> unless you disagree that the goal of insurance is to spread risk among a bucket of people who have relatively similar risk factors, I'm not really sure where

> unless you disagree that the goal of insurance is to spread risk among a bucket of people who have relatively similar risk factors, I'm not really sure where you're going with this. I don't disagree. In this context, if older men make fewer insurance claims, they're better customers. On paper, he's less of a risk (to the insurer). In reality, they're both risks to other drivers. But only the 18-year old will be held accountable. But assuming the under-25-and-male crowd are the worst drivers on the road based on number of insurance claims is not necessarily true, yet it's the basis for this oft-repeated assertion. That's my point. What isn't the insurance industry's data telling us when we use their data to make these conclusions? To get more accurate numbers, you need to be looking at the demographics of all body shop customers and the nature of their repairs. What demographics get the most front-end work done that isn't covered by an insurance check? This new age of computing seems to be to make machines understand how the world works by putting blind faith in statistics, without ever stopping to question where the stats came from or how accurate they really are. The numbers aren't handed to us on golden tablets carved by God himself-- we get them from imperfect systems designed by imperfect humans. And then we teach dynamic algorithms how reality works based on this data and sell them as solutions, which we trust absolutely. > and by the way, I'm a young male who drives a fast car. No offense intended. I once was, too.