How Your Car Data Could Make Insurance Rates Go Up Overnight

Back in 2021, Romeo Chicco bought a Cadillac XT6 from a dealership in Delray Beach, Florida. It came with GM’s default OnStar system, and like everyone else, he downloaded the MyCadillac app. For two years, everything seemed totally normal. Out of nowhere, things took a weird turn when he tried getting car insurance. Seven companies turned him down, and the one that finally offered coverage wanted to charge him double what he’d been paying before. Turns out, according to the insurers, his LexisNexis report showed driving data from 258 trips over six months.

The most shocking part for Chicco was that he never agreed to any of it. All of his data was being sold without his knowledge. So he decided to take legal action against both GM and LexisNexis. Neither the dealership nor GM ever told him that his driving data would be shared with third parties. There was no mention of it in welcome emails, billing statements, or diagnostic reports, and nobody ever brought it up. Later, the dealership staff even told him the program “wasn’t sold at the store.”

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Cases like Chicco’s aren’t unusual anymore. These days, cars regularly share data with the manufacturer without drivers even realizing it. And it’s not just mileage or maintenance alerts. Here’s the kind of information your car could be collecting.

What Your Car Is Tracking

Modern vehicles are more computers than vehicles. Every time you drive, your car is collecting information that can include:

• Driving behavior: Speed, braking, acceleration, cornering, and even how smoothly you handle turns.
• Trip details: Start and end locations, duration of trips, and the times of day you drive.
• Location tracking: Constant GPS data, even when you’re not actively navigating.
• Vehicle health: Maintenance alerts, tire pressure, battery condition, and other system diagnostics.
• Device data: When you connect your phone, make calls, or use voice features.

In other words, your car is basically a rolling tracker. The data it collects goes through the telematics system, and most of it doesn’t stay inside the vehicle. Automakers often sell or share this information with third-party brokers, who then pass it to insurance companies, advertisers, and others looking for behavioral insights.

While the FTC took action against GM in 2025, banning data sharing for five years without consent and requiring explicit permission (see this report), much of this kind of tracking is still legal around the world. In the U.S., vehicle data is barely regulated, transparency is low, and drivers have few protections. Europe, Asia, and other regions aren’t much better.

What You Can Do

While there’s no perfect solution, here are steps you can take to limit how much driving data is collected:

1. Check connected services settings: Log into your automaker’s app or website, check the data-sharing settings, and turn off anything you don’t need.
2. Reformat or reset before reselling: Only connect your phone when needed, and disable automatic syncing, location sharing, and app data transfers to minimize what your car collects.
3. Ask your insurer: Confirm with your insurance company whether your rates are influenced by telematics or third-party data, and ask what data they use.
4. Request your data from collectors: Many data brokers and telematics providers are legally required to provide the information they hold about you. Request it to see what’s being shared.

At the end of the day, it’s a choice. You can limit data collection to protect your privacy, even if it means higher insurance rates. Or you can let your car share detailed driving information for potential discounts. Until privacy laws treat vehicle data as seriously as other personal information, drivers are paying for convenience with something they can’t get back: their privacy.