Ask Laz: Want lower car insurance rates? Big Brother may need to watch you

Dave says he barely drives his car -- maybe 5 miles a week. He wants to know how he can lower his insurance costs.

What he’s asking about here is the mileage discount most insurers provide for customers who don’t spend as much time behind the wheel as average drivers.

In many cases, insurers use a 5,000-mile-a-year cutoff. That is, if you drive 5,000 miles a year or less, you’ll pay a lower rate.

ASK LAZ: Smart answers to consumer questions

But Dave drives considerably less than 5,000 miles a year. Is there a way to take advantage of that?

The first answer is to shop around. Different insurers have different plans. It’s important to know what’s out there.

Secondly, ask about electronic monitoring. Some insurers will offer bigger discounts for low-mileage drivers, but they’ll have to agree to have a device installed on their car that verifies how little time is being spent on the road.

There are some who see this as a privacy violation. I’m not one of them. Your cellphone is already transmitting your whereabouts throughout the day. So a tracking device on your car doesn’t change the equation much.

More important, it makes sense that an insurer won’t just want to take your word for it that you drive just a few miles a week. If that’s indeed the case, and if you want lower rates, monitoring seems like an acceptable condition.

Otherwise, it’ll be hard to get around that 5,000-mile-a-year threshold.

If you have a consumer question, email me at asklaz@latimes.com or contact me via Twitter @Davidlaz.