Admiral Charges Hotmail Users More For Car Insurance (thetimes.co.uk)

One of Britain's biggest car insurers has admitted increasing premiums for drivers who apply using a Hotmail account. From a report: Motorists seeking cover from Admiral could be charged $45 extra if they use certain email addresses. The insurer said some domain names were "associated with more accidents" than others, raising applicants' risk profile. Figures from the Association of British Insurers to be published today show that the cost of car insurance has increased by more than a quarter over the past three years. Admiral said that hundreds of factors were used by underwriters in setting car insurance, with riskier motorists paying more. Issues included the age of a driver and their postcode.

Comments

WTF!?

[DaMattster]

The insurance industry is just crazy! Plum fucking loco.

Re:WTF!?

[HornWumpus]

WTF changed 3 or 4 years ago in Britain? Major insurer closed? Change in liability laws? Lucas electric reopened?

25% in 3 years? Was it being artificially held down?

Re:WTF!?

[AmiMoJo]

What other metrics could the browser measure to determine your risk as a drive?

- Running Windows XP
- Browsing with IE6
- Referrer header is xhamster.com
- Mouse cursor judders around due to shaky hands
- Enters name and address in all lower/uppercase

Re:WTF!?

[beelsebob]

Apparently the issue is mostly that modern cars have really fancy bumpers. A bumper that includes a bunch of camera equipment, and range sensors, and all kinds of other fancy gadgetry costs a lot. That means that fender benders cost a lot to repair now, when they used to be trivially cheap. It also means that fender benders tend to get reported to the insurer now, when they used to just be ignored.

Re:WTF!?

[Anonymous Coward]

If I'm making a credit card purchase I enter my name and address in all uppercase since that's exactly how it appears on my bill (and card, in case of my name).

Re:WTF!?

[Opportunist]

They are desperately trying to find ways to predict which customers will cause what insurance claims so they can avoid the ones that will actually cost them money while offering favorable rates to those that will just keep paying without ever having an insurance claim. That's the business they're in.

That can (and does) take very bizarre forms. Like this one.

Re:WTF!?

[PrimaryConsult]

It seems to be particularly worse in Europe. A minor scrape to a bumper while parking is cause for police reports and waiting around, whereas in the US a note with contact/insurance info under the wiper (or just a pile of cash obscured by a note) is the standard response.

Re:WTF!?

[SuiteSisterMary]

What other metrics could the browser measure to determine your risk as a drive?

- Running Windows XP

- Browsing with IE6

It could well be that the sort of person who doesn't bother to maintain their computer is the sort of person who doesn't bother to maintain their car, and therefore does indeed have a greater likelihood of getting into an accident, or having an accident be more costly.

Re:WTF!?

[HornWumpus]

Bumper covers have been about half (in terms of $) of all bodywork in America for decades.

Aren't most backup cameras etc in the tailgate/trunk lid?

3 years represents what % of the English car fleet? I know they junk cars in the UK when still almost new. Weird laws...not as bad as Japan.

Re:WTF!?

[Calydor]

Maybe because in Europe (hell, probably all over the world) the standard has become to not leave contact info but a mocking note instead.

Re:WTF!?

[mi]

What other metrics could the browser measure to determine your risk as a drive?

Whatever TF the insurer wants to use. It is a private company entitled to do as it pleases. Don't like it — switch to a competitor.

In our totalitarianism we made it illegal to discriminate based on some factors, but the choice of the e-mail provider is not on the blacklist. *Shrugs*...

Re:WTF!?

[AvitarX]

That's not the America I live in.

SOP seems to be to drive off and hope you were unnoticed.

Re:WTF!?

[HornWumpus]

That's what they get for paying to much for a Neon.

WTF is a 'serious fender bender'?

Some cars have always wrecked 'more expensive' than others. BMWs have high insurance because they are totaled by hitting falling leaves.

I doubt the cars are being replaced quick enough to justify a 25% premium increase in 3 years. Also question why the insane increase is only in the UK.

Re:WTF!?

[gatkinso]

Maybe that shot shouldn't go on a part of the car that is meant to be sacrificial.

Re:WTF!?

[jawtheshark]

Is that so? I haven’t damaged another car in about 10 years, but back then, I just left a note. Worked out fine, even though obviously the owner of the vehicle wasn’t happy.

Re:WTF!?

[rjune]

I think the country has their head up and locked. I tried to register for the Times so I could read TFA. They told me to enter a valid email address. Their form wouldn't accept my .net address as valid.

Re:WTF!?

[mysidia]

A bumper that includes a bunch of camera equipment, and range sensors, and all kinds of other fancy gadgetry costs a lot.

Last time I ever had a bumper fixed at the body shop it was $1000, with no equipment in it.

A replacement camera piece of the approximate resolution used for backup cameras is about $50, and range sensors are even less expensive.

I gotta call BS on this. If there are added significant costs, then it's something else other than the relatively inexpensive electronic parts.

Re:WTF!?

[Jeremi]

The real question is (assuming their risk-analysis people aren't just chasing butterflies) -- what mechanism would correlate Hotmail accounts with a statistically greater risk of loss?

Re:WTF!?

[hawk]

close, but not quite.

It's a matter of getting each to pay its own way. They're *quite* happy to take a high-about customer, as long as premiums cover average losses.

Insurance compares (in general) don't actually make their money by charging more premiums the the claims cost, although they make a tiny bit there (something like 1 of premium,iirc).

Rather, they make their profits from having use of the money between pay-i and pay-out--and do quite nicely from investing this way.

hawk

Re:WTF!?

[cayenne8]

A minor scrape to a bumper while parking is cause for police reports and waiting around, whereas in the US a note with contact/insurance info under the wiper (or just a pile of cash obscured by a note) is the standard response.

Hmm...I guess the last few times I came out in the parking lot, to see one side or the other of my caved in by someone pulling out and hitting me, that the note just must have blown off the windshield...

Man, these days, I wonder if drivers are getting their licenses out of a box of Cracker Jacks or something....NO ONE can seem to drive these days. And the worst offenders, seem to be the ones driving the largest trucks and SUVs.

I drive a small 2 seater sports car. And each time I've come out to see the side of my car caved in (one time side view mirror also ripped off)...it was from parking next to a large truck.

Ok, maybe they weren't paying enough attention and didn't see my car, but surely they felt the impact while they turned out of the parking space and were scraping the full length of my car...??

These folks have NO fscking clue where they are in space with relation to their truck/car.

These days, I see it VERY often with pulling up to the line at a stop light.

Rather than pull all the way up to line, more and more of these Bozos are at least almost one car length away from the line.....like they stop when they see the nose of their large truck at the line, which is NOT near the line.

Even if they see me pulled way ahead of them to the line, they don't move.

In New Orleans, where we have neutral grounds (medians as others call them) on almost all roads...if making a left turn, you have a limited number of cars that can fit....and these assholes are keeping at least 1-2 cars from being able to wait for the lights to change and complete the left turn.

Its like no one taught them how to drive and judge where you car is in space.....

I won't even get into who none can seem (especially LARGE trucks/SUVs) to fscking PARK in between the lines, nor do they realize the swinging the door open full force when getting out, *might* just cause it to hit the car parked beside it....

[/rant mode off...going to get a cool drink]

Re:WTF!?

[RightwingNutjob]

Seconded. My 11 year old chevy, the bumpers are just plastic over foam, pop right off, and if they're scratched they can go into the paint shop in one piece. My wife's newer VW, the bumpers have reflectors that need to be masked off and electronics that need to be disconnected, even if they're not broken. More labor cost for the cosmetic portion of the repair even if none of the fancy widgets need fixing.

Re:WTF!?

[jellomizer]

There are some factors I could expect to go on here.
Hotmail popular from late 1990's to the early 2000's. As a free Web Service to check emails. So... Statically we can get the following generalization of the person.

These are GENERALIZATIONS they are expectation.

1. Their age: The Hotmail user is probably over 40 years of age. Being the service is over 20 years old, and most people getting into it, do so in around their 20's or Later, possibly in their late teens. (Only an unpopular geek (at the time) would do so at a younger age)

2. Lack of computer skills: People used hotmail for general two reasons. 1. As a throw away email address to not get spammed (They wouldn't provide to something as important as Insurance they are paying for) 2. Because they couldn't figure out how to setup an email client correctly (The popular option at the time)

3. Stuck in their ways: If you are still using Hotmail as your email address, then you are probably stuck in your ways and avoid change at all cost. This could mean your bad habits will stick as well.

I am sure they did some calculations and find higher claims correlation with Hotmail users vs non.

Re:WTF!?

[mysidia]

Bumper covers have been about half (in terms of $) of all bodywork in America for decades.

Yeah... it's kind of ridiculous. What we should have is a few laws to encourage vehicles be designed with inexpensive bumpers, E.G.:
(1) Every car shall provide a highly-visible exposed bumpers in good condition covering the front and rear of the vehicle for the purpose of absorbing the shock of a low-speed collision, damage caused to a vehicle with missing or faulty bumpers shall be the responsibility of the owner, And,

(2) Any accidental damage caused to the surface or structure of either bumper or its attachments during a collision shall be the sole liability of the vehicle's registered owner, and cannot be covered by any insurance policy, unless the bumpers were effective in good condition, and damage to other parts of the vehicle still resulted.

(3) If a vehicle maker has not made arrangements to ensure the specifications or generic pieces for any replacement parts or bumpers, coatings, treatments, or paints, are available and can be reproduced free of royalties or licensing charges to restore a vehicle to like-new condition, then the manufacturer of the vehicle shall be liable for the cost of any unique replacement materials necessary in order to effect repair of a bumper on a vehicle they made.

Re:WTF!?

[HornWumpus]

VWs are just _terrible_ these days.

The first step to replace the brake master cylinder on a new 'bug'? Remove front bumper. No bullshit. It's like the old bad jokes about English cars, but true.

Even my German cousin has VW on his 'never again' list. If you know any Germans, that should tell you just how shitty VWs are.

Re:WTF!?

[beelsebob]

It's not simple backup cameras here, it's cameras for lane keep assist, or adaptive cruise control, or ...

Re:WTF!?

[beelsebob]

Also, junking cars in the UK when they're young is nothing to do with weird laws, it's to do with being on an island surrounded by salt water. A car that makes it to 150,000 miles in the UK is close to a miracle, because everything will have turned to rust by then.

Re:WTF!?

[lgw]

Rather than pull all the way up to line, more and more of these Bozos are at least almost one car length away from the line.....like they stop when they see the nose of their large truck at the line, which is NOT near the line.

I started seeing this in California a few years back - blew my mind. Often room for a whole extra car in front of them - are they seeing an invisible car I'm not, or something? For some reason I don't see this problem in Texas - must be because the truck is just an extension of one's self.

Re:WTF!?

[AntronArgaiv]

I have a Hotmail address. It's the one I give out when ordering stuff and to businesses that ask for one. I expect it to get spammed.
I have a gmail address for personal stuff ...and a work email for work stuff ...and an email provided by my ISP, which I hardly ever use.

(and four or five throw-away email accounts for stuff I don't want connected with me)

I'm not sure why any of these addresses show me to be more or less likely to make an insurance claim. Thankfully, my insurance company doesn't have my email address, they have my wife's.

Re:WTF!?

[Kjella]

In what country do they have the police budget for that? Not here in Norway at least unless there's injury to a person, it impedes traffic or there's suspicion of drunk driving. Accidents are only property damage you fill out a form together with separate forms in the back if you disagree on what happened, check license plate and ID the file it with the insurance. If the other driver is not there, most people bail. Some pretend to give contact info and bail. Some give contact info and leave. Some hang around but unless it's a big accident other people aren't likely to stop you leaving, though many will take pictures. And if it is big damage to a stationary object well then they should stop you because then you're clearly not fit to drive.

Re:WTF!?

[dkman]

Yea. I scraped the back bumper and broke the tail light cover.

The tail light "assembly" would be $300.
The bumper would be $300.
The molded plastic "spoiler" attached at the bottom of the bumper would be $400.

I said "excuse me?"

So I bought the tail light assembly online for $150 and replaced it myself. The bumper remains scraped as a reminder of how ridiculous car parts are.

Re:WTF!?

[HornWumpus]

I know someone who does this. She thinks it will save her insurance in the case of a rear end collision. She won't get pushed into the car in front of her.

She doesn't understand how demand lites work. I've stopped trying to convince her that the right move is to pull up once the car behind her has come to a complete stop.

Convinced she's a great driver...because she once drove a cab...but wanted to argue that cars fronts don't drop when the driver hits the brakes...never even heard of weight transfer.

Re:WTF!?

[AmiMoJo]

In the UK car parks are usually designed to damage your car. The spaces are too small, the turns difficult and there are hidden obstacles everywhere.

I've noticed that in some other countries they avoid those things and all the cars look immaculate.

Re:WTF!?

[arth1]

They are desperately trying to find ways to predict which customers will cause what insurance claims so they can avoid the ones that will actually cost them money while offering favorable rates to those that will just keep paying without ever having an insurance claim. That's the business they're in.

The problem with widely different rates depending on risk is that it makes insurance less attractive.

If, as the insurance companies seem to want, they can calculate the risk very accurately and set the premium accordingly, so every customer pays in more than they get paid out, then customers will be better off putting the money in a savings account and taking up a loan if an accident happens before the savings account is big enough.

The whole insurance principle is based on not knowing. It's gambling. You gamble that you will have an accident, and the insurance company gambles that you won't.
A bookmaker will never charge you more for a bet than the next man just because you have a higher chance of winning. He adjusts the odds for everyone, not individually.

Insurance companies need to do the unintuitive thing of treating people more equally, or customers will flee, and the low-premium low-risk customers that stay won't pay enough to finance the business overhead.

Re:WTF!?

[MrL0G1C]

Everyone using smart phones and social media would be my guess, more people distracted and hitting the car in front in traffic jams and at junctions.

Re: WTF!?

[nitehawk214]

You can only switch if you know they are doing it.

Re:WTF!?

[NicknameUnavailable]

Whatever TF the insurer wants to use. It is a private company entitled to do as it pleases. Don't like it — switch to a competitor.

Aside from the obvious point that they're all likely doing this and you only know this one is because of a leak - how damaged does your brain have to be to apply libertarian concepts to government-mandated subscription providers?

Re:WTF!?

[tsqr]

Since buying their product (car insurance) is required under law, they no longer qualify as being a private company.

There are a lot of insurance companies, and they compete for your business. Maximum premium rates for legally required coverage are set by the state's insurance commission. State law sets the minimum liability coverage, and the terms of your auto finance contract probably require additional insurance as well; you can buy higher liability coverage amounts if you wish, as well as collision (covers damage to your car when you're at fault), comprehensive (covers damage to your car not resulting from a collision, such as hail, falling trees, etc.), uninsured motorist (collision not your fault with a car whose owner isn't insured), towing, car rental while your car is being repaired, and probably other types of insurance as well.

tl;dr: Most people buy much more coverage than the law requires, and rates vary significantly from one insurance company to another. Shop around.

Re:WTF!?

[HornWumpus]

Bumper covers are also cheap and easy. It's the paint that kills it.

Getting a bug painted won't be any cheaper.

Also have you seen the prices on genuine German bug parts these days? Bugs haven't been cheap cars for a couple of decades now.

Re:WTF!?

[tsqr]

The real question is (assuming their risk-analysis people aren't just chasing butterflies) -- what mechanism would correlate Hotmail accounts with a statistically greater risk of loss?

It isn't advanced mathematics. Take a huge population, group by email domain, and look at the average claims for each domain. If the group you're a member of has higher-than-average claims, expect the portion of your premium tied to this actuarial statistic to be higher than average. If you're a 20-year-old mail with a bad driving record residing in an accident-prone zipcode, expect your already exorbitant premium to be slightly higher because you use Hotmail.

Re:WTF!?

[HornWumpus]

No Germans I've ever known. Rather the opposite.

Re:WTF!?

[datavirtue]

"And the worst offenders, seem to be the ones driving the largest trucks and SUVs."

Nope. I see a lot of people in Civics and other small-to-mid size vehical who have no idea where their car is in relation to close objects. I drive an enormous truck and I can barrel through tight areas with confidence. People in small cars freeze up all the time when I do this because they have no idea how much room they have (more than enough). I can do it because I rely on my mirrors and I actually size up the amount of room I have and reference it based on the site lines and profiles I can observe without sticking my head out the window. Most people do not know how to do that. My advice? Learn how to fucking drive your piece of shit.

Re:WTF!?

[HornWumpus]

Longer ago than that. There were a few years that Enzo said: 'Fuck the USA, I'm not putting 200 kilos of bumpers on my cars.' Despite the fact that the majority of his suckers/customers were from the USA at the time.

You can't have heavy steel bumpers and high CAFE mileage requirements. Pick one.

Re:WTF!?

[HornWumpus]

I'm part of the one branch of my family not living in Germany. Dual citizen.

Not my experience, sure everybody complains.

# of complaints about German beer I've heard from Germans, zero.

Before Matthias' last VW, # of complaints about German engineering I'd heard from Germans, zero.

Sure they like French reds...but frog cars? Never, they do sell better than frog cars in America, where they have to be branded Nissans, but I digress.

My German relatives aren't a whiny group (but they won't touch WalMart quality stuff either). Have you ever been anywhere in the NE of the USA? Talk about whiners...

Re:WTF!?

[PrimaryConsult]

While researching into proper etiquette for a US parking-related ding, I stumbled on an article in a travel blog aimed at Americans driving in Germany / Western Europe warning us that dinging a parked car is a much bigger deal there. Perhaps they were just trying to scare us into being more responsible than the locals?

Either way that's where I came up with my own personal code: if the damaged part was already damaged, leave cash. If it was pristine, leave contact info/insurance. Neither consideration was given to me when I found my headlight smashed one morning, but whatever...

Re:WTF!?

[mi]

Aside from the obvious point that they're all likely doing this

If they are all doing it, it must really be making make sense, must it not be?

apply libertarian concepts to government-mandated subscription providers?

The government may be mandating having an insurance, but it does not mandate the use of Admiral. Plenty of competing insurers want your business — if you don't like this particular aspect of Admiral's practices, or for any other reason, you are welcome to switch.

Re:WTF!?

[bws111]

A friend of mine hit a deer with a new Honda truck. Body shop quoted $1300. An hour later they called him back. Didn't realize it had lane assist and adaptive cruise control. Estimate was now $3500.

Re:WTF!?

[nnet]

...and their car parks don't make nearly as much money...

Re: WTF!?

[mi]

You can only switch if you know they are doing it.

No, I can certainly switch in complete ignorance.

Whether they are doing this thing in particular ought not influence the choice of a reasonable consumer. What ought to affect my decision are: the prices of their plans; the ease of collecting the insurance in case of an accident. I do not care, how they arrive at the particular price for a plan — and soI do not need to know, what they choose to discriminate on.

Re: WTF!?

[cayenne8]

wtf is so important in hickville colorado thats such a cause for impatience?!? you aint in LA/NY/CHI/ATL, jesus.

Who wants to live in those shitholes...?

Re:WTF!?

[Jeremi]

It isn't advanced mathematics. Take a huge population, group by email domain, and look at the average claims for each domain.

Right. Again, the question is, why would hotmail users have higher average claims?

Re:WTF!?

[stabiesoft]

What cracks me up is how people can't seem to stay in their lane. There is a somewhat curvy 4 lane road near me and just today the person in a jeep suv could not seem to stay in their lane. Driving by braille as it used to be called. Heck a friend of mine drove us to lunch a while back and I was terrified as she appeared to think it was a 2 lane road not a 4 and kept weaving between the lanes. There were cars behind us. I guess lane keeping and self driving may have to become a thing since people have lost the skill to drive.

The other thing I always have wondered about is why when I park way away to avoid dings and someone decides to park next to me even though there are numerous spaces much closer.

Re:WTF!?

[bws111]

That is just stupid. If you think that insurance is 'gambling' and that 'you are betting you will have an accident', HAVE AN ACCIDENT. There, you 'won'.

Your comment about bookmakers is equally ill-informed. The only possible way person 'A' has a higher chance of winning than person 'B' is if 'A' can actually affect the outcome, or by making a DIFFERENT bet. In either case, 'A' and 'B' are certainly NOT going to get the same odds.

Your idea of a 'savings account' and 'loan' also makes no sense. Insurance is most certainly NOT 'every customer pays in more than they get paid out'. It is that on AVERAGE customers pay more (plus the money the insurance company makes on investing the premiums) than the company pays out. That says nothing about an INDIVIDUAL. As an individual you can cost them MUCH more than they will ever make off of you.

Re:WTF!?

[bws111]

The goverment doesn't even mandate insurance (usually), It just requires that you have the financial wherewithal to pay for damage you cause.

Re:WTF!?

[Goetterdaemmerung]

The whole insurance principle is based on not knowing. It's gambling. You gamble that you will have an accident, and the insurance company gambles that you won't.
A bookmaker will never charge you more for a bet than the next man just because you have a higher chance of winning. He adjusts the odds for everyone, not individually.

Insurance companies need to do the unintuitive thing of treating people more equally, or customers will flee, and the low-premium low-risk customers that stay won't pay enough to finance the business overhead.

The flaw in your argument is that in your example the bookmaker and you generally bet on a third party.

To provide a more accurate car analogy, you and a bookmaker may place a bet that *you* specifically will crash *your* car tomorrow. The next person to walk in makes the next bet with the bookmaker whether *they* will crash *their* car tomorrow. Since you are known for having a hotmail account, plus you have a history of speeding violations, your odds are not the same as the next person. The bookmaker knows and tracks 600 different things about you that are statistically relevant to determining your odds. These can and will include actuarial tables on every detail they can collect about you, unless deemed illegal to use in your locale.

Re:WTF!?

[TheCastro1689]

That's so it wouldn't piss of the locals. A responsible American means we can keep more bases there!

Re: WTF!?

[rogoshen1]

we have similar problems in OR with our delightful southern neighbors. If you find a way to permanently get rid of them, please share.

Re:WTF!?

[cayenne8]

The other thing I always have wondered about is why when I park way away to avoid dings and someone decides to park next to me even though there are numerous spaces much closer.

*DING* *DING* *DING* *DING* *DING*

You win the question of the day...I cannot fathom why this is happening.

I recently got a new car, and park it far away from all, and as you say, quite often, I come out, and find one car parked beside me (often too close to me)...even though there are a large number of spaces all round me on either side and in front of me.

Is my car a magnet or something?

WFT???

Re:WTF!?

[eth1]

These days, I see it VERY often with pulling up to the line at a stop light.

Rather than pull all the way up to line, more and more of these Bozos are at least almost one car length away from the line.....like they stop when they see the nose of their large truck at the line, which is NOT near the line.

I'm one of those "bozos" that doesn't pull all the way up to the stop line at intersections (although I'm also driving a tiny sports car, not a huge truck). Why? Because it's *safer*. If there's an accident in the intersection, and someone goes caroming off at an angle, it's the people up at the stop line that will get hit, and most likely shield me. I've had to take advanced defensive driving classes in order to be allowed to drive some fleet vehicles, and they actually teach you to stop while you can still see the line over the hood.

Re:WTF!?

[rnturn]

``Rather than pull all the way up to line, more and more of these Bozos are at least almost one car length away from the line.....like they stop when they see the nose of their large truck at the line, which is NOT near the line.''

When I encounter people stopping like that, I start looking for the signs warning of red light cameras. Some of them are set to take your photo for a ticket if the bumper of a car so much encroaches upon even an inch of the sacred airspace above the white line. So I chalk it up to the driver being paranoid about getting fined several hundred dollars just for stopping inches too close to the pedestrian crosswalk.

Re: WTF!?

[AK9oh7]

wtf is so important in hickville colorado thats such a cause for impatience?!? you aint in LA/NY/CHI/ATL, jesus.

Who wants to live in those shitholes...?

Way too many, yet still not enough to keep them out of my town.

Re:WTF!?

[swell]

The note I found under my wiper said "So there are 5, no 7 people standing around watching me write this note. A couple of them are nodding approvingly, probably because they think I'm writing my name and insurance info. Sorry, that's not going to happen but I hope the rest of your day goes better."

Re:WTF!?

[stabiesoft]

I've been tempted to wait for the person to come out and ask but figure it would end in a confrontation. But I would really like to know because for me it is just a mystery. As you say they often park way to close, and often in a crap car.

Re:WTF!?

[anegg]

I've known people who would deliberately park next to the cars they see out at the end of a parking lot with lots of spaces around them. So, someone might just be screwing with you.

Re:WTF!?

[NicknameUnavailable]

That cognitive dissonance is palpable.

Re: WTF!?

[Cederic]

Or perhaps, just maybe, possibly, he was describing how you factor this one variable into your multivariate analysis.

Control for all other factors, see which email providers are used by the most expensive drivers.

Re:WTF!?

[arth1]

That is just stupid. If you think that insurance is 'gambling' and that 'you are betting you will have an accident', HAVE AN ACCIDENT. There, you 'won'.

If you make it happen, it's not an accident. Insurance companies go to great lengths to prevent cheating, just like casinos do.

Your comment about bookmakers is equally ill-informed. The only possible way person 'A' has a higher chance of winning than person 'B' is if 'A' can actually affect the outcome, or by making a DIFFERENT bet. In either case, 'A' and 'B' are certainly NOT going to get the same odds.

No, stupid, in almost all types of betting that have variable odds, a well informed person has an increased chance of winning over someone picking bets at random. That's why the odds change. Sports betting is a good example.

Your idea of a 'savings account' and 'loan' also makes no sense. Insurance is most certainly NOT 'every customer pays in more than they get paid out'. It is that on AVERAGE customers pay more (plus the money the insurance company makes on investing the premiums) than the company pays out. That says nothing about an INDIVIDUAL.

You're making my point for me, but fail to see it. When insurance companies raise the premium for an INDIVIDUAL (why are we shouting?), they defeat the purpose of insurance, which is to level an unfair playing field.
Or in other words, insurance companies should not look at the risks/expenses for the individual, but for the total number of insured. Bean counters don't see the big picture, and think that if the company makes ten million but lose a million on the most risky customers, raising the premium based on a perceived risk is going to make them more money. In the long run, it will drive customers away.

Re:WTF!?

[connect4]

lol

Re:WTF!?

[bws111]

I didn't mean to intentionally cause an accident. I was pointing out the absurdity of your claim that insurance is gambling. IF you have an accident, exactly what have you 'won'?

You're still very wrong about the betting. While a well-informed bettor may have a better chance of making the right bet, once the decision has been made he has EXACTLY the same chances of winning that bet as someone who picked the same bet at random. And if enough well-informed bettors make that same bet the odds will be adjusted.

Where do you get the idea that the purpose of insurance is 'to level an unfair playing field'? That is ridiculous. The purpose of insurance is to protect yourself from potentially damaging losses. And it is only logical that the more likely you are to suffer that loss the more you should be paying for that protection.

Insurance is an old industry, run by statisticians and actuaries. And in all that time, none of those people were able to figure out that risk has no bearing on how much you should pay? Good one.

Re:WTF!?

[bws111]

I am not talking about fraud. I am talking about a normal human being buying insurance to protect themself from loss.

My house has a value of about $200K. If it burns down, my insurance will pay that. I pay about $400/year for fire insurance. You would have to be a complete moron to think the insurance company will ever make more than $200K off of me.

Re:WTF!?

[Carewolf]

That is just stupid. If you think that insurance is 'gambling' and that 'you are betting you will have an accident', HAVE AN ACCIDENT. There, you 'won'.

No you lose if you do it on purpose, but insurance IS gambling from the perspective of the insurance company, for the insured it is the opposite since it lowers financial uncertainty instead of increasing it.

Re:WTF!?

[arth1]

I didn't mean to intentionally cause an accident. I was pointing out the absurdity of your claim that insurance is gambling. IF you have an accident, exactly what have you 'won'?

You win an insurance payout. You would have the accident anyhow, so the zero point is "having had an accident". At that point, getting a payout is a win compared to not getting a payout.

And if enough well-informed bettors make that same bet the odds will be adjusted.

Yes, but for everyone. Not just for the guy who knows a lot about horses, but also for the guy who randomly picked the same horse.
The insurance companies, on the other hand, want to set different odds for different customers. Their dream is to know with 100% certainty how much they will pay out to every individual, and charge the customer a bit more than that.
If everyone pitches in, the premiums are affordable for everyone, and insurance is attractive. But if the costs start to diverge too much, it no longer is attractive - it is no longer an equalizer.

Reducing payouts is short term thinking. Payouts is the cost of doing business. Making sure that the income from everyone nets an overall profit is what a good bookie or casino does, and what a good insurance company does.
Trying to find a way to milk the least profitable customers to reduce payout is just going to give your company a bad rep. An insurance company is meant to pay out, and lose money on some, and win money from others.

Re: WTF!?

[sound vision]

Idiocy has many manifestations. One is spending your entire annual income on a vehicle to let people know you are either a redneck or "big pimpin". Another is swinging your vehicle around without knowing where it's going. These two particular manifestations of idiocy compound themselves resulting in collisions.

Re: WTF!?

[nasch]

Who said anything about hickville? Have you ever heard of Denver?

Re: WTF!?

[HornWumpus]

If it will keep the Originos north of the border I'm all for it.

Terrible drivers.

Re:WTF!?

[HornWumpus]

Frogs = French

Re:WTF!?

[tsqr]

It isn't advanced mathematics. Take a huge population, group by email domain, and look at the average claims for each domain.

Right. Again, the question is, why would hotmail users have higher average claims?

That's an interesting question, but irrelevant in terms of the statistics. Some zipcodes have higher average claims than other zipcodes. Some people might think the insurance companies are using zipcodes as a proxy for race, but a peek behind the curtain might reveal that it has more to do with traffic density, road conditions, weather, and other things that don't correlate to racial makeup. In the end, the why doesn't matter to the actuary.

Re:WTF!?

[nasch]

In the US, the state governments (every state as far as I know) requires insurance to operate a motor vehicle on public roads.

Re:WTF!?

[HornWumpus]

Your post: 'complain a lot about everything in or from Germany.' Not everything...

In fact, it's very _easy_ to find things to complain about regarding the engineering of VWs (circling back to the beginning of the conversation). Water cooled VWs are just terrible.

SAP is even worse.

Re:WTF!?

[bws111]

First, you have a weird definition of 'winning'.

You still aren't grasping the difference between the bookies and the insurance companies. The bookies use the same odds for everyone because everyone who made the same bet has the exact same chance of winning. This is of course the exact opposite of insurance, where everyone has a different chance of 'winning'. I don't know what is so hard to understand about that.

I can't figure out how you expect your 'plan' to work. It is obvious that if you only had one price that price would have to be between the current high and low prices. So why would anyone currently paying a low rate stay with your company? Now all the low-risk high-profit customers are gone, so you have to raise your rates to make up the loss. Now you have more customers who can get a better deal elsewhere, so they leave, and prices go up again. Rinse and repeat until you have no customers left. Good plan

Re: WTF!?

[Reaperducer]

Seen on a Nevada plate recently:

GOBK2CA

Re:WTF!?

[zeugma-amp]

I've seen similar behavior recommended to folks as a security precaution. Leave more than a car length between you and someone else to aid in your ability to get away if required. Doing so when there is nothing between you and the line is dumb, in my not so humble, but there really are some dumb folk out there.

Re:WTF!?

[OneAhead]

She doesn't understand how demand lites work. I've stopped trying to convince her that the right move is to pull up once the car behind her has come to a complete stop.

Hmm, can't parse this. Could you kindly explain?

Re:WTF!?

[thegarbz]

The insurance industry is just crazy! Plum fucking loco.

Why? They collect data to build a risk profile based on the accidents they observe. Without accurate data they fall back on the most accurate model they have. The use of a hotmail account may be a proxy for identifying a certain group of people. (side note the only people I know who have a Hotmail account are 25-35 year old women). Not saying that women are bad drivers, but that is an example of the type of characterisation such things can determine.

Re:WTF!?

[thegarbz]

Apparently the issue is mostly that modern cars have really fancy bumpers.

Also an issue has for a long time been that bumpers have been custom moulded plastic parts which crack easily and can't be repaired. If you damage your bumper, you have to replace the bumper. If you ding the side panel of the car, a good panel beater may be able to get it looking like new again.

Re:WTF!?

[thegarbz]

A minor scrape to a bumper while parking is cause for police reports and waiting around

Not at all. This varies greatly by country. In some countries you are legally obligated to file a police report for any minor ding (Hello Germany) other countries have no problem using bumpers to actually assist parking allowing you to push some cars out of the way (Hello France). Personally I never understood the fascination for keeping a bumper perfectly scratch free. It's there for a reason.

Re:WTF!?

[LinuxIsGarbage]

In dense European cities, parking is so tight that I've heard "bumpers are for bumping", and there were a lot more cars with scuffed bumpers.

Re:WTF!?

[LinuxIsGarbage]

Traffic lights with sensors. They won't trigger unless you're stopped at the line. I've seen people stop like that and thought "what are you doing?" and sure enough they don't get their protected green arrow when the lights change.

Re:WTF!?

[LinuxIsGarbage]

Some people seem to need another car to guide them. You could be doing 68MPH in the right lane of the interstate with a 65 limit, with the left lane completely empty. The same people will come up really fast behind you, then follow you at about a 3 foot following distance. Even though there's plenty of room to go around.

If they do pass they will pull in with maybe 3 feet in front of you. Again left lane is empty so there's no rush to move over before building up a 2-second gap.

Re:WTF!?

[bws111]

Untrue. For instance, New York requires 'proof of insurance or evidence of a financial security bond or a financial security deposit'. Other states are the same.

Re:WTF!?

[nickersonm]

Here in Boston, I frequently see "Bumper Bully"s on cars - a rubber bumper for your bumper. Apparently so you can smash into parking spaces without worrying about scrapes?

Re:WTF!?

[nickersonm]

Some states (not all) allow you to post surety bonds or deposit cash with the DMV in lieu of insurance. Others have guaranteed-eligible state-sponsored insurance programs (usually more expensive).

Re:WTF!?

[pnutjam]

Did you know some of these lights have cameras (that look for a pre-defined area to be full) instead of floor sensors. I'm convinced they get out of alignment due to the weather and cause long trigger times, or won't trigger unless your in a weird position.

I think they have been removing them around here, I've seen the cutting circle wire sensors into the roads.

Re:WTF!?

[OneAhead]

OK, that part is clear now. But then what's with waiting for the car behind to come to a complete stop? Is this still under the assumption that you have to stop too short to save insurance money? But since doing so will fail to trigger the sensors, you need to eventually pull up? If so, why the heck wait for the car behind you to come to a complete stop?

- You'll sustain less damage when rear-ended if your breaks are not engaged (and you're coasting forward slowly), so stopping short and then just standing there waiting for the car behind you is a recipe to (a) increase the chance of being rear-ended in the first place and (b) maximize damage if it happens.(*)
- Waiting for the car behind you to stop makes everyone in your lane wait longer, and more generally decreases the capacity of your stretch of road.
- You're forcing the person behind you to stop and then move forward again to close the newly created gap. This adds extra annoyance on top of the above, and is a needless waste of fuel.

To state the obvious, the best way to both prevent getting rear-ended and minimize damage is to start breaking as soon as an obstacle (red traffic light) pops up ahead, even if it's still much further away than your minimum safe stopping distance. It also decreases the risk of slipping if road conditions are unexpectedly bad (oil slick, black ice,...), is generally safer when something unexpected happens, is gentler on the brakes, saves fuel, allows you to take off faster when the obstacle clears (light turns green),... For all these reasons, it's part of the driving manual in my home country, and people do fail their driving exam when not putting it in practice. When coming to the US, I was amazed at how almost everyone just keeps on pushing their accelerators until they really *have* to start breaking. (Admittedly, my view may be skewed by driving in the city; my friends kept on telling me that people drive better elsewhere, and I can see city driving is bad pretty much everywhere in the world.)

(*) Granted, if your breaks are not engaged, you'll be pushed forward a bit further too, but since you're in front of a traffic light, there's no car in front of you to begin with. And you'd have to get rear-ended pretty damn hard to be pushed all the way into the stream of traffic. Most rear-ends at traffic lights are fender benders.

Re:WTF!?

[mjwx]

WTF changed 3 or 4 years ago in Britain? Major insurer closed? Change in liability laws? Lucas electric reopened?

25% in 3 years? Was it being artificially held down?

Two things.

1. The Tory government has increased the Insurance Premium Tax, it's now at 20% when it was previously 9%.
2. Because they can. The Tory govt are letting them get away with whatever they want. The tax rises have let them get away with increasing premiums wherever they can and blame the government.

What is needed is an inquiry into the insurance industry in the UK. That will unsettle a lot of skeletons in the Conservative's closet though, so it wont happen whilst the Tories are in power.

This is not the worst thing Admiral have done, they've recently been caught charging anyone with the name "Mohammad" or variants there of £100 more that someone with an Anglo name like Steve. They sent me an Email on Wednesday (I'm an Admiral customer) saying they weren't racist but were charging people more based on a racially stereotyped name, but no, we're not racist (to be fair, they're more greedy than malicious and thought they could get away with it).

BTW, Lucas are now just making components in China so quality has actually improved (my previous BMW Z4 had a Lucas starter motor after the Bosch one packed it in).

Re:WTF!?

[mjwx]

If I'm making a credit card purchase I enter my name and address in all uppercase since that's exactly how it appears on my bill (and card, in case of my name).

I've dealt with payment systems on the back end. It's not necessary as the system is case insensitive, it'll be sent as all lowercase anyway. As long as the characters match in your first and last name you're fine.

Re:WTF!?

[drinkypoo]

The insurance industry is just crazy! Plum fucking loco.

No, this makes good sense. If you're still using hotmail, you must be a total spanner.

Re:WTF!?

[beelsebob]

And that climate is cause by... oh right... the massive amount of water all around.

You know how that water travels two hundred miles inland and makes all cars rust... IN FUCKING CLOUDS!

Re:WTF!?

[Shirley Marquez]

Another factor is that the US has a legal mandate for cars to have effective bumpers. Some of the cars sold elsewhere in the world do not, which means that even a trivial impact can cause substantial amounts of damage to the car. The downside is that the US versions of the cars are heavier and get worse fuel mileage.

Re:WTF!?

[Shirley Marquez]

It's possible that the lot was more full during the period when you were inside the store.

Re:WTF!?

[HornWumpus]

She's worried about getting rear ended and being pushed into the car in front of her, which would involve her insurance. So she leaves room in front. Accepting her premise, once the car behind you has come to a complete stop, the move is to not let him get pushed into you by pulling forward. Let the gap propagate down the line at that point.

When the light turns green there is enough gap to let the light computer think the line is depleted and cycle, particularly in left turn lanes. She goes through on yellow, but everybody behind her waits another cycle.

Re:WTF!?

[suutar]

why would her insurance get involved? If she's fully stopped, the person who pushed her is at fault for what she gets pushed into.

Re:WTF!?

[suutar]

oh, you're looking for causation. All they have is correlation. Sorry =/

Re:WTF!?

[suutar]

if your competitors are doing the same analysis well, even the low-risk folks aren't high profit, because they're the ones getting the low rates.

Re:WTF!?

[david_thornley]

If you're pushed into the car in front of you, you're not liable. It happened to my wife once. Someone filed a complaint against her, and, since it we were having a horrible blizzard, it took a few days for a judge to see what happened and throw out the complaint.

At one point, the police called it a three-car accident, which got my wife a little miffed. It went from being a two-car accident to a four-car without an intermediate step.

Re:WTF!?

[PrimaryConsult]

The same is said of NYC. A few times I rented cars at a place ~150 miles from NYC and they said "we get a lot of cars from NYC, where bumpers live up to their name, so we ignore scrapes there". Sure enough every rental form had the bumpers circled as "pre-existing damage" before either of us knew which car I would get.

Re:WTF!?

[HornWumpus]

In America you are liable for the car you got pushed into, but typically your insurance turns around and sends a bill/sues the owner/insurer of the car that pushed you forward. The American system is setup to benefit the shysters, same as always. Shysters shouldn't be allowed to hold public office, but I digress.

They do use the excuse to raise your rates.

Re:WTF!?

[HornWumpus]

How that works: Everybody gets their money from the car behind, who add what they paid out to what they want from the next car back. Being involved raises your rates.

Fucking lawyers.

Re:WTF!?

[RockDoctor]

I was driving (a hired car) in Sicily a year and a bit ago. It was ... enthralling.

Re:WTF!?

[david_thornley]

In America you are liable for the car you got pushed into

We were informed that the lawsuit was dropped as soon as the judge saw the accident report. We had no problem whatsoever aside from having to replace our car.

They do use the excuse to raise your rates.

I've never had a policy that would raise rates for an accident that they didn't have to pay out money for.

That's my old anecdotal data, though.

if they have more accidents then that's fair

[iamhassi]

At first glance I feel like this is horrible and unfair, but if they ran the numbers and for some reason hotmail users have more accidents then it's only fair they charge more for hotmail users.

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[olsmeister]

Or, they could just... you know, charge people who get in more accidents higher premiums. Just a thought.

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[Anonymous Coward]

Now do the same based on gender, race or religion... sit back and eat popcorn.

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[magarity]

At first glance I feel like this is horrible and unfair, but if they ran the numbers and for some reason hotmail users have more accidents then it's only fair they charge more for hotmail users.

"Some reason" is the key here. What's the causal link between accidents and email domain? It's one thing to say behavior X decreases driver attention therefore car crashes are more likely therefore your rates are going up. But to just hit up customers based on coincidence? Causation really does require correlation but not the other way around.

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[HornWumpus]

It is fair and just to charge young men more for car insurance, it's just actuarial reality.

It is evil and wrong to charge young women more for health insurance, actuaries are sexists.

I thought this had been long covered...

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[DarkRookie]

Hotmail is one of the most used emailing services. There cannot be a significant number of HotMail users to justify this. What about gmail? or AOL? or Yahoo? I would say AOL would be here since most of the users are older IIRC. And if there is a statically significant amount, show all the data you use to justify this.

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[beelsebob]

So, you want to set prices purely based on that driver's past performance, fair enough. That means you need to find all the premiums you're currently charging people who've had no accidents, average them, and charge that to all those people. Great.

However, for a fair proportion of those drivers who were in low risk categories according to statistical analysis, you've just put their premium up significantly. Those drivers will all go to another insurer who is still doing statistical analysis of risk. Now you're left with the drivers for whom you cut their premium, because they were higher risk.

Now you're stuck selling cheap insurance to high risk individuals, and will pay out more than you accept in premiums...

And... you're bust. You should probably not go into managing an insurance company.

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[beelsebob]

They don't need to establish what the causation is, only that there is a reliable correlation. With a reliable correlation, they can predict more accurately who will get in an accident, and that's all that matters.

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[nospam007]

It must be the sheer stupidity or cluelessness of hotmail users.

Re: if they have more accidents then that's fair

[ArmoredDragon]

That's just being politically correct. The reality is, certain demographics are just more likely to get into accidents, such as teenagers, and if you as an insurance company just assume that no driving record means perfect driving record, then you're either going to be insolvent or you're going to have to raise everybody else's rates.

The mathematics here are amoral.

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[AmiMoJo]

charge people who get in more accidents higher premiums

They do, which is why if you have an accident that isn't your fault you often find your premium goes up. You can then charge this increase to the at-fault party, although their insurance company will likely resist.

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[dcollins117]

If all I have to do to reduce the risk of having an automobile accident is change my email addresses then I'm all for it.

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[ShanghaiBill]

Or, they could just... you know, charge people who get in more accidents higher premiums. Just a thought.

Life insurance should work the same way. They should only charge more to people that die.

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[Bert64]

Which they already do..
If you've recently made any claims your insurance premiums will be MUCH higher (and you are required to disclose this information)...

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[beelsebob]

Yes, but they *also* incorporate other statistical analyses into determining your premium. Common ones that predict higher claim rates include:

  Are you male (illegal in the UK now, but was a good predictor)
  Are you under 25
  Do you live in certain areas
  Do you drive a modified car
  Do you drive a cheap car with a powerful engine ...

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[Narcocide]

Stress could be a contributing factor in many types of cancer. We don't actually know.

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[beelsebob]

No one asserted that there's a causation here. They only asserted that there's a reliable correlation, which can be used as a predictor.

Re: if they have more accidents then that's fair

[c6gunner]

You're not buying anything; auto insurance is a legal requirement which currently exists primarily to ensure that innocent parties will be covered for their losses.

Of course they can never predict how much you're going to cost them because your costs aren't necessarily dictated only by you. If tomorrow you get t-boned by an uninsured driver who ran a red light, there's not much you could have done to avoid that accident. They still have to pay for your losses, so you're "costing" them even though you did nothing wrong.

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[Anonymous Coward]

They need to know about this then.

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[beelsebob]

Welcome to having a tiny sample size, and hence huge error bars. This doesn't show that there's an issue with using correlations as predictors, it shows that there's an issue with trying to find correlations in tiny sample sizes.

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[Opportunist]

When I can change gender and race at whim by signing up with a new one, you have a case.

Religion... ok, I give you that one.

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[mark-t]

They do that too... In two ways. One, they increase the premiums for people who have accident claims, but additionally, they offer discounts for people who have had a history of not getting into accidents. When get auto insurance for the first time, you are always going to come in at the baseline for your demographic, which is reflective of the number of claims and the cost of those claims by people with assorted factors in common with yourself (although this is the first time I've ever heard of them using an email domain name as one of the factors). After that, your fees will go up, or they will go down, depending on whether or not you have any accidents that are your fault.

Anyways, with a lot of insurance companies, you can start to see discounts on your premiums in as early as a year with no claims, and in some cases you may get further discounts the longer you go without an accident (usually to some fixed number of years). Your first year can seem unfairly expensive if you are a good driver that happens to fit into a demographic that statistically has more claims than average, but since the alternative can be to not be allowed to legally drive at all, putting up with the financial inconvenience for only one year or so isn't really as bad as it sounds.

Re: if they have more accidents then that's fair

[ArmoredDragon]

That is only if you're trying to scientifically draw a link between two things for some other intent (I.e.. to treat a disease, or to model the climate.) Financial matters beyond economic decisions don't need this, they just need to be able to make predictions. Investors use similar methodology to try to predict stock prices, and it mostly works.

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[Anonymous Coward]

What this shows is that correlations are not by themselves a valid reason. Having a Hotmail account doesn't cause accidents. Being older than average causes Hotmail accounts and accidents. Age discrimination is illegal, but find something that correlates with age (Hotmail account), and then you can discriminate freely? No, it's still age discrimination, unless you can explain how applying with a Hotmail account causes accidents.

Re: if they have more accidents then that's fair

[ArmoredDragon]

I didn't make a blanket statement, Mr Engrish. I said they do, I did not say they all do.

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[spire3661]

I have two main identities, my hotmail account that i have had since 1998 and my gmail account i have had since 2004. IM the same person and have the same risk regardless of which ID i give them...Judging risk based on this criteria is stupid.

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[Anonymous Coward]

Health insurance and car insurance are very different, because there is no "driving safe" or "not driving" that will prevent you from getting sick.
But of course you know that. You're just a troll. Sad!

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[HornWumpus]

Gender, check.

Race, One negroplasty please.

Do dolphins get insurance discounts?

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[Anonymous Coward]

If it turns out that I can use every 6th word in the bible to predict horse race winners I don't care why it works as long as I'm making money.
This is the same for insurance companies. It doesn't matter why some demographic is crashing their cars. If it turns out that people born on a monday get into accidents more often than people who aren't, it doesn't matter why. You will save money by charging them more.

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[HornWumpus]

You can also sue the at fault insurer (typically in small claims) for diminished resale value. A wrecked and fixed car is worth less than an unwrecked car.

In America you will win, but they will make you take them to court. The insurance companies don't want people to know this is possible.

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[HornWumpus]

Bullshit. Gender affects risk, but can only be used to charge men more.

Explain why in life insurance it's OK to use gender (to charge men more)?

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[wardrich86]

That's just fucking stupid. Hotmail probably has a far larger userbase than most other email providers, and there's really no tie between location and email domain. So it's not like a case where people in a large city would be charged more than people in a smaller city for insurance (large city = more cars, more traffic, more risk). This is just straight-up scamming.

They would have been smarter to target people with Instagram/Snapchat accounts that are more likely to take selfies and pictures while they're driving.

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[MrMr]

And yet, this is standard practice around here. No particular problem as the no-claim premium reduction is transferable between insurers. At present for instance I'm at a small % of the nominal premium: older than 30-no accidents-zip code outside city center, it all adds up transparently. High risk individuals pay more everywhere, up to 120% for pathological cases.

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[iamhassi]

Health insurance and car insurance are very different, because there is no "driving safe" or "not driving" that will prevent you from getting sick. But of course you know that. You're just a troll. Sad!

That is completely untrue. Certain ages, sexes and probably even races participate in activities that may cause more bodily injuries or other health concerns than what others do. Statistics isn't racist, it's just a probability, and they have to charge on the likelihood that something will happen so they can have the money to pay out if it does happen.

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[Registered Coward v2]

You can also sue the at fault insurer (typically in small claims) for diminished resale value. A wrecked and fixed car is worth less than an unwrecked car.

In America you will win, but they will make you take them to court. The insurance companies don't want people to know this is possible.

Depends on the company. Mine sends me a dimished value claim form to make a claim.

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[lgw]

A lot of US states specifically ban reclaiming loss of resale value. Corruption through-and-through.

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[lgw]

If the actuarial prediction is accurate, it's accurate. Doesn't matter if you think it's fair.

Re: if they have more accidents then that's fair

[tsqr]

If tomorrow you get t-boned by an uninsured driver who ran a red light, there's not much you could have done to avoid that accident. They still have to pay for your losses, so you're "costing" them even though you did nothing wrong.

The law in California only requires liability coverage; i.e., coverage for damage to other people and their property due to an accident where you're at fault. This does not include the case where "you get t-boned by an uninsured driver who ran a red light", but you can pay extra for that not-required-by-law coverage. It also doesn't include the case where a tree falls on your parked car, but you can pay extra for that not-required-by-law coverage.

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[HornWumpus]

We won the XY chromosome lottery, that much is true. But ALL the breaks? Nonsense.

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[Dragonslicer]

Life insurance should work the same way. They should only charge more to people that die.

What, your life insurance application didn't have a checkbox for "Immortal"?

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[jareth-0205]

It is fair and just to charge young men more for car insurance, it's just actuarial reality.

It is evil and wrong to charge young women more for health insurance, actuaries are sexists.

I thought this had been long covered...

I realise you think you're being clever and 'noticing' a hypocrisy.
Actually this has (or atleast attempting to be) addressed within discrimination laws. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/busi...
Yes it does work both ways, it's just in most cases men have been on the receiving end of the historical advantage.

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[Dragonslicer]

They don't need to establish what the causation is, only that there is a reliable correlation. With a reliable correlation, they can predict more accurately who will get in an accident, and that's all that matters.

One potential issue is that the correlation may be masking or duplicating some other correlation. It's like saying that racial minorities are more likely to be criminals, but the actual correlation is with living in poor, urban areas.

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[HornWumpus]

I bet they got the car fixed, nothing for diminished resale value.

It wasn't mentioned and most people don't know to even ask. If you ask they'll say 'we never pay that', knowing they _always_ pay it after being taken to court (specifically in CA).

Re: if they have more accidents then that's fair

[liefer]

What's it like to be this self-hating? Seems terrible

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[gravewax]

you will probably find that the email provider you use is more to do with gender and age and hence it doesn't surprise me that different providers would have different risk profiles, HOWEVER I would think if they looked closer at their data they would more than likely find that the demographic is responsible rather than being a Hotmail user.

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[gravewax]

It sounds more of a way to discriminate indirectly based on age or Gender, guessing they are probably in a region that has restrictions in how they can price policies. Email providers will be top heavy with the demographic that found them popular at the time of their inception.

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[Cederic]

Someone slams their breaks on heavily all the time

Does that actually correlate well with accident rates though?

Most of my heaviest brake use is me avoiding some other cunt and thus not having an accident.

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[Cederic]

in most cases men have been on the receiving end of the historical advantage

Car insurance: Men were paying much more than women, even though women have more accidents per mile.

Life insurance: Men were paying more, because they were more likely to die.

Pensions: Men were receiving more, because they were more likely to die.

So the only historical advantage was the amount paid out per month by a pension, but that advantage needs to be offset by the shorter period for which a man can claim a pension.

You're basically saying that dying at a younger age is a historical advantage. I think this makes you a feminist.

Re: if they have more accidents then that's fair

[Cederic]

Gender absolutely is a protected class in the UK for insurance purposes.

Proving that the insurance company discriminated on that factor is however bloody difficult.

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Why is it fair that they charge more for hotmail users? Correlation is not causation.

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[Cederic]

Causation really does require correlation but not the other way around.

You're assuming actuaries give a shit about causation.

But..

What's the causal link between accidents and email domain?

Hotmail users have made a poor choice of email provider, thus demonstrating their sub-optimal decision making capabilities. Those will in turn lead to reduced maintenance of their vehicle, poorer judgement while driving it and a greater likelihood of an accident, as demonstrated by actual accident rates.

Of course, it's possible that I just made all of that up. But you can bet that Admiral's actuaries did the fucking analysis.

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[citylivin]

"and for some reason hotmail users have more accidents then it's only fair they charge more for hotmail users."

What if they changed that to "cloud mail" users instead? They ran the numbers and not only are people with gmail, microsoft, yahoo, etc email accounts more likely to get in an accident than people who run their own mailservers, there are MORE of them! so they can raise rates for more total people all while claiming that "the metrics prove it!".

Maybe private insurance works this way, but around here we have government insurance and your discount is based on 1) how long you have been an accident free driver, 2) whether you have under 25 year olds driving the car, 3) the car make and model (engine size, etc), 4) the replacement value of the car (capped at 50k i believe). And thats pretty much it.

i do hate public insurance for always siding with the customer that will cost them less money to settle with, but they are pretty equal when it comes to determining rates.

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[markdavis]

>"At first glance I feel like this is horrible and unfair, but if they ran the numbers and for some reason hotmail users have more accidents then it's only fair they charge more for hotmail users."

The problem with this whole theory is that most people have MANY Email addresses. I have a hotmail address (have haven't had an accident in zillions of years), and I would tend to use it for anything "spammy"- which is exactly the case with something like this. I have access to lots of other Email addresses, even those that I manage myself. So what are they ACTUALLY testing here? People who ONLY have access to Hotmail? Or people who CHOOSE to give them a Hotmail address? Are they assuming Hotmail users are less adapt, less educated, or less computer savvy? And how many other people will it suck in with that? What exactly IS fair to test?

I mean, I bet I could come up with HUNDREDS of things they could test- hair color, if they wear glasses, where they went to school, how quickly bills are paid, how well they speak or write English, how many pets they own, if they are a Netflix customer, their political affiliation, in what industry they work, how much debt they carry, how many children they have, what their first name is, etc, etc, etc. At what point are such metrics considered unfair or just plain spying? Should they have access to our medical records?? I bet I could pull a correlation between any of those I listed and metrics that are not ALLOWED to be used, like race, gender, religion, etc. It is a tricky thing.

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[thegarbz]

Or, they could just... you know, charge people who get in more accidents higher premiums. Just a thought.

Indeed. Please tell me while you fill out this paperwork how many accidents you will have in the next 5 years. Thanks.

Re:if they have more accidents then that's fair

[ZorroXXX]

A group prediction is just that, a prediction for the (the average of) whole group. Trying to extrapolate individual predictions from group membership is not accurate , no matter how accurate the group accuracy is.

What about Yahoo!

[DontBeAMoran]

Did the insurance company dismiss applications made by users of Yahoo! email on account of being mentally unfit?

Re:Airline tickets

[oneiros27]

hotmail.com is more affluent?

Maybe they're just older, as they give out 'live.com' these days, I thought.

Article Locked/Apply to all Microsoft Products?

[mykepredko]

As I'm writing this, I can't read the whole article unless I give my contact information so I'm going to wait for somebody to post another link.

I'd love to see the analysis behind the rate increase for HotMail users - I'm guessing there are other factors that come into play that causes them to use HotMail (maybe an extra/missing chromosome?). Personally, I don't know of anybody I currently correspond with who use HotMail (checked my contact lists) but maybe this is something that is different between North America and Europe.

Could it say something about people who use Microsoft products? If I show them how much I hate Windows 10, would I get more money off my car insurance?

Re:Article Locked/Apply to all Microsoft Products?

[PPH]

Could it say something about people who use Microsoft products?

This.

They are already overpaying for second rate crap.

Re:Article Locked/Apply to all Microsoft Products?

[Ogive17]

I use hotmail when I'm sure my email address is going to get sold to an advertising firm.

I think their junk mail scanning is pretty good, I check my inbox maybe twice per week and I usually have less than 10 unread emails. Not bad for a hotmail account that has been active for approximately 25 years. I haven't used it for personal communication in around 20 years.

Maybe Hotmail Users Email while Driving?

[mykepredko]

Could there be a lot of Hotmail users, who have been thrown through the windshield from an accident, that have been found still clutching their phones with a half finished email?

If that's the case, then I don't have any issues with them getting higher insurance rates.

Re:Maybe Hotmail Users Email while Driving?

[geekmux]

Could there be a lot of Hotmail users, who have been thrown through the windshield from an accident, that have been found still clutching their phones with a half finished email?

If that's the case, then I don't have any issues with them getting higher insurance rates.

They claim they use hundreds of metrics to determine insurance rates. Just how far down that rabbit hole are you willing to allow them to go in order to justify gouging the consumer? Sexual orientation? Eye color? DNA sampling?

Hilarious

[jittles]

I always do those "anonymous" quotes with a throwaway hotmail account and, if I like the price, do it for real with my actual information. So that means that they'll automatically lose my business because I don't want to deal with spam from a company I don't choose to use.

Re:Hilarious

[Opportunist]

Take it a step further. Have an email address for every company you deal with (password safes make it easily manageable). That way you can actually see which companies sell your address and to whom and when. It's actually pretty fun to see which are the worst offenders.

Re:Hilarious

[RevRagnarok]

This has backfired for me a few times, especially with small businesses. "Oh you work for us?" Or my favorite was when one threatened to sue me for copyright infringement for using their name. Couldn't just walk away b/c it was a medical bill processor or something like that (I forget the details).

Re:Hilarious

[HornWumpus]

Do you know a password manager that will automagically signup for new throwaway emails? (I'll do the captcha if needed)

That would be a useful feature.

Re:Hilarious

[Opportunist]

You don't use the company name in the email address, c'mon, that's obvious and a red flag for them to filter.

Could it cost more to deal with Hotmail email?

[mykepredko]

I'm trying to think of why that's the case - maybe more Hotmail accounts are used as source addresses for spam and more effort is required to sort the wheat from the chaff.

I tried to search on this but couldn't find any current articles/references commenting on this.

Re:Could it cost more to deal with Hotmail email?

[Ksevio]

I'm guessing they used some machine learning algorithm and included email domain as one of the features. Makes you wonder what else they included

Re:Could it cost more to deal with Hotmail email?

[hawk]

the cost of doing quotes for all those fake hotmail accounts that people are explaining above? :)

Before Comdex exploded, conventioneers were complaining that the casinos were gouging them on room rates, which were higher than other times of year.

No, they weren't;t coughing. Aside from the fact that *every* hotel charges by demand for that day/week, in this case, the casinos were *not* trying to get higher room rates for them. Rather, they were trying to keep those folks away, as they (as a group) neither gambled nor tipped. Gamblers and repeat customers could get rooms at a much lower rate. (but who would want to come to Vegas while that was going on? It was the only time of year we had traffic congestion . . .)

hawk

Re:If it aint broke.

[beelsebob]

Well, there's nothing wrong with that, other than it appears that that attitude correlates strongly with higher car accident rates. It's worthy of higher rates exactly because there's a correlation that lets the insurance company predict that you'll cost them more if you exhibit that behavioral pattern.

black box

[cascadingstylesheet]

As long as they hide the criteria in a block box and call it "AI", they should be fine?

I mean we "don't know" why AI makes the decisions it does, right?

Thiny veiled age discrimmination?

[hipsterdufus]

Who has a hotmail account? Who would create a hotmail account. Older people have them, of course. I would suggest that even older people might have an aol.com account.

Re:Thiny veiled age discrimmination?

[Baron_Yam]

> Who would create a hotmail account.

For me, it depends. If it's for something I anticipate using on an ongoing basis, I have a 'commercial email' email account on my own server and I just add another alias to it (so I know which company sold me out when I start getting spammed).

If it's a one-off, I use a Hotmail throw-away and let Microsoft deal with the spam.

Re:Thiny veiled age discrimmination?

[turp182]

This.

The actuaries have the database team do a sort of cartesian product across a bunch of data (location, distance to work, type of vehicle, age (of driver and vehicle), driving/ticket history, income, apparently email address, etc.) to look for patterns.

I could easily see over 100 variables going into pricing.

For the record, actuarial education.

 

Re:Thiny veiled age discrimmination?

[jfdavis668]

How about Compuserve.com? Particularly if their address is still in 7xxxx,xx format.

Re:Thiny veiled age discrimmination?

[jaseuk]

MSN Messenger was really big in the UK particularly with under 12s - messenger was the chat app of choice. My 19 year old and 11 year old have hotmail addresses for that reason. Don't forget the xbox factor as well. That was cut in 2013 so there are still a lot of 18-30 somethings using hotmail addresses. Older people with fixed lines (and stability) tend to use ISP given addresses or their work accounts. Not the defacto e-mail address they ended up using from playing games or chatting with friends.

So really it's just another age / maturity indicator.

Re:Thiny veiled age discrimmination?

[Kjella]

Thiny veiled age discrimmination?

Uh, insurance has butt naked age discrimination. There's certain demographics that they obviously use such as age and gender, location, make and model of car. And I don't mean just the list price of the car, but the probability that the sort of people who buy this sort of car gets into accidents. This is particularly obvious if you start comparing luxury cars and sports cars of equal value. The problem is that this is something every insurance company knows so it's already priced in. The profit is in figuring out which 28yo females in San Diego driving a Prius are actually likely to get into an accident or not.

An insurance company's appetite for information never stops, they'd like to install a GPS tracker & black box, vacuum your Facebook account and smartphone to build a better risk profile because figuring it that you're actually a 7.09% risk customer rather than 7.98% or 6.48% is how they make extra money. Trouble is that it's just an arms race, if all have more detailed information they all figure out the same more exact risk and they're back to the basic margin. It wouldn't actually hurt the market all if you whitelisted criteria and said if we find you discriminating on anything else we'll fine you or revoke your license. But that's commie talk, the free market will fix this.

Re:Thiny veiled age discrimmination?

[mu51c10rd]

I've had a Hotmail account that I use for distribution lists and Spam. I registered it when Hotmail was still Hotmail...before the Microsoft acquisition (how many of you know Microsoft did not create Hotmail?).

Must be some AI behind this

[Rick Schumann]

They must be using one of the half-assed excuses for 'AI' everyone keeps trotting out, convincing customers that it's fully sentient and incapable of making mistakes, even if you can't talk to it or in any way have it explain it's 'reasoning' (in quotes because they're utterly devoid of any actual capacity for 'reasoning'), and therefore aren't having humans audit it's output.

AOL

[Rick Schumann]

Hate to think how much more they'd charge someone with an AOL email address, then.

Re:AOL

[Registered Coward v2]

Hate to think how much more they'd charge someone with an AOL email address, then.

They're all probably over 60 and not driving much anyway.

Re:AOL

[HornWumpus]

That's true, but they are also obvious chumps...

Re:AOL

[Rick Schumann]

Come to think of it, wonder how much they'd charge you if you don't even have an email address? Something tells me they'd refuse to insure you at all..

Re:AOL

[ebvwfbw]

Someone submitted a Resume for a technicians job to me with an AOL address recently. It was so funny I brought it to lunch to show the other managers. We all laughed good. Maybe I should bring him in for an interview. He'll probably show up with a houndstooth jacket, red wool pants.

Time to buy a new domain name...

[geekmux]

"Admiral said that hundreds of factors were used by underwriters in setting car insurance..."

Apparently hundreds wasn't enough to avoid fucking over customers with an email address.

Time to go see if FuckYouAdmiral.com is available, for email correspondence of course.

Can't believe this isn't illegal. This is like a gas station charging red cars 10 cents more per gallon.

Re:Time to buy a new domain name...

[hipp5]

Can't believe this isn't illegal. This is like a gas station charging red cars 10 cents more per gallon.

No it's not. An insurance company's costs are tied to risk. Higher risk customers cost them more. So either they run the numbers and charge people based on their risk, or they don't run the numbers and charge everyone equivalently and the low-risk people are subsidizing the high-risk people. They've run the numbers, and it's come out that Hotmail users are higher risk.

A gas station's costs are in no way tied to the colour of a car, and would be no basis upon which to charge different prices.

Re:Time to buy a new domain name...

[RevRagnarok]

Don't insurers charge red cars higher rates already? ;)

(No, it's a myth)

Re:Time to buy a new domain name...

[geekmux]

Can't believe this isn't illegal. This is like a gas station charging red cars 10 cents more per gallon.

No it's not. An insurance company's costs are tied to risk. Higher risk customers cost them more. So either they run the numbers and charge people based on their risk, or they don't run the numbers and charge everyone equivalently and the low-risk people are subsidizing the high-risk people. They've run the numbers, and it's come out that Hotmail users are higher risk.

Oh, they've run the numbers? Nothing like hiring your own auditor. They are using hundreds of metrics, and yet an email address is suddenly deemed a valid one? This opens up an endless rabbit hole of relentless greed. Their parent company touts a 48% increase of revenue over the last 5 years raking in over 7 billion, so let's stop bullshitting about costs as if they're hurting. This isn't about charging certain customers less; this is about gouging customers for more.

How far are you willing to let them go to tie your wallet to their risk? If they determined that sexual orientation was a risk factor, should they be allowed to charge more for the LGBTQ+ crowd? How about eye color? DNA screening? Discrimination, or merely risk mitigation?

A gas station's costs are in no way tied to the colour of a car, and would be no basis upon which to charge different prices.

And from what I can tell, there is no basis to use an email address either, but hey let's just keep accepting revenue-generating metrics from the insurance overlords conveyed under the guise that they're trying to "save" the good customers from the bad. After all, Greed is known to be reasonable and self-limiting.

Re:Time to buy a new domain name...

[hipp5]

How far are you willing to let them go to tie your wallet to their risk? If they determined that sexual orientation was a risk factor, should they be allowed to charge more for the LGBTQ+ crowd? How about eye color? DNA screening? Discrimination, or merely risk mitigation?

I think it's entirely possible to draw a line in the sand where it makes sense for costs to be spread around collectively. Drawing the line at protected groups seems like a pretty good place to start. No need to invoke the slippery slope argument.

As an aside, my province banned the use of gender (and maybe age, I can't remember, but I'm pretty sure) in setting insurance rates. It was great for me at the time (a 17-year-old male), but in general it sucked for everyone else because their premiums went up to compensate.

Re:Time to buy a new domain name...

[hipp5]

Their parent company touts a 48% increase of revenue over the last 5 years.

I wouldn't be surprised if that has more to do with financial markets than premiums. Insurance companies are highly invested in securities. Five years ago happens to be the end of the Great Recession.

Re:Time to buy a new domain name...

[MiniMike]

Time to go see if FuckYouAdmiral.com is available, for email correspondence of course.

I'm sure they'll quote you a great rate with that e-mail address. Be sure to phone in so you can tell it to them directly.

This is like a gas station charging red cars 10 cents more per gallon.

More like a car wash charging more for pickups and minivans because they think they're dirtier, rather than charging by how dirty they actually are.

Re:Time to buy a new domain name...

[Cederic]

Although don't buy a red car anyway, as you're far more likely to get pulled over by the police when they're playing car snooker.

Re:One Factor Only

[Bert64]

What if someone has *no* driving record because they haven't driven before?
That means they have no history of either safe or unsafe driving, but also they have no experience of actually driving.

Also car insurance is not just about driving, it also covers the car when it's not being driven - eg against theft, or someone hitting it while its parked etc so the location the car spends most of its time can have an affect on the likelihood of it being stolen or vandalised.

As compared to...?

[zarmanto]

Let's ignore the obvious correlation is not causation argument for a brief moment, and skip to the other major plot hole in this story: To whom are they comparing these reckless Hotmail.com users? What e-mail service represents a lower incidence of automotive accidents?

Reading below the fold in that article (which requires registration -- but not confirmation of that registration, so any fake e-mail address will do fine) seems to reveal that this was a simple a|b study, comparing Hotmail.com users to Gmail.com users, where Gmail was consistently quoted lower prices. But what about Yahoo.com? How about Microsoft.com? Are you less likely to get in an accident if you're employed by Microsoft, as opposed to just signing up for their incredibly commonly used free webmail service? And for that matter, why on earth is one common free webmail service supposedly a lower risk factor than the other?

Honestly, there's actually a lot wrong with this story -- not the least of which is the perplexing lack of detail in the reporting itself.

C'mon, look at who they target

[kaizendojo]

If that's the only way they can stay in business given the pool they are marketing to, I'm not sure I have that much of a problem with it. Let's face it, they aren't targeting the low risk, high premium customer with those ads.

Umm...

[Gravis Zero]

Thiny veiled age discrimmination

You do know that age is already a factor in calculating insurance prices, right?

Re:Umm...

[welshie]

So how much would a compuserve.com email address factor into the premiums for someone under the age of 25?

Re:Umm...

[mjwx]

Thiny veiled age discrimmination

You do know that age is already a factor in calculating insurance prices, right?

Yes, but completely unrelated to any risk from established crash statistics otherwise a 65 yr old will be charged more than a 25 yr old as over 65's are as highly represented in crash and fatality statistics as teenagers... Yet they charge them less than 35 yr olds (one of the lowest risk groups).

Stop buying the line that it's all about risk, it's not. It's about what they can get away with charging you.

Insurance business model

[xjerky]

Is the only one that relies upon NOT serving its customers. What if it's an actual statistic that Black people are in more car accidents - by this logic, wouldn't it be ok for insurers to charge them more for insurance?

Hotmail is a Microsoft product...

[Zcar]

...and they heard Microsoft crashes more? Badabump.

Re:Hotmail is a Microsoft product...

[Registered Coward v2]

...and they heard Microsoft crashes more? Badabump.

Yes. iCloud.com users get a discount, with Mac.com getting an extra one do to their advanced age.

This is a bit too random

[rsilvergun]

my guess is there's some protected class they want to raise fees on that happens to have a higher percentage of hotmail accounts. I can't imagine what, since as far as I know they're allowed to discriminate on age and sex. Maybe race? Weird things happen with demographics and data sometimes.

actuarial reality or prejudice ?

[swell]

Statistics have no greater financial significance than in insurance. Anal-ists pour over the numbers and draw conclusions that can make or break a company. Your age, origin, location, marriage status and more can put you in a category of higher or lower risk. But there are considerations more surprising than you see in TFS...

A major US insurance company offered low cost premiums to 'qualified' drivers. Many of the qualifications were publicly available, but there were some that were never spoken of. One of these secret rules given to agents was that any prospective client wearing boots was to be disqualified. Agents didn't know why this rule, but had to follow it.

What About Fluffy Bunny Email Addresses

[CRB9000]

What about those fetish style email addresses:

ISnipedU@mail.com

HelloKitty666@gmail.com

panterarules@rockdweeb.net

nickelbackforlife@lds.org

Do these have some sort of deleterious consequence?

Re:What About Fluffy Bunny Email Addresses

[Cederic]

They're detrimental to your sex life, if that counts?

Here's a penguin, don't know why

[smprather]

Obligatory Family Guy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

This sounds so off the wall

[gettin2old]

I wonder if they just automatically generate statistics on everything they can and then crunch them all to see what stats maximize revenue.
Hell I have email accounts at work, on google, time warner, consolidated, Misrosoft, etc. So my rick to them changes by which account I decided to email them from? Maybe I secretly have a hotmail account I didn't tell them about. Hey! I'm finally beating the system!! This is just so well thought out.

Re:This sounds so off the wall

[gettin2old]

rick -> rate

So?

[Hallux-F-Sinister]

Insurance companies already discriminate based on GENDER AND AGE, and probably on race as well. Suddenly you guys get all bent out of shape over THIS?!? Thatâ(TM)s like being mad about female genital mutilation NOT because of the FGM itself, but because you just found out that when they do it, theyâ(TM)re singing a particular song to themselves, and not a different one.

Not too surprising

[aklinux]

A few years ago (the early 2000s), IT admins were arbitrarily denying all incoming email from Yahoo and Hotmail accounts because they saw most of their problems with spam & malware as coming in this way. Those same IT admins tended to have a low opinion of anyone using those services for their email. If insurers can demonstrate a track record of more issues from people that use those services (or any other services), they have a right to adjust rates accordingly.

Re:If it aint broke.

[byolinux]

It would have been more like 1998. Yahoo Mail was part of an acquisition of Four11's RocketMail in late (October/November) 1997.

Re:One Factor Only

[Cederic]

Only a person's driving record should be considered.

So someone living in a low crime rural location in Norway should pay the same price as someone living in a favela in Sao Paolo?

Someone that takes their car on track days and commutes 80 miles each way should pay the same as someone that works from home and never goes on a motorway?

Someone that drives a Maserati should pay the same as the driver of a Ford Fiesta?

Insurance companies disagree with you.

If they don't have accidents and driving offenses on their record

..then you can't use those to assess risk, and instead you use other factors demonstrated to have an impact, such as

what email they use

Re:Airline tickets

[Cederic]

Yet I recall IE users getting charged more for insurance.

Yes, the more affluent get charged more.

Not just affluent, but as a group also willing to pay over the odds.

Re:Later they'd say was a "Joke" as Allstate in 20

[Cederic]

Virgo is 45 days long while Scorpio is just 7 days

Most people adopt the convention that each sign lasts for approximately a calendar month, so no, you're talking utter fucking nonsense.

And when called about the lousy maths, next day they yanked the press release from the company site and argued that was just a joke. No problem, right?

Right. Because it was just a fucking joke designed to win them some free publicity, and it succeeded.

Incidentally I suspect birth date does materially factor in insurance risk, at least in the UK, due to the dates of the school year.

Re:WTF!? Illegal Activity Is the Norm Now?

[I75BJC]

Regrettably the activity, that you have mentioned, has become the standard in the USA. It is illegal in the states that I have been in. Accidents are to be report to the LEOs, to the owner, and to insurance people. But many people just leave a note and drive away. This common and Rude practice has cost a lot of money for the innocent victim of this type of illegal vandalism/destruction of private property.