Sightline has a a great report on a new bill introduced by state senator Phil Rockefeller in Washington that will “eliminate existing regulatory barriers to mileage-based automobile insurance policies, to expressly authorize the insurance commissioner to approve the offering of such policies, and to ensure that insurers, at a minimum, offer a discount for low-mileage drivers.” Call it the green car insurance bill.


























Imagine if state law made it difficult for pizza joints to sell by the slice. You’d have to buy—and eat—a lot of pizza when you got a hankering. Either that, or you’d have to give up on pizza entirely. By-the-slice pizza lets light eaters save money without giving up pie entirely.

The car insurance market is like a no-slices pizza world. You have to buy a lot of insurance, even if you only drive a little. Or you have to give up driving – or drive illegally without insurance.

The equivalent of by-the-slice pizza is by-the-mile auto insurance. It gives families a new way to save money, by driving less. It also lets low-income drivers buy just a little insurance at a time. So promising is this idea that public agencies have been contributing to a pilot project in Washington.

Cowabunga!

 

As Sightline says, "insurance regulation is a thicket, and this bill intends to clear a path to new savings opportunities. Existing state insurance law doesn’t outright ban mileage-based insurance anywhere in Cascadia, but it does throw obstacles in the way of would-be by-the-mile insurers. Rockefeller’s bill would change that, ending legal discrimination against by-the-slice eating – er, driving."

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