11 ms·

Discriminating against insurance customers on the basis of things they cannot control, like their age or gender, is not good. Discriminating against customers

by whack 11y ago

Discriminating against insurance customers on the basis of things they cannot control, like their age or gender, is not good. Discriminating against customers on the basis of driving habits that they have control over, like how fast they drive, or how hard they swerve, is completely fine. If driver A drives safely at the speed limit, and driver B constantly pulls stunts at speeds well over the speed limit, B is much more likely to get into an accident than A. Why should A have his premiums raised just to subsidize B's voluntary driving habits? By making B pay for the costs of his unsafe driving habits, and rewarding A for his safe driving habits, this feels like a great marketplace improvement.

dustingetz 11y ago
Generally i think companies leverage data to ratchet rates upwards, not offer unsolicited discounts. Why invest in infrastructure that will reduce profit? That's why when I drive through an ez-pass-only onramp without an ez-pass, they know exactly where my car entered and exited, but they still charge me the max-fare for not having a ticket.
- theseatoms 11y ago
  I agree that insurers will not offer unprovoked discounts. But the accessibility of this data will allow competitors to more accurately estimate accident likelihoods at the individual level, price the insured risks, and undercut the incumbents for a subset of the population. Unless, of course, the federal government mandates that insurers cover all drivers at the same rates, regardless of pre-existing reckless driving habits.
- afarrell 11y ago
  There is massive competition in the auto insurance industry. I was about to say that this would imply that profits wouldn't go up because folks would save 10% by switching to GEICO. However, I realized a problem. Currently, all insurers are looking at the same demographic data. If this scheme is put into practice, then insurers will have a proprietary information on an individuals' driving habits, letting them offer discounts to good drivers. This leads to a situation where to switch to a different insurer will always cost more for a good driver, so few drivers will switch. This means that trying to switch insurers will become a signal of bad driving, so insurers will charge more to new customers. This leads to fewer and fewer people switching insurance companies, leading to decreased competition.
  - lepton 11y ago
    Unless you have access to your own data. Perhaps the insurance companies could be forced to share it upon user request, for example. Then the new company knows everything the old one did.
    - sp332 11y ago
      Sure, but that would require a change in legislation - one that doesn't seem very likely in America.
  - Qworg 11y ago
    This is exactly the goal - these systems are used to ratchet up prices on bad drivers (read them as bad customers), pushing them to other companies.
  - SilasX 11y ago
    One solution would be to have laws like Europe has that require companies to provide to each customer all data it's collected about that customer on request Then you could "take your data with you" and show you're a save driver. Interestingly enough, Geico was started by someone who successfully predicted that government employees would be less risky (the GE stands for Government Employees): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEICO#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEICO#History
  - zygomega 11y ago
    In practice, it's the opposite. Switching may be a sign that you are a bad driver but it's also a sign that you are price sensitive which is usually the more important signal. Never switch and you are flagged as price insensitive and therefore a fine candidate for being over-charged.
- TulliusCicero 11y ago
  > Generally i think companies leverage data to ratchet rates upwards, not offer unsolicited discounts. Why invest in infrastructure that will reduce profit? Because it's a competitive market, and if they don't offer competitive rates, other insurers will take all their market share. I'm really not seeing how this isn't obvious. If there's a clearly more efficient way of doing insurance rates, companies can either adopt it, or die at the hands of the ones who do.
- sanmon3186 11y ago
  >Why invest in infrastructure that will reduce profit? Well ratcheting premiums upward is not the only way to increase profit. Same premiums with reduced number of claims at adds to the profit too.
gambiting 11y ago
The answer to your question is - because speed is not the only thing you can judge "safeness" of driving by. If the driver A drives at a speed limit, but is drunk, or 90 years old, or playing with their phone all the time, or just got their licence two days earlier, they might be actually much more likely to get into an accident than someone who is going faster than the speed limit but is in perfect mental and physical condition. I'm not trying to excuse speeding, I'm just saying there's a hundred other factors that are just as important when judging how good a driver someone is. And I feel like insurance companies won't care - they will use the sensor data to say "hey, you accelerate really fast from the traffic lights, that must mean you are a really shitty driver and you have to pay more than other drivers!"
Qworg 11y ago
The sophistication of these devices aren't that high - what constitutes an "unsafe driving habit"? Speed? How hard you turn? Most do some sort of banding around your speed and braking force, which is super crude and doesn't reflect actual driving habits.
- cbr 11y ago
  They can pick up a lot of signals, and they have claims data: it seems like they should be able to build a pretty good model. Even just "number of miles driven" is a strong signal.
  - yo-code-sucks 11y ago
    Really? My car is 2.5 years ols and im nearing 90k miles, 0 incidents. And I drive in San Jose / San Francisco all the time, during rush hour too. No tickets, no accidents, nada. Why? Because I use my fucking eyes and I dont text or talk on my phone.
  - nommm-nommm 11y ago
    Progressive also logged the time of day you drive. Between 12-3am (IIRC) was marked the highest risk time to drive.
- TulliusCicero 11y ago
  Still probably less crude than your age and gender, no?
  - Qworg 11y ago
    Those methods have a lot more refinement, but eventually, most certainly. I suppose the more important argument is not about "what's the quality of the model?" vs. "what goal is the insurance company trying to accomplish with better risk pricing?"
- jfoutz 11y ago
  Might actually be pretty interesting to see how the random statistics collected correlate with claims. It might indeed turn out fast, aggressive drivers never file claims, so ... that's what should be rewarded. Sort of the inverse of the self driving car problem - they follow all of the rules, all the time, and are more accident prone, even though they're not at fault for the accident. http://time.com/4098303/self-driving-cars-accident/ http://time.com/4098303/self-driving-cars-accident/
6d0debc071 11y ago
One danger is that driver B will respond by driving without taking out insurance if it becomes too expensive. Which would leave people in a bad situation when he finally runs someone over.
e40 11y ago
I have an Android phone and use the Google app "My Tracks" to record walks I go on. Sometimes the rate that it tells me I'm walking jumps wildly high, even though I walk at a very constant rate. Sometimes it's 2x what it really is. I would hate to be a good driver and be penalized for bad software/hardware. Given the track record of the auto companies (on which the insurance companies will rely), I think it's a given the software will be really shitty.
- cuddlybacon 11y ago
  Mine used to reliably have me teleport into the United States then back into Canada during my morning commute. They've since fixed that bug :) Edit: it wasn't actually teleporting, but it had me driving across fields, mountains, rivers, and the boarder all in about 1 or 2 minutes.
SilasX 11y ago
I get the logic, and I'm personally fine with this approach[1], but there's a tradeoff between privacy and non-freeloading (don't know the technical term). Some types of data collection are so "icky" that people prefer to tolerate free loaders, and this feeling is common enough not to cause the adverse selection problem that forces everyone to accept the loss of privacy or pay impossible rates. Consider the extreme case: let's say technology allows an external observer to directly read your thoughts as they happen.[2] Hey, people that think worse things are riskier, so what's the problem if they get higher rates? If you don't want higher rates, don't think about cutting through traffic and running red lights! I just hope no one breaches that database and learns what you think of Suzy... [1] as a safe driver long resentful of the statistics of my demographic [2] Because of the "control/choice" issue, assume there's a difference between deliberate and unchosen thoughts and the device only takes the former.
- ubersync 11y ago
  But again, thinking about doing something and actually doing it makes all the difference. You do not have 100% control over what your think. Sometimes you think about something and then decide whether to do it it not by predicting the possible outcomes. I swear i have thought about murdering several people, but of course i will never follow through. And I'm sure everybody does that. It's part of our critical thinking. We think of something and then weigh the pros and cons in our mind and then decide what to do.
  - SilasX 11y ago
    See footnote [2], and the problem is that (as with driving styles) there may turn out to be a correlation between how often you think about murder and how often you do it, which can be used to calibrate insurance-risk premiums. Sure, not every thought about murder leads to murder, and not every red light you run leads to an accident. But people that run more red lights have more accidents, and people who think about bad things more (let's posit) will do more bad things. "Oh, you only think about murder 3 times a week? Discount!" Still ready to let your thoughts about Suzy get archived on some hard drive?
  - 11y ago
ubernostrum 11y ago
On many major roads in the US, refusing to exceed the speed limit is unsafe behavior. With respect to speed, safety comes from matching your speed to that of the surrounding traffic, even if the surrounding traffic is on average exceeding the posted limit. Road-raging vigilante behaviors by drivers intent on enforcing their (incorrect) ideas about safety (i.e., deliberately driving slowly or occupying a passing lane to try to force passing traffic to slow) is actually far more dangerous and in many states is illegal and ticketable.
- pc86 11y ago
  I'm not saying I don't believe you, but I want to see the law that states you can be given a ticket for driving 65 in a 65 just because traffic in the left lane is going 80.
  - ubernostrum 11y ago
    Many states (including Kansas, where I used to live) have enforceable minimums as well as maximums on major highways. All states can pull over and ticket vehicles for, in the judgment of an officer, traveling at a speed slow enough to be unsafe (witness the stories a little while back about self-driving cars getting into trouble for obstructing traffic by being too slow). In recent years there's been a big push to begin enforcing this on highways, largely because of the rise of road-raging self-appointed "enforcers" who try to force other traffic to obey their personal interpretations of traffic laws. And in all 50 states it is now some type of infraction to be anywhere but the rightmost lane when travelling slower than other traffic, even if by "slower" you mean "exactly the posted limit". This year-old article has some notes on the left-lane stuff, including the fact that yes, you could be ticketed for doing 65 in a 65 if the passing traffic is doing 80 and your slower driving is interfering with that: http://www.vox.com/2014/6/16/5804590/why-you-shouldnt-drive-slowly-in-the-left-lane http://www.vox.com/2014/6/16/5804590/why-you-shouldnt-drive-... And also points out what was already well-known to everyone except vigilante traffic rangers: that doing only the speed limit, when everyone else is faster, is demonstrably unsafe.
    - 11y ago
pc86 11y ago
You can absolutely discriminate based on age and gender for insurance purposes, though. Men are charged higher rates than women. Teenagers are charged higher rates than those in their 20's or 30's. A newly licensed 16 year old male will cost more than a newly licensed 26 year old male. My insurance went down when I got married (which is not outside of my control, but is still a protected class). If there is valid statistical evidence that a certain group of people (male teenagers with divorced parents, single women in their 40's earning more than $60k a year, divorced white men in Massachusetts, whatever) is likely to behave in riskier behavior for whatever reason, you can bet an insurance company somewhere has the data and is charging accordingly.
- SilasX 11y ago
  The parent was saying it was not good, not that it was illegal, as your comment seems to be addressing.
- kdamken 11y ago
  You can, but you shouldn't. I hate to use the term slippery slope, but it's crazy to me that they still do this. You could easily apply to same logic to race and prison statistics and how officers treat who they're dealing with, who you hire, etc. Much better to do it on an person by person basis.
  - caskance 11y ago
    It is much better, that's why insurers try their best to do so. The more data is available, the more feasible that is.
- criddell 11y ago
  > If there is valid statistical evidence Is that true? Can they charge me a different rate because of my race or religion?
  - zygomega 11y ago
    It's a grey area legally, and is usually prevented by ethics committees and industry bodies. Practically, if you collect the information you run the risk of a large anti-discrimination suit down the track. The usual proxy for race/religion is first name, last name and zip-code - name clustering gives very strong risk differentiation (I crunch numbers for insurance companies).
radley 11y ago
How about a real world scenario: - driver C who drives fast yet safe (over the speed limit like most drivers) but has to deal with: - driver D who drives the speed limit in the fast lane, changes lanes without signaling, is essentially clueless, and forces C drivers to navigate around them. Stunts at any speed is bad, sure, but speed can't automatically be assumed to be stunts. That's the flaw.
- HelloMcFly 11y ago
  If the behavior is not predictively relate increased claims activity, then it wouldn't be penalized. They won't just say "driving 5 mph over the speed limit on the highways raises rates" for no reason. The reality is probably though, at some speed increase above the posted limits there is a relationship with claims activity. If that limit is 4 mph or 10 mph, I think it's fair to charge more. And can car computers tell if blinkers are on? At some point, changing without signaling is likely to be trackable if it isn't already. Ultimately, clueless driving will leave trackable indicators. This is driving, it's behavior based, and the outcomes are observable. At any rate, I hope this makes usage-based insurance more common. I currently use MetroMile as my car insurer, which charges per mile of car usage. I'm a city-driver, my miles are insanely low. I'm glad to be benefiting from smarter, behavior-based insurance even if it is in its infancy.
  - beachstartup 11y ago
    > If the behavior is not predictively relate increased claims activity, then it wouldn't be penalized yeah, sure. i totally believe that. ever actually deal with an insurance company? they pretty much do whatever the hell they want unless there's enough people willing to sue in a class action suit. this goes for consumer, business, financial, whatever. when this becomes mainstream i will go with alternative insurance providers that do not track my driving habits even if it comes at a huge premium.
    - HelloMcFly 11y ago
      > they pretty much do whatever the hell they want unless there's enough people willing to sue in a class action suit. this goes for consumer, business, financial, whatever. Okay fine, please explain to me how you think they would be worse with behavior-based rates than they are today. If they're just looking to bump rates for everyone on a flimsy pretext, there is nothing stopping them from pushing the price envelope as high as they can right now. Well, except the competitive environment they operate in, of course, which isn't going away even with behavior-based rates. They already do whatever they want, so this lets them do it more? It seems unlikely to me, and my early experience is incredibly positive. Behavior-based rates can at least remove some of the mystery behind rates rather than add to it. Behavior is personally trackable, shareable, and demonstrable. Ultimately, it's a way to increase price discrimination, something I'm a fan of.
NoMoreNicksLeft 11y ago
The trouble with this logic is so: why not make both A and B pay extra? It brings in more profit than making B alone pay extra. All that it requires is some half-assed justification, which can easily be fabricated.
imh 11y ago
I like the idea, but in practice, we'd all likely see our rates changing inscrutably as the insurance companies change their models.
TrevorJ 11y ago
That's fine. What I object to is the surveillance.

by whack 11y ago

dustingetz 11y ago

Generally i think companies leverage data to ratchet rates upwards, not offer unsolicited discounts. Why invest in infrastructure that will reduce profit? That's why when I drive through an ez-pass-only onramp without an ez-pass, they know exactly where my car entered and exited, but they still charge me the max-fare for not having a ticket.

theseatoms 11y ago
I agree that insurers will not offer unprovoked discounts. But the accessibility of this data will allow competitors to more accurately estimate accident likelihoods at the individual level, price the insured risks, and undercut the incumbents for a subset of the population. Unless, of course, the federal government mandates that insurers cover all drivers at the same rates, regardless of pre-existing reckless driving habits.
afarrell 11y ago
There is massive competition in the auto insurance industry. I was about to say that this would imply that profits wouldn't go up because folks would save 10% by switching to GEICO. However, I realized a problem. Currently, all insurers are looking at the same demographic data. If this scheme is put into practice, then insurers will have a proprietary information on an individuals' driving habits, letting them offer discounts to good drivers. This leads to a situation where to switch to a different insurer will always cost more for a good driver, so few drivers will switch. This means that trying to switch insurers will become a signal of bad driving, so insurers will charge more to new customers. This leads to fewer and fewer people switching insurance companies, leading to decreased competition.
- lepton 11y ago
  Unless you have access to your own data. Perhaps the insurance companies could be forced to share it upon user request, for example. Then the new company knows everything the old one did.
  - sp332 11y ago
    Sure, but that would require a change in legislation - one that doesn't seem very likely in America.
- Qworg 11y ago
  This is exactly the goal - these systems are used to ratchet up prices on bad drivers (read them as bad customers), pushing them to other companies.
- SilasX 11y ago
  One solution would be to have laws like Europe has that require companies to provide to each customer all data it's collected about that customer on request Then you could "take your data with you" and show you're a save driver. Interestingly enough, Geico was started by someone who successfully predicted that government employees would be less risky (the GE stands for Government Employees): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEICO#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEICO#History
- zygomega 11y ago
  In practice, it's the opposite. Switching may be a sign that you are a bad driver but it's also a sign that you are price sensitive which is usually the more important signal. Never switch and you are flagged as price insensitive and therefore a fine candidate for being over-charged.
TulliusCicero 11y ago
> Generally i think companies leverage data to ratchet rates upwards, not offer unsolicited discounts. Why invest in infrastructure that will reduce profit? Because it's a competitive market, and if they don't offer competitive rates, other insurers will take all their market share. I'm really not seeing how this isn't obvious. If there's a clearly more efficient way of doing insurance rates, companies can either adopt it, or die at the hands of the ones who do.
sanmon3186 11y ago
>Why invest in infrastructure that will reduce profit? Well ratcheting premiums upward is not the only way to increase profit. Same premiums with reduced number of claims at adds to the profit too.

gambiting 11y ago

The answer to your question is - because speed is not the only thing you can judge "safeness" of driving by. If the driver A drives at a speed limit, but is drunk, or 90 years old, or playing with their phone all the time, or just got their licence two days earlier, they might be actually much more likely to get into an accident than someone who is going faster than the speed limit but is in perfect mental and physical condition. I'm not trying to excuse speeding, I'm just saying there's a hundred other factors that are just as important when judging how good a driver someone is. And I feel like insurance companies won't care - they will use the sensor data to say "hey, you accelerate really fast from the traffic lights, that must mean you are a really shitty driver and you have to pay more than other drivers!"

Qworg 11y ago

The sophistication of these devices aren't that high - what constitutes an "unsafe driving habit"? Speed? How hard you turn? Most do some sort of banding around your speed and braking force, which is super crude and doesn't reflect actual driving habits.

cbr 11y ago
They can pick up a lot of signals, and they have claims data: it seems like they should be able to build a pretty good model. Even just "number of miles driven" is a strong signal.
- yo-code-sucks 11y ago
  Really? My car is 2.5 years ols and im nearing 90k miles, 0 incidents. And I drive in San Jose / San Francisco all the time, during rush hour too. No tickets, no accidents, nada. Why? Because I use my fucking eyes and I dont text or talk on my phone.
- nommm-nommm 11y ago
  Progressive also logged the time of day you drive. Between 12-3am (IIRC) was marked the highest risk time to drive.
TulliusCicero 11y ago
Still probably less crude than your age and gender, no?
- Qworg 11y ago
  Those methods have a lot more refinement, but eventually, most certainly. I suppose the more important argument is not about "what's the quality of the model?" vs. "what goal is the insurance company trying to accomplish with better risk pricing?"
jfoutz 11y ago
Might actually be pretty interesting to see how the random statistics collected correlate with claims. It might indeed turn out fast, aggressive drivers never file claims, so ... that's what should be rewarded. Sort of the inverse of the self driving car problem - they follow all of the rules, all the time, and are more accident prone, even though they're not at fault for the accident. http://time.com/4098303/self-driving-cars-accident/ http://time.com/4098303/self-driving-cars-accident/

6d0debc071 11y ago

One danger is that driver B will respond by driving without taking out insurance if it becomes too expensive. Which would leave people in a bad situation when he finally runs someone over.

e40 11y ago

I have an Android phone and use the Google app "My Tracks" to record walks I go on. Sometimes the rate that it tells me I'm walking jumps wildly high, even though I walk at a very constant rate. Sometimes it's 2x what it really is. I would hate to be a good driver and be penalized for bad software/hardware. Given the track record of the auto companies (on which the insurance companies will rely), I think it's a given the software will be really shitty.

cuddlybacon 11y ago
Mine used to reliably have me teleport into the United States then back into Canada during my morning commute. They've since fixed that bug :) Edit: it wasn't actually teleporting, but it had me driving across fields, mountains, rivers, and the boarder all in about 1 or 2 minutes.

SilasX 11y ago

I get the logic, and I'm personally fine with this approach[1], but there's a tradeoff between privacy and non-freeloading (don't know the technical term). Some types of data collection are so "icky" that people prefer to tolerate free loaders, and this feeling is common enough not to cause the adverse selection problem that forces everyone to accept the loss of privacy or pay impossible rates. Consider the extreme case: let's say technology allows an external observer to directly read your thoughts as they happen.[2] Hey, people that think worse things are riskier, so what's the problem if they get higher rates? If you don't want higher rates, don't think about cutting through traffic and running red lights! I just hope no one breaches that database and learns what you think of Suzy... [1] as a safe driver long resentful of the statistics of my demographic [2] Because of the "control/choice" issue, assume there's a difference between deliberate and unchosen thoughts and the device only takes the former.

ubersync 11y ago
But again, thinking about doing something and actually doing it makes all the difference. You do not have 100% control over what your think. Sometimes you think about something and then decide whether to do it it not by predicting the possible outcomes. I swear i have thought about murdering several people, but of course i will never follow through. And I'm sure everybody does that. It's part of our critical thinking. We think of something and then weigh the pros and cons in our mind and then decide what to do.
- SilasX 11y ago
  See footnote [2], and the problem is that (as with driving styles) there may turn out to be a correlation between how often you think about murder and how often you do it, which can be used to calibrate insurance-risk premiums. Sure, not every thought about murder leads to murder, and not every red light you run leads to an accident. But people that run more red lights have more accidents, and people who think about bad things more (let's posit) will do more bad things. "Oh, you only think about murder 3 times a week? Discount!" Still ready to let your thoughts about Suzy get archived on some hard drive?
- 11y ago

ubernostrum 11y ago

On many major roads in the US, refusing to exceed the speed limit is unsafe behavior. With respect to speed, safety comes from matching your speed to that of the surrounding traffic, even if the surrounding traffic is on average exceeding the posted limit. Road-raging vigilante behaviors by drivers intent on enforcing their (incorrect) ideas about safety (i.e., deliberately driving slowly or occupying a passing lane to try to force passing traffic to slow) is actually far more dangerous and in many states is illegal and ticketable.

pc86 11y ago
I'm not saying I don't believe you, but I want to see the law that states you can be given a ticket for driving 65 in a 65 just because traffic in the left lane is going 80.
- ubernostrum 11y ago
  Many states (including Kansas, where I used to live) have enforceable minimums as well as maximums on major highways. All states can pull over and ticket vehicles for, in the judgment of an officer, traveling at a speed slow enough to be unsafe (witness the stories a little while back about self-driving cars getting into trouble for obstructing traffic by being too slow). In recent years there's been a big push to begin enforcing this on highways, largely because of the rise of road-raging self-appointed "enforcers" who try to force other traffic to obey their personal interpretations of traffic laws. And in all 50 states it is now some type of infraction to be anywhere but the rightmost lane when travelling slower than other traffic, even if by "slower" you mean "exactly the posted limit". This year-old article has some notes on the left-lane stuff, including the fact that yes, you could be ticketed for doing 65 in a 65 if the passing traffic is doing 80 and your slower driving is interfering with that: http://www.vox.com/2014/6/16/5804590/why-you-shouldnt-drive-slowly-in-the-left-lane http://www.vox.com/2014/6/16/5804590/why-you-shouldnt-drive-... And also points out what was already well-known to everyone except vigilante traffic rangers: that doing only the speed limit, when everyone else is faster, is demonstrably unsafe.
  - 11y ago

pc86 11y ago

You can absolutely discriminate based on age and gender for insurance purposes, though. Men are charged higher rates than women. Teenagers are charged higher rates than those in their 20's or 30's. A newly licensed 16 year old male will cost more than a newly licensed 26 year old male. My insurance went down when I got married (which is not outside of my control, but is still a protected class). If there is valid statistical evidence that a certain group of people (male teenagers with divorced parents, single women in their 40's earning more than $60k a year, divorced white men in Massachusetts, whatever) is likely to behave in riskier behavior for whatever reason, you can bet an insurance company somewhere has the data and is charging accordingly.

SilasX 11y ago
The parent was saying it was not good, not that it was illegal, as your comment seems to be addressing.
kdamken 11y ago
You can, but you shouldn't. I hate to use the term slippery slope, but it's crazy to me that they still do this. You could easily apply to same logic to race and prison statistics and how officers treat who they're dealing with, who you hire, etc. Much better to do it on an person by person basis.
- caskance 11y ago
  It is much better, that's why insurers try their best to do so. The more data is available, the more feasible that is.
criddell 11y ago
> If there is valid statistical evidence Is that true? Can they charge me a different rate because of my race or religion?
- zygomega 11y ago
  It's a grey area legally, and is usually prevented by ethics committees and industry bodies. Practically, if you collect the information you run the risk of a large anti-discrimination suit down the track. The usual proxy for race/religion is first name, last name and zip-code - name clustering gives very strong risk differentiation (I crunch numbers for insurance companies).

radley 11y ago

How about a real world scenario: - driver C who drives fast yet safe (over the speed limit like most drivers) but has to deal with: - driver D who drives the speed limit in the fast lane, changes lanes without signaling, is essentially clueless, and forces C drivers to navigate around them. Stunts at any speed is bad, sure, but speed can't automatically be assumed to be stunts. That's the flaw.

HelloMcFly 11y ago
If the behavior is not predictively relate increased claims activity, then it wouldn't be penalized. They won't just say "driving 5 mph over the speed limit on the highways raises rates" for no reason. The reality is probably though, at some speed increase above the posted limits there is a relationship with claims activity. If that limit is 4 mph or 10 mph, I think it's fair to charge more. And can car computers tell if blinkers are on? At some point, changing without signaling is likely to be trackable if it isn't already. Ultimately, clueless driving will leave trackable indicators. This is driving, it's behavior based, and the outcomes are observable. At any rate, I hope this makes usage-based insurance more common. I currently use MetroMile as my car insurer, which charges per mile of car usage. I'm a city-driver, my miles are insanely low. I'm glad to be benefiting from smarter, behavior-based insurance even if it is in its infancy.
- beachstartup 11y ago
  > If the behavior is not predictively relate increased claims activity, then it wouldn't be penalized yeah, sure. i totally believe that. ever actually deal with an insurance company? they pretty much do whatever the hell they want unless there's enough people willing to sue in a class action suit. this goes for consumer, business, financial, whatever. when this becomes mainstream i will go with alternative insurance providers that do not track my driving habits even if it comes at a huge premium.
  - HelloMcFly 11y ago
    > they pretty much do whatever the hell they want unless there's enough people willing to sue in a class action suit. this goes for consumer, business, financial, whatever. Okay fine, please explain to me how you think they would be worse with behavior-based rates than they are today. If they're just looking to bump rates for everyone on a flimsy pretext, there is nothing stopping them from pushing the price envelope as high as they can right now. Well, except the competitive environment they operate in, of course, which isn't going away even with behavior-based rates. They already do whatever they want, so this lets them do it more? It seems unlikely to me, and my early experience is incredibly positive. Behavior-based rates can at least remove some of the mystery behind rates rather than add to it. Behavior is personally trackable, shareable, and demonstrable. Ultimately, it's a way to increase price discrimination, something I'm a fan of.

NoMoreNicksLeft 11y ago

The trouble with this logic is so: why not make both A and B pay extra? It brings in more profit than making B alone pay extra. All that it requires is some half-assed justification, which can easily be fabricated.

imh 11y ago

I like the idea, but in practice, we'd all likely see our rates changing inscrutably as the insurance companies change their models.

TrevorJ 11y ago

That's fine. What I object to is the surveillance.