Two parked cars smashed into, Lordship Lane.

[Penguin68]

But it is not fair for the car owner whose lives on that stretch of the road and therefore park their car there and as a consequence have to suffer a bit more no-fault accident through no fault of his/her own. What would be fairer is to share this kind of risk amongst all policyholders.

The same could be said of people who buy expensive cars that are more likely to be stolen - why should they pay more as a consequence of having to suffer thefts through no fault of their own (or do you believe that people who have things worth stealing deserve to have them stolen?)

It is possible to argue that insurers base their policy levels on the past (what has happened) rather than any future (what will happen) - so we are asked to pay based on history not future events, and yet it is future events (not the past) that we are insuring against. Insurers argue the past is a good predictor of the future - though clearly that is true only up to a point. Anybody investing, or basing foreign policy, just on past events, would be making severe mistakes.

A couple of years ago my daughter's insurance went up because her car was classed into a riskier insurance bracket, based on a lot of them in the previous year having been stolen. Her's hadn't been. But should my insurance have gone up because people were judged, based on past events, to be more likely to steal her car? Or should yours have gone up?

In the end what you suggest would end up in there being insurance premiums based only on the insured drivers past history of accidents and claims. Which means some people would definitely be winners, and some losers. If I live in the countryside, with no theft to speak of and no traffic levels to speak of, should I pay as much as someone who lives in high accident and high theft areas - even where these things haven't yet happened to them. I would say that their risks (of needing to make a claim) are higher than mine and that that increased risk should be reflected in the premium they pay. You clearly don't think this. But both views can be held by reasonable people.

[Administrator]

Lounged as it's no longer East Dulwich specific.

[Dbrskh]

-- moved topic --

[DulwichLondoner]

@Penguin68,

Did you even read what I have written?

I totally understand that a 300kmh motorcycle like a Yamaha R1 will be more expensive to insure than a slow 125, even if I am a more responsible rider than many delivery boys riding around recklessly on their 125s.

Or that someone living in Nowhereshire will pay less than a Londoner, simply because he?s less exposed to the risk of collisions and accidents in Nowhereshire.

It might seem ?unfair? but that?s how insurance works ? pricing risk. I have never said these things are unfair or unjustified.

What I have said is that insurance algorithms may sort of work decently in aggregate, but can and do spit out nonsensical results at the individual level.

I have made several such examples (related to 2 rather than 4 wheels simply because that?s my experience):

? Cheaper and less powerful bikes being way more expensive to insure than considerably more expensive and more powerful ones

? The new version of a scooter, with the shape of the lights being the only real change, costing 3x more to insure than the old one. NB: not than the old one last year, but comparing two quotes obtained on the same day

? The 2015 model of a bike being cheaper to insure if declared in a garage than on the road; the 2014, the other way round (or viceversa, I don?t remember).

? The same insurer changing pricing daily.

My point is that I very much doubt there is any kind of statistically sound evidence to support these price differences.

I also said that I very much doubt there is statistical evidence to suggest that, if I am in a no-fault accident yet don?t claim, my insurance premium ?needs? to go up because I have become riskier. Do insurers really have data to suggest that if someone smashes into my car while it?s on my driveway, this makes me more likely to claim in the future? Even if I didn?t have nor am applying for comprehensive? I would LOVE to get my hands on this data and see for myself. If there was nothing I could have done to avoid it, then surely the accident suggests the area itself is somewhat risky, not that I am any riskier than my neighbour who parked his car nearby and wasn't hit purely because of luck? Don't the two of us present the same risk?

You have repeatedly said things like ?it?s true?, that?s the way it is, etc, yet have failed to explain why. Like I said, either you are an actuary and work on this data directly, or you are simply placing some kind of religious faith in insurers. Is there a third explanation I am missing?

[Abe_froeman]

3 out of 4 of those examples are explainable but the 2014 / 15 one is very weird!

[DulwichLondoner]

* 3 out of 4 of those examples are explainable *

how?

[Penguin68]

3 out of 4 of those examples are explainable but the 2014 / 15 one is very weird!

It will have been based on actual reported thefts. It is possible that the 2015 bike has better internal security systems - meaning that stealing it requires more time to 'break in' - perhaps disabling the security is safer if it's done in a garage when you are less likely to be disturbed - or maybe people don't put on the full locking system when its in a garage - either way, this will have been based on actual reports - for whatever reason more of the 2015 bikes have been stolen from garages than from the road-side. And more 2014 bikes from the roadside than from garages (perhaps people are more likely to keep newer bikes in garages). There may be no actual logic to the thing - as I have said they base their risk analysis on history, without necessarily interpreting the history fully. They don't know why more 2015 bikes are stolen from garages than the road, they just know that it's so. Next year the figures may change, and 2015 bikes appear 'safer' in garages.

I do know that people are statistically more likely to have an accident when they change a vehicle - however good a driver they are and however similar the new vehicle is to the old one. And insurers change price daily as new accident and theft figures come in. Their algorithms are dynamic (but still can only be backward looking).

I had an anomaly once when 3rd party fire and theft turned out (same driver/ same car) to be more expensive than comprehensive, probably based on the fact that with drivers of a particular age, with vehicles of a particle type and age, more claims were being made on 3rd party, fire and theft than comprehensive. Which may just mean there were more drivers with this type of cover to make claims. But insurers use bad news to drive their calculations, not good news.

[DulwichLondoner]

It is theoretically possible that a 2015 bike has better security systems than a 2014 one - however it is not the case for the bike in question (Honda NC750X). I know the bike quite well, and I also talked at length with owners and dealers about the differences among the various years. There is no difference between the 2014 and the 2015 model.

You really cannot even contemplate the remote possibility that some results may be nonsensical, can you? :)

I'm going to ask again just for fun - after all, I asked multiple times without the honour of an answer, so I have no reason to believe this time will be any different: how can you be so sure that there is enough 'history' to justify every one of these results? Why do you place so much blind faith in these results? Even if there is some history, couldn't it be an example of just noise (spurious correlations)?

Oh, not to mention that there most certainly was no history to justify why a new model was 3x more expensive to insure than the old one even though they were identical; I compared even the third party only, and it still came out as 2 to 3 times more expensive - note that with third party only any consideration on how likely to be stolen the new one was, cost of parts etc was totally irrelevant.

Like I have said multiple times, the fact that insurance is barely profitable means that insurers are not earning squillions at our expenses. However, I simply find your blind faith in these black box models, and your unwillingness to admit that some results may be nonsensical, quite entertaining.

I totally understand that results which may make sense st an aggregate level can lead to nonsensical results at the individual level; e.g. one model might penalise residents of a given postcode, because, at an aggregate level, they are riskier. Fine. But this also means that people living on the border between postcodes/boroughs may end up paying more simply if they move next door. There may not be a better approach, but let's please not pretend that the moving next door really makes someone a riskier motorist...

[Dbrskh]

I'm the OP. It's 2:19 am and just under 1.5 hours ago police came knocking at our door because the title of this thread just happened to us. Some idiot in a car that was stole a few months ago crashes into our vehicle. How wonderful is that?

[Bob Buzzard]

The people who did it were probably high on skunk.

[ianr]

> The people who did it were probably high on skunk.

And/or being pursued by the police?

[Seabag]

Can we default to blaming #Brexit

Waaay easier!

[Bob Buzzard]

Yes - they must have been Brexiteers