Tesla Rolls Out Safety Score-Based Insurance Product In Texas

Tesla is now selling insurance to customers in Texas, two years after first launching the offering in its now-former home state of California. But the version in Texas is different.

The company says it will evaluate driving behavior in real-time using the ‘Safety Score’ feature that it recently launched to screen drivers who want to join the beta test of the company’s ‘Full Self-Driving’ beta software.

That means drivers might wind up paying less — or more — per month based on how many forward collision warnings they rack up, how hard they brake, how ‘aggressively’ they turn, how much distance they leave to the car in front, and whether they keep their hands on the wheel when using Autopilot.

Tesla used some driving behavior metrics to develop premiums in California, but they were not real-time and relied more on statistical evaluations.

The offering in Texas represents a big break from how other insurance companies arrive at their quoted premiums. Even ones that rely on data from telematics dongles plugged into a car still consider other factors like age.