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!?

[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!?

[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!?

[AvitarX]

That's not the America I live in.

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

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!?

[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!?

[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!?

[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!?

[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."

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

What about Yahoo!

[DontBeAMoran]

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

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.

AOL

[Rick Schumann]

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

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.

Umm...

[Gravis Zero]

Thiny veiled age discrimmination

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

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.