The big problem seemed to be competition. You only get to write the insurance if you're the best price but the best price is not necessarily one that makes sens

The big problem seemed to be competition. You only get to write the insurance if you're the best price but the best price is not necessarily one that makes sense for the business. A friend of mine worked for an insurer, their job was to model the risks and calculate insurance costs for various things. The problem was, it didn't really matter how clever or detailed their modelling was. If their risk model came up with too large a premium, management demanded that the pricing be made more competitive. So they ended up overriding their calculations with a whole heap of 'fudge factors' to move their prices to be more in-line with the rest of the market. Kind of defeated the point of the modelling, really.