# Rochester Per-Mile Rates: The 18% Drop Is a Rate-Cell Artifact

Amelia Palmer · August 2, 2026

> Rochester Per-Mile Rates: The 18% Drop Is a Rate-Cell Artifact. The 18% per-mile drop in Rochester is not a discount; it is a rate-ce...

| Takeaway | Detail |
| --- | --- |
| The 18% per-mile drop is a screening price, not a discount. | The entire cut sits in the variable per-mile line; the fixed daily fee and tier loadings remain in place to price out higher-risk drivers. |
| UBI growth makes per-mile rate changes look like competition. | The usage-based insurance market is accelerating at a 13.5% CAGR through 2035, so an 18% per-mile move can read as a price cut rather than a selection artifact. |
| The per-mile line is where AI underwriting cherry-picks low-mileage drivers. | With a projected $39.12 million UBI market in 2025 and an 11.34% CAGR through 2033, carriers can target high-score drivers with the 18% variable rate. |
| Traditional policies absorb the drivers the rate cell repels. | Higher-risk drivers face the fixed daily fee and tier loadings behind the 18% per-mile screen, pushing them back to a conventional flat-fee policy. |

The 18% per-mile drop in Rochester is not a discount; it is a rate-cell artifact. In the 2026 New York usage-based filings, the entire cut lands in the variable per-mile line while the fixed daily fee remains unchanged. That lets an AI underwriting model quote the low per-mile number to low-mileage, high-score drivers and use the daily fee plus tier loadings to repel the rest.

That split matters because usage-based insurance is growing fast. The global UBI market is accelerating at a 13.5% CAGR through 2035, and analysts project a $39.12 million market in 2025 with an 11.34% CAGR through 2033. Carriers are scaling telematics, but the pricing levers are not all in the per-mile line.

The fixed daily fee and tier loadings quietly push higher-risk drivers back to traditional policies. The 18% variable cut may look like a price war, but it is underwriting selection dressed as a rate change.

## The Two-Part Tariff Trap

The rate you ultimately receive is decided before you drive a single mile. A smartphone SDK or OBD dongle streams driving data to an AI underwriting model — Progressive's Snapshot uses Cambridge Mobile Telematics, while Travelers IntelliDrive scores with its own model — and the model outputs a 0–100 driver score. That score is not a discount. It is a sorting key that assigns you to a tier, and the tier determines the multiplier applied to the filed base rate.

The enrollee pool then narrows the average further. According to the LexisNexis Telematics Data Exchange, Rochester UBI enrollees average 8,400 annual miles versus 12,100 for traditional policyholders. That is a selection effect, not a pricing effect: the population that opts into UBI has already sorted itself toward the low-mileage side of the gate. The headline average describes a filtered group, not the general Rochester driving population.

This year's task is to ignore the per-mile percentage and compute the total premium at your own mileage and your own score tier. The three conditions in the decision rule — mileage, telematics score, per-mile rate — are the exact three places where the 18% average stops applying. The filings above give you the inputs; if any of the three fails, the headline is not your rate.

Run the canonical rule before you look at any per-mile quote. If your annual mileage is 9,000 or above, or your telematics score is below 70, stop and keep your traditional policy; the table below is only for drivers who pass both gates. The "drive less, pay less" story breaks at the score gate. In the 2026 Rochester filings, a telematics score maps to a tier factor that multiplies the filed base rate, so a poor score loads every mile you drive. A Tier C factor of 1.30 can erase the mileage discount that makes a UBI product look cheap on the surface.

| Tier | Factor | Effective rate | vs. 2025 base |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| A | 1.00 | — | −18.1% |
| B | 1.15 | — | −5.8% |
| C | 1.30 | — | +6.5% |

For a driver who clears both gates — 8,000 annual miles, a score of 78, and a Tier B factor of 1.15 — the 2026 Rochester filings produce these annual totals:

## What the 18% Actually Says

To update the table for your own mileage and score, use the formula Annual Total = (Miles × Filed Base Rate × Tier Factor) + (365 × Daily Fee). The effective per-mile rates above are the filed base rate multiplied by the Tier B factor; your own telematics score maps to its own tier factor. Insert your mileage, the carrier's current filed base rate, and your tier factor, then compare the result against both your traditional renewal and the per-mile ceiling.

According to the report Usage-Based Auto Insurance: How Telematics Is Cutting Costs, safe and low-mileage drivers can save up to 40% versus a traditional plan. That ceiling exists only for drivers who clear both gates. At 9,000 miles or more, or with a telematics score below 70, a traditional policy is the disciplined answer — regardless of how low the headline per-mile average falls.

| Carrier | Filing | Per-mile rate | Change | Key condition |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Progressive Snapshot | SR-26-0147 | — | −18.3% | daily fee unchanged |
| Geico DriveEasy | SR-26-0203 | — | −9% | daily fee rose |
| Travelers IntelliDrive | SR-26-0319 | — | −6.4% | score multiplier 0.85 (>80) / 1.22 (

Canonical: https://in-surely.com/blog/rochester-per-mile-rates-the-18-drop-is-a-rate-cell-artifact.php
Markdown: https://in-surely.com/blog/rochester-per-mile-rates-the-18-drop-is-a-rate-cell-artifact.php/index.md