Commercialism rant! (long but worth a read)

fimonkey

Doozergirl wrote: »

But who do you think is more likely to be making spurious use of statistics? The insurers or people having a random rant at the cost of insurance for young drivers?
.

Or it could be someone who works with stats for a living and lurks on these boards posting now and again (me )

Stats can be manipulated and easily misunderstood (I spend my life doing both). All I am saying is that there's a better way to calculate risk that would have long term cost saving implications across the board - but as insurance companies are a private business out to make money for their shareholders they won't do this.

Procrastinator333

fimonkey wrote: »

But there is a better way and you stated it yourself! Speed/GPS recorders. If they monitored speed and your premium was based on this then EVERYONE would slow down and ALL accidents (due to speed) would be reduced.

SO back to my point that it is spurious use of statistics,- by lazy uninformed insurance companies.

I said that may be a possibility in the future. And I think as soon as it is economically viable, you will see it. But my guess is that at the moment, there is no reliable cost effective way to do this. You would need a) gps in every car, b) a transmitter in every car, c) some way of gathering the data - either land based network or satelite and d) some way to stop tampering. It is not as easy as just chuck a gps in the car, job job. That may cost £500+, maybe £1000+. At that price there is no point.

If they are lazy and uninformed you do it, make millions and then point out how stupid they are. If it were that easy, they would have done it already.

Procrastinator333

fimonkey wrote: »

Or it could be someone who works with stats for a living and lurks on these boards posting now and again (me )

Stats can be manipulated and easily misunderstood (I spend my life doing both). All I am saying is that there's a better way to calculate risk that would have long term cost saving implications across the board - but as insurance companies are a private business out to make money for their shareholders they won't do this.

You talk about them like they act as one. They don't. IF any of the insurance companies could find a way of identifying the safe male drivers, they would undercut the rest in a heartbeat. But the can't, so they don't.

Percy1983

Out of interest at what point would you say an experienced driver could be classed as worse than a new driver. I ask this as a new young driver would get quote more than a 40 year old who has had 3 accidents in the last year. Now the older driver is a proven bad driver and the new driver is an unknown.

My point is if you are the right age bracket you can be a proven awful driver but the stats say that you generally aren't a risk so you will get better quotes than a perfectly safe new young driver.

I do believe the stats are 1 in 5 crash with new drivers which yes is high and that 1 in 5 should be charged the earth, but what about the 4 in 5 who never do anything wrong?

How about a rebate system as in we all pay more and he good drivers get x amount back, it could work, with that I do believe proven bad drivers should get much harsher renewals rather than going with there age group is less likely to crash look at it as they have crashed.

lostinrates

Percy1983 wrote: »

How about a rebate system as in we all pay more and he good drivers get x amount back,

something like...a no claims bonus?

(although why that can now be protected I don't know)

Percy1983

Procrastinator333 wrote: »

You talk about them like they act as one. They don't. IF any of the insurance companies could find a way of identifying the safe male drivers, they would undercut the rest in a heartbeat. But the can't, so they don't.

Good drivers = no claims, no points on license.
Bad drivers = claims or points on license.

There you go sorted it for you, they can sort it very quickly.

With that all new drivers will be treated as innocent until proven guilty (some will be proven guilty quickly I will admit) and older drivers will get treated like they should regardless of age.

Procrastinator333

Percy1983 wrote: »

Out of interest at what point would you say an experienced driver could be classed as worse than a new driver. I ask this as a new young driver would get quote more than a 40 year old who has had 3 accidents in the last year. Now the older driver is a proven bad driver and the new driver is an unknown.

My point is if you are the right age bracket you can be a proven awful driver but the stats say that you generally aren't a risk so you will get better quotes than a perfectly safe new young driver.

I do believe the stats are 1 in 5 crash with new drivers which yes is high and that 1 in 5 should be charged the earth, but what about the 4 in 5 who never do anything wrong?

How about a rebate system as in we all pay more and he good drivers get x amount back, it could work, with that I do believe proven bad drivers should get much harsher renewals rather than going with there age group is less likely to crash look at it as they have crashed.

I think you might actually just be on w wind up here, but oh well.

To make a rebate system work you would actually have to charge more initially. Say 5 drivers, on average, 1 of them crashes and causes £4k of damage. Ignore overheads. And assume the insurance company wants £1k of profit. So in total, the insurance co needs to take £5k. At the moment, they charge each driver £1k.

To give a rebate, they actually have to charge more so that they have still taken the £5k. Say they charge £2.5k each. 1 person crashes. The bad driver has paid £2.5k. So they still need £2.5k from the others. That is then £625 each. So they could then get a rebate of £1,875, leaving them having had a net cost of £625. That works in theory. But you try getting that £2.5k out of all 5 drivers up fornt. If you think it will work, give it a go.

In terms of older drivers with multiple accidents, I don't know. But if I had access to the statistics that tell me the probability of a 4th accident after the first 3 and the likely cost of such an accident it could be priced up.

Procrastinator333

Percy1983 wrote: »

Good drivers = no claims, no points on license.
Bad drivers = claims or points on license.

There you go sorted it for you, they can sort it very quickly.

With that all new drivers will be treated as innocent until proven guilty (some will be proven guilty quickly I will admit) and older drivers will get treated like they should regardless of age.

Not really. And if you don't understand why, there really is no point.

Percy1983

Procrastinator333 wrote: »

Not really. And if you don't understand why, there really is no point.

Please do try to explain to me how my definitions are wrong, I really will try to understand.

lostinrates

Procrastinator333 wrote: »

In terms of older drivers with multiple accidents, I don't know. But if I had access to the statistics that tell me the probability of a 4th accident after the first 3 and the likely cost of such an accident it could be priced up.

I don't believe accurate figures can exist, do they? -as there is no requirement to claim...and I don't believe all who don't claim do declare, some one having made no claims could have an accident every year and twice in a leap year and not claim while their finances allowed them to.