000. The county; the cities of Seattle, Redmond and Bellevue; other agencies; and some companies and environmental groups are providing $190,000 in in-kind contributions.

King County's Metro transportation department will manage the initial phase of the project and may offer incentives to participants, such as free bus passes, Metro's Bob Flor said. Details of how Unigard will enroll drivers in the program were not immediately available.

Other programs have offered insurance discounts for mileage reductions, but many were flat-rate reductions pegged to mileage caps. The new program is different because it is tied to actual use of individual vehicles, Sims said.