Zebra releases auto insurability score to reveal how badly you actually drive

Everyone thinks they’re an excellent driver, but it’s just that auto insurance companies don’t treat them with the appropriate respect.

Well, The Zebra, the startup car insurance marketplace, just introduced a new tool called an insurability score to face folks with the cold hard facts of their truly terrible driving.

The tool lets drivers find out what data affects their insurance premiums, by how much and what they can do about it (probably, because it’s the insurance industry, nothing).

“For the 250 million drivers nationwide, auto insurance is both a major expense and a critical safeguard to protect them from disastrous events,” said Joshua Dziabiak, the founder and chief operating officer at The Zebra. “Until now, people have only been able to get rates from auto insurance companies, without any insight into what’s behind them, but they need to know what factors affect their individual risk, and what that means for their coverage and rates. Consumers have a lot more control over their car insurance than they might think.”

Auto insurance is opaque to me (I lived in New York for years and now that I’m in Los Angeles, I take Lyft when I need to go to meetings), but apparently most Americans are laboring under some serious misconceptions about their abilities behind the wheel.

The Zebra, which has raised more than $63 million in funding, used some of those venture dollars it raised from Mark Cuban, Ballast Point Ventures, Accel Partners and Daher Capital to survey U.S. drivers on a few things.

The results… as they say… will astound you.

It turns out although 81 percent say they have the car insurance they need, nearly all Americans don’t know what kinds of car insurance they need to have.

Only 21 percent scored a passing grade — above a “D” — based on their knowledge of factors that affect insurance rates.

There are roughly 40 factors that influence credit scores, including location, credit score, coverage history, highest level of education and marital status.

“At The Zebra, we’ve always prioritized making insurance ‘black and white’ and educating consumers, and these survey results reinforce that need for education more than ever before,” Dziabiak said. “Now with the Insurability Score, we’ve taken another step in personalizing that knowledge so consumers have a clear-cut and actionable way to positively impact their own insurance health.”

Featured Image: Bob Peterson/Getty Images