I'd like to see what would happen if stats showed white people crashed less. Would they be willing to price based on that?

ZAZ: My sister's only accident happened when a woman driving with a suspended license decided she had to turn right now into the space my sister's car was occupying.

My sister's only accident happened when a moose bit her.

ZAZ: 7of7

I maintain speed up to the start of an exit ramp then brake hard. I think the system would have too many false alarms in my case and I won't opt in.

it's the bastards in the middle lane isn't it

jaylectricity: Insurers fear that could price some women drivers out of the market altogether,

So would that get them off the road?

Imagine there's no women (drivers). It's easy if you try.

7of7: Speed itself may not lead to claims but it shows the person is willing to ignore the law so they're probably more likely to change lanes without signaling, run red lights, tailgate, and other things that aren't as easy to measure but do lead to claims.

Except that accidents are generally caused by inattentiveness, not lawbreaking. Speed itself may be an indicator of a driver in tune with their vehicle and paying attention to the road

FTA: Insurers fear that could price some women drivers out of the market altogether

Shouldn't they have been equally worried that that price had driven "men drivers" (seriously, they used "women drivers"?) out of the market? You'd think they'd have lowered their prices by 11% to try and include those men!

Wrong_Intentions: I'd like to see what would happen if stats showed white people crashed less. Would they be willing to price based on that?

Not happening here anytime soon. The comapnies or state(s) that tried to use it as a rating factor would be under a fire from the moment the press release hit. Insurers might be many things but deaf to the forces of marketing is not one of them.

We'll just leave this here. (new window)

Coming to a complete stop at a clear and unobstructed intersection is a waste of gas (Jersey stop for life!). And I can't tell you how many times I've been stuck at a light waiting to turn left when there was no traffic for miles.

I also find speeding on the interstate to be both safe and necessary. You're thousands of times safer speeding 20 over to get away from a rolling roadblock filled with people too afraid to go more than a few arbitrary mph over the very conservative speed limit.

Ken VeryBigLiar: Wrong_Intentions: I'd like to see what would happen if stats showed white people crashed less. Would they be willing to price based on that?

Not happening here anytime soon. The comapnies or state(s) that tried to use it as a rating factor would be under a fire from the moment the press release hit. Insurers might be many things but deaf to the forces of marketing is not one of them.

But you can be sure the actuaries are accounting for every single factor, including racial, socioeconomic, etc into the rates regardless of whether there is a defined "racial" factor if such a statistical dataset exists.

bhcompy:

Except that accidents are generally caused by inattentiveness, not lawbreaking. Speed itself may be an indicator of a driver in tune with their vehicle and paying attention to the road

This.

And those who talk or text while driving need to see a substantial increase in their premiums. If you text while you drive, it's only a matter of time before you cause a crash.

We should also charge a non-negotiable $1000 or $5000 fine to any drive who sent a text within 2 minutes of causing a car crash.

Good thing this could never happen in the States because our police of publicly stated that black box data in vehicles is misleading, right?

StrangeQ: Good thing this could never happen in the States because our police have publicly stated that black box data in vehicles is misleading, right?

ftfm

NightOwl2255: We'll just leave this here. (new window)

Looks like the palm tree won.

So how does the black box determine the gender of the driver? Sure, the car may be registered in a man's name, but if he lets his wife/girlfriend/sister/aunt drive it, does that mess things up?

StrangeQ: Good thing this could never happen in the States because our police of publicly stated that black box data in vehicles is misleading, right?

But only when involving a police car. Otherwise, it's all good.

7of7: Speed itself may not lead to claims but it shows the person is willing to ignore the law so they're probably more likely to change lanes without signaling, run red lights, tailgate, and other things that aren't as easy to measure but do lead to claims.

Those are some nice assumptions you made there. I wonder how you would score on the RWA scale; pretty high, I'd guess.

puckrock2000: Sure, the car may be registered in a man's name, but if he lets his wife/girlfriend/sister/aunt drive it, does that mess things up?

Yeah. The fender.

bhcompy: Ken VeryBigLiar: Wrong_Intentions: I'd like to see what would happen if stats showed white people crashed less. Would they be willing to price based on that?

Not happening here anytime soon. The comapnies or state(s) that tried to use it as a rating factor would be under a fire from the moment the press release hit. Insurers might be many things but deaf to the forces of marketing is not one of them.

But you can be sure the actuaries are accounting for every single factor, including racial, socioeconomic, etc into the rates regardless of whether there is a defined "racial" factor if such a statistical dataset exists.

Insurers can do many things, some they choose not to take advantage of. The industry just has to look at what MetLife lost when they were charging more for black males. The lawsuits and PR hit wouldn't be worth it.

FizixJunkee: bhcompy:

Except that accidents are generally caused by inattentiveness, not lawbreaking. Speed itself may be an indicator of a driver in tune with their vehicle and paying attention to the road

This.

And those who talk or text while driving need to see a substantial increase in their premiums. If you text while you drive, it's only a matter of time before you cause a crash.

We should also charge a non-negotiable $1000 or $5000 fine to any drive who sent a text within 2 minutes of causing a car crash.

What is it about some people that they think more rules are always a good thing? A lot can happen in 2 minutes, champ.

7of7: Speed itself may not lead to claims but it shows the person is willing to ignore the law so they're probably more likely to change lanes without signaling, run red lights, tailgate, and other things that aren't as easy to measure but do lead to claims.

From "Driver Speed Behavior on U.S. Streets and Highways"
Driver compliance with speed limits is poor. On average, 7 out of 10 motorists exceeded the posted speed in urban areas. Compliance ranged from 3 to 99 percent...

On many streets and highways the speed limit is set 8 to 12 mph below the prevailing 85th-percentile speed...

The accident involvement rates on streets and highways in urban areas was highest for the slowest 5 percent of traffic, lowest for traffic in the 30-to-95-percentile range and increased for the fastest 5 percent of traffic....

Many current speed limits coincide with 30-percentile speed, which is near the lower bound of safe travel speed...

HailRobonia: ZAZ: My sister's only accident happened when a woman driving with a suspended license decided she had to turn right now into the space my sister's car was occupying.

My sister's only accident happened when a moose bit her.

Well she shouldn't have been carving her initials in the moose.

/Ni!

Translation: we're going to use data only we can see to charge everyone more, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.

This technology is a God send for the insurance companies. Win-win. But for the customers, us, it is mostly lose-lose. I pay very little for insurance, I might be in the lowest risk category. The further away from big cities, that can happen, that and I stopped driving like a madman. But twice in the last three weeks, I had to slam on the brakes hard to avoid deer. So I would be SOL.
Take a close look at the "Progressive Flo" ads, that little toy in her hands, that's a OBD-2 or OBD-3 monitor. Behold the future, coming to screw us in the but-tocks.

Will it be able to tell when I'm getting a hummer while driving on the Autobahn? I can provide pics for a $50/discount.

StrangeQ: Those are some nice assumptions you made there. I wonder how you would score on the RWA scale; pretty high, I'd guess.

Your score on the RWA scale is 54.
Scores will range from 20 to 180. Yours falls at 21% within that range.

Not sure what to make of that. Some of the questions are tricky. "What our country really needs is a strong, determined leader who will crush evil, and take us back to our true path.". Well, yes. And, no. Depends on what you consider evil.

It's not disputed that men are more likely to have to make claims on their insurance, right? So what the hell is the rational justification for banning companies from charging them more for insurance? Are vague notions of "fairness" that aren't really fair really worth everyone having to pay more?

\Be gayer, Europe.

All_Farked_Up: HailRobonia: ZAZ: My sister's only accident happened when a woman driving with a suspended license decided she had to turn right now into the space my sister's car was occupying.

My sister's only accident happened when a moose bit her.

Well she shouldn't have been carving her initials in the moose.

/Ni!

Mind you, moose bits can be pretty nasty

/Prefer Lama's

Bhruic: FTA: Insurers fear that could price some women drivers out of the market altogether

Shouldn't they have been equally worried that that price had driven "men drivers" (seriously, they used "women drivers"?) out of the market? You'd think they'd have lowered their prices by 11% to try and include those men!

What does it cost to insure those men? it is possible that it is enough that a 11% drop in their premium would on average result in a loss.

ZAZ: Women, who currently pay less for car insurance than men because they are statistically less likely to crash, face an 11 percent price increase once the ban takes effect, according to research commissioned by Germany's GDV insurers' lobby.

Insurers fear that could price some women drivers out of the market altogether, sapping revenues.

Don't men get a matching 11 percent price decrease, causing more of them to buy insurance, compensating for the loss of women?

Yeah, I always like the funny math businesses use to oppose regulation. If the ban applies to all insurers then there will be no change in competitiveness. And since insurance works on averages, then there should be decreases that match increases. But OH NOES it will cause them trouble and they have to pass it on to the customer.

Black box data doesn't know if you are black/white/male/female, it only revels your driving style. How can that be discriminating? I do see one major problem: if you have one car and two drivers, one 'good', one 'bad', the box only knows that a bad driver drives the car. That could mean higher rates for couples. But, some cars already adapt to the key being used, adjusting mirrors, seats, etc. If the boxes recorded that information, the insurance companies could adjust the rates for each driver.

l3randon: It's not disputed that men are more likely to have to make claims on their insurance, right? So what the hell is the rational justification for banning companies from charging them more for insurance? Are vague notions of "fairness" that aren't really fair really worth everyone having to pay more?

\Be gayer, Europe.

The entire premise of insurance is that the high costs of individual accidents are spread over a large group of people over a large timeframe. Rates are slightly adjusted in the interests of "fairness", but if everyone had to pay for the exact damage that they caused, we wouldn't have insurance at all, and just pay everything out of pocket.

Besides, it's not like American insurance companies get to break down accident statistics by race or religion, now do they?

ZAZ: 7of7

The American system I've read about looks for sudden braking. If you keep slamming on the brakes to avoid an accident, you'll probably hit somebody sooner rather than later. A friend of mine panics when I brake hard because when his ex-girlfriend slammed on the brakes she was likely to slam into another car a second later. She had about five at-fault accidents while they were a couple.

I maintain speed up to the start of an exit ramp then brake hard. I think the system would have too many false alarms in my case and I won't opt in.

I think that the braking thing is a poor proxy. I would think that following distance versus speed would be the best predictor. For example, I accelerate aggressively but I never speed or tailgate. I guess safe following distance is a bit more difficult to track, but it is the only thing I would agree is a direct indicator of likelihood to crash.

natazha: Black box data doesn't know if you are black/white/male/female, it only revels your driving style. How can that be discriminating? I do see one major problem: if you have one car and two drivers, one 'good', one 'bad', the box only knows that a bad driver drives the car. That could mean higher rates for couples. But, some cars already adapt to the key being used, adjusting mirrors, seats, etc. If the boxes recorded that information, the insurance companies could adjust the rates for each driver.

So you don't mind being remotely monitored for the sole purpose of getting more money from you? What if the black-box could be adapted to send information to the police that you were speeding so that you get an automatic ticket and a 40% increase in premium for having received a speeding ticket? Doesn't seem such a good idea anymore. If the first happens, the second WILL follow.

Young men can be more reckless than young women, but the reason they have more accidents is that they tend to drive more. And young women have a lot of accidents, too. So just charge all young drivers a higher premium to begin with and discount them for each year they go without an accident or traffic citation.

puckrock2000: So how does the black box determine the gender of the driver? Sure, the car may be registered in a man's name, but if he lets his wife/girlfriend/sister/aunt drive it, does that mess things up?

Yeah, you'd pretty much have to have some kind of authentication system for your car - which would then of course mean that only registered drivers could use it, and your premiums would then be based on the average performance of the group. You could also in theory "unlock" the car before allowing a guest driver, but then the system would think it was you no matter how well or crappily they may drive. It would also be a very good idea to have the rules by which the system measures driver safety be accessible to the public, so that drivers who are generally safe but have some idiosyncracies are not disproportionately penalized.

Still, I like the notion of a completely meritocratic system for auto insurance. Are you a very good and safe driver? You get low rates. Are you a danger to all around you when behind the wheel? You pay through the nose. Gender, race, age and all other measures simply irrelevant and no longer a factor for consideration at all. That's actual equality. The trick is to make sure it's effective and transparent.