Automakers are sharing your driving habits with insurers - as modern web-connected vehicles 'betray' drivers who accelerate fast or brake hard

Car insurance companies have been accused of secretly snooping on motorists' driving habits - with the help of vehicle manufacturers.

Modern cars from makers like GM, Honda, Kia and Hyundai have sensors that track how they are driven. The internet-connected vehicles monitor distances, speeds, acceleration and braking.

Motorists can view this data on smartphone apps and are encouraged to take on challenges to improve their driving.  But there is a major catch for drivers.

The automakers share the data with analytics firms which in turn sell it to insurers that use it to adjust premiums, according to a new report in The New York Times.

GM presents the OnStar Smart Driving app as a way for drivers to compete in challenges and games but it is actually collecting their data and providing it to insurance companies

Pictured is OnStar Smart Driving promotional material in which it advertises that drivers can 'earn badges' for driving safely. Many say they had no idea they were even signed up

The tactic is the latest attempt by insurance companies to gather data on how people drive in order to optimize their underwriting and maximize profits.

For more than a decade, they have been offering special deals to those willing to use third-party trackers and apps that record how they accelerate and brake.

But for the most part, Americans rejected those schemes.

So scorned insurance companies found a workaround: leaning on automakers to generate that data with sensors built into their cars so they can then buy it in secret.

Several car owners being tracked told the Times they had no knowledge these features even existed in their cars, let alone that they were enrolled in them.

Sixty-five-year-old Kenn Dahl told the newspaper that the insurance on his Chevrolet Bolt shot up 21 percent in 2022. When he went to other insurance companies they quoted him similarly high prices.

One insurance agent suggested that a report issued by the data broker LexisNexis might be the source of his woes, so he requested it from the company under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

What he received was 130 pages detailing every single time he or his wife had driven the Bolt in the last six months. It noted how long each of the 640 trips they had made lasted, and how often they had either accelerated or braked too fast.

The report also indicated that the data had been generated by General Motors and supplied to LexisNexis, which used it to compile the report. That report was then sold to insurance companies, including Dahl's own, which then hiked his premiums.

'It felt like a betrayal,' Dahl told The Times. 'They're taking information that I didn't realize was going to be shared and screwing with our insurance.'

The feature that GM says was responsible for generating the data tracking Dahl is known as OnStar Smart Driver - accessed within myChevrolet, myBuick, myGMC and myCadillac apps.

In the process of signing up for OnStar Smart Driving (pictured), no reference is made to the fact that driving behavior data will be shared with third parties

OnStar is a subsidiary of General Motors. Pictured is the OnStar button that used to be fitted on the mirror of many GM cars

According to its website, it provides 'driving insights on how you can become a smarter, safer driver' and allows you to 'earn badges by completing challenges, build on streaks specific to different driving habits and view all your data in an intuitive dashboard.'

OnStar, a subsidiary of GM, has teamed up with Instagram influencers in recent months to boost awareness and popularity.

Last month, Louisiana lifestyle blogger Britt Fusilier, who has almost 400,000 followers on the platform, shared a video in partnership with OnStar. In it, she and her partner competed in a challenge to collect Smart Driver 'badges and streaks'.

'We love fun competition that encourages safer driving! You guys have got to check it out today!' read the post.

Dahl wasn't the only user to complain that they never signed up for Smart Driver. A Cadillac owner in Florida also told the newspaper he had not heard of Smart Driver and never noticed it within the myCadillac app. 

One possibility is that they were signed up at the dealership, where The Times reports salespeople can receive bonuses for enrolling new customers.

'GM's OnStar Smart Driver service is optional to customers,' a GM spokeswoman said.

'Customer benefits include learning more about their safe driving behaviors or vehicle performance that, with their consent, may be used to obtain insurance quotes. Customers can also unenroll from Smart Driver at any time,' they added.

Honda claims that 'your data will never be shared without your consent' when signing up for the 'Honda Feedback' app but the automaker does share data with data broker Verisk

Jen Caltrider, a researcher at Mozilla, told The Times that it's common for automakers to use safety as the justification for such features.

'The car companies are really good at trying to link these features to safety and say they are all about safety,' she said. 'They're about making money.'

GM is not the only automaker known to be sharing driving behavior data with LexisNexis - it is joined by Kia, Subaru and Mitsubishi.

And another data broker, Verisk, which similarly sells data to insurance companies, has access to data from millions of vehicles made by Ford, Honda and Hyundai.