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I was rear-ended in stop-and-go traffic. The same person was behind me for miles. He was looking at his phone and ran into me - totally and completely not my

I was rear-ended in stop-and-go traffic. The same person was behind me for miles. He was looking at his phone and ran into me - totally and completely not my fault. He refused to give me his insurance info. I made a claim against my own insurance. I'm pretty sure the insurance company went after him and recovered costs. How exactly should that influence my rates? This is exactly why I pay for insurance, service I already pay for that is already factored into the costs. I pay extra for the zip code I live in already. I have no driving record and I've caused no accidents. If I put a tracking device in my car today my rates would go up because I accelerate quickly and brake hard when conditions allow. That is not right.

shuntress 6y ago
Your insurance company would prefer to cover people who notice the reckless driver then pull over to get out of their path. You did not do that, so they raise your rates. Edit: not that you were at fault or did anything wrong. My point is that the insurance companies strongest incentive is to pay out as little as possible. This includes payments made where their client was not at fault. If it were up to them, everyone would pay all their premiums on time and never drive.
- annoyingnoob 6y ago
  They recovered their costs. I already pay for the service. Tracking is just another excuse to raise rates, which as you note is the goal (bring money in, don't let it out). When rates have nothing to do with liability is it really insurance? To quote wikipedia: If the likelihood of an insured event is so high, or the cost of the event so large, that the resulting premium is large relative to the amount of protection offered, then it is not likely that the insurance will be purchased, even if on offer. Furthermore, as the accounting profession formally recognizes in financial accounting standards, the premium cannot be so large that there is not a reasonable chance of a significant loss to the insurer. If there is no such chance of loss, then the transaction may have the form of insurance, but not the substance (see the U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board pronouncement number 113: "Accounting and Reporting for Reinsurance of Short-Duration and Long-Duration Contracts"). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurance
  - shuntress 6y ago
    You pay either way. It's not about covering costs to provide a needed service. That would be a public service This is a private company looking for profit. They want to raise your rates.
    - annoyingnoob 6y ago
      What you are talking about would no longer be considered insurance. > the accounting profession formally recognizes in financial accounting standards, the premium cannot be so large that there is not a reasonable chance of a significant loss to the insurer The vast majority of automobiles do not hold their value, they depreciate over time. If I've had my car for say 5 years and I've paid the premiums for 5 years, I may have already paid the full value of my car as it is today due to depreciation. I probably pay for one minor incident per year in premiums. Unless I total my within the first 5 years I'm not really getting insurance what I'm really getting is a payment plan for a payout I most likely will never get.
      - shuntress 6y ago
        I believe most insurance also covers the damage done by your vehicle to other property. So the upper limit on the total collected through premiums is somewhere between 0 and the cost of an expensive house.
        sidewndr46 6y ago
        It's actually more along the lines of whatever a person's life is worth. Also where I live the ~3 cars around me in traffic could each cost more than a nearby home. You can pretty easily destroy $400,000 of property here in an otherwise uneventful accident.
        annoyingnoob 6y ago
        Automobile deaths has been declining for years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in... Cars are safer than ever. https://one.nhtsa.gov/nhtsa/timeline/index.html https://one.nhtsa.gov/nhtsa/timeline/index.html The folks with those fancy cars are paying into the system too, insurance is about pooling after all. It seems you have a point about bodily injury claims. https://www.insurance-research.org/sites/default/files/downloads/IRC_ClosedClaimReleaseFINAL.pdf https://www.insurance-research.org/sites/default/files/downl... However, it looks like that is mostly due to more lawyers being involved in bodily injury claims. More lawyers involved points to a failure with insurance company's ability to properly adjudicate claims. When insurance is only about profits and finding tools to further squeeze your existing clients no one benefits. Insurance companies do not need more ways to rate me, they just need to do the job they get paid to do.
steffan 6y ago
> If I put a tracking device in my car today my rates would go up because I accelerate quickly and brake hard when conditions allow. That is not right. If statistically other drivers who do that are more likely to, on average, result in a loss for the insurer, they are right to raise your rates. "Past Performance is no guarantee of future results" With enough data, maybe it would support your assertion that you are, in fact, a very safe driver, by realizing that you only drive fast at certain times, in certain locations that are statistically lower risk.
- dependenttypes 6y ago
  > If statistically other drivers who do that are more likely to, on average, result in a loss for the insurer, they are right to raise your rates. This argument could as well be applied regarding certain protected characteristics of the driver (such as race, gender, sexual orientation, etc).
  - chordalkeyboard 6y ago
    This argument would only be valid if there was a causal relationship between the “protected characteristic” and the increased risk. If the relationship was not causal, then the insurer would be mispricing the risk and thereby leaving profit on the table.
jfk13 6y ago
> my rates would go up because I accelerate quickly and brake hard when conditions allow All it takes is for you to misjudge the conditions one time (are you claiming to be infallible?), or for another road user to do something you were unable to anticipate, and suddenly this driving habit of yours does contribute to a higher risk of an incident that results in a claim. (Even if the incident still isn't considered to be your fault; your driving style reduces safety margins for everyone.)
- annoyingnoob 6y ago
  You cannot know the limits of your vehicle and yourself, and operate safely within those limits if you do not know what those limits are. My driving style contributes to safer driving because I know when I might exceed the limits. As I mentioned, I adjust my driving style for conditions. If my driving was so egregious I would have a driving record. Giving the insurance company more ways to judge me only enables them to charge me more, without my actual level of risk changing at all.

shuntress 6y ago

Your insurance company would prefer to cover people who notice the reckless driver then pull over to get out of their path. You did not do that, so they raise your rates. Edit: not that you were at fault or did anything wrong. My point is that the insurance companies strongest incentive is to pay out as little as possible. This includes payments made where their client was not at fault. If it were up to them, everyone would pay all their premiums on time and never drive.

annoyingnoob 6y ago
They recovered their costs. I already pay for the service. Tracking is just another excuse to raise rates, which as you note is the goal (bring money in, don't let it out). When rates have nothing to do with liability is it really insurance? To quote wikipedia: If the likelihood of an insured event is so high, or the cost of the event so large, that the resulting premium is large relative to the amount of protection offered, then it is not likely that the insurance will be purchased, even if on offer. Furthermore, as the accounting profession formally recognizes in financial accounting standards, the premium cannot be so large that there is not a reasonable chance of a significant loss to the insurer. If there is no such chance of loss, then the transaction may have the form of insurance, but not the substance (see the U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board pronouncement number 113: "Accounting and Reporting for Reinsurance of Short-Duration and Long-Duration Contracts"). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurance
- shuntress 6y ago
  You pay either way. It's not about covering costs to provide a needed service. That would be a public service This is a private company looking for profit. They want to raise your rates.
  - annoyingnoob 6y ago
    What you are talking about would no longer be considered insurance. > the accounting profession formally recognizes in financial accounting standards, the premium cannot be so large that there is not a reasonable chance of a significant loss to the insurer The vast majority of automobiles do not hold their value, they depreciate over time. If I've had my car for say 5 years and I've paid the premiums for 5 years, I may have already paid the full value of my car as it is today due to depreciation. I probably pay for one minor incident per year in premiums. Unless I total my within the first 5 years I'm not really getting insurance what I'm really getting is a payment plan for a payout I most likely will never get.
    - shuntress 6y ago
      I believe most insurance also covers the damage done by your vehicle to other property. So the upper limit on the total collected through premiums is somewhere between 0 and the cost of an expensive house.
      - sidewndr46 6y ago
        It's actually more along the lines of whatever a person's life is worth. Also where I live the ~3 cars around me in traffic could each cost more than a nearby home. You can pretty easily destroy $400,000 of property here in an otherwise uneventful accident.
        annoyingnoob 6y ago
        Automobile deaths has been declining for years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in... Cars are safer than ever. https://one.nhtsa.gov/nhtsa/timeline/index.html https://one.nhtsa.gov/nhtsa/timeline/index.html The folks with those fancy cars are paying into the system too, insurance is about pooling after all. It seems you have a point about bodily injury claims. https://www.insurance-research.org/sites/default/files/downloads/IRC_ClosedClaimReleaseFINAL.pdf https://www.insurance-research.org/sites/default/files/downl... However, it looks like that is mostly due to more lawyers being involved in bodily injury claims. More lawyers involved points to a failure with insurance company's ability to properly adjudicate claims. When insurance is only about profits and finding tools to further squeeze your existing clients no one benefits. Insurance companies do not need more ways to rate me, they just need to do the job they get paid to do.

steffan 6y ago

> If I put a tracking device in my car today my rates would go up because I accelerate quickly and brake hard when conditions allow. That is not right. If statistically other drivers who do that are more likely to, on average, result in a loss for the insurer, they are right to raise your rates. "Past Performance is no guarantee of future results" With enough data, maybe it would support your assertion that you are, in fact, a very safe driver, by realizing that you only drive fast at certain times, in certain locations that are statistically lower risk.

dependenttypes 6y ago
> If statistically other drivers who do that are more likely to, on average, result in a loss for the insurer, they are right to raise your rates. This argument could as well be applied regarding certain protected characteristics of the driver (such as race, gender, sexual orientation, etc).
- chordalkeyboard 6y ago
  This argument would only be valid if there was a causal relationship between the “protected characteristic” and the increased risk. If the relationship was not causal, then the insurer would be mispricing the risk and thereby leaving profit on the table.

jfk13 6y ago

> my rates would go up because I accelerate quickly and brake hard when conditions allow All it takes is for you to misjudge the conditions one time (are you claiming to be infallible?), or for another road user to do something you were unable to anticipate, and suddenly this driving habit of yours does contribute to a higher risk of an incident that results in a claim. (Even if the incident still isn't considered to be your fault; your driving style reduces safety margins for everyone.)

annoyingnoob 6y ago
You cannot know the limits of your vehicle and yourself, and operate safely within those limits if you do not know what those limits are. My driving style contributes to safer driving because I know when I might exceed the limits. As I mentioned, I adjust my driving style for conditions. If my driving was so egregious I would have a driving record. Giving the insurance company more ways to judge me only enables them to charge me more, without my actual level of risk changing at all.