Your DMV Record Can Predict Your Untimely Death – And Raise Your Premiums

Slow down — for your health, and your wallet RoadTrafficSigns.com.

August 21, 2012 — If you’ve got a lead foot, your need for speed could cost you – in more ways than you think.  Now add your life insurance company to the list of folks keeping tabs on your driving habits (and what those habits say about your lifestyle). And they’re making sure you pay.

Here’s how they see it:  Bad drivers die young. If you drive recklessly, you live recklessly. And a new study by LexisNexis and RGA Reinsurance Co. has given insurance companies the data to back it up.

Working off of a pool of over 7.4 million motor vehicle records, researchers matched DMV records with the Social Security Death Master File.  Their analysis “showed that the more violations and accidents a driver had, the higher his or her mortality rate.”

Get caught rolling through that stop sign and it’s not just your auto insurance premiums that creep up .

The study links motor vehicle accidents to a person’s untimely (not auto-related) demise, showing a relationship between risky driving such as speeding and risky non-driving behaviors that contribute to early death.  “Those with between two and five violations,” the study concluded, “experienced a 24 percent higher death rate while those with six or more major violations experienced an 80 percent higher mortality rate.”

So while we’re used to having our DMV record examined by our auto insurance providers, life insurance companies have joined in — to good news, for the conscientious driver. In the same way that auto insurance companies offer safe driver breaks, your life insurance company could reward you for being low-risk. Seems like a good incentive to ease up on the gas pedal.

– H. Hunter

Category: News, Regulations