What we are talking about is pricing risk. Risks are not certainties. Nobody knows for sure, or can possibly know, what the real risk of an accident or theft will be over a future year. Insurers are in the business of trying to price the risks on the basis of various kinds of proxy information. This provides a tenuous connection with reality - little more than guesswork really - but all insurers can do is gather available information of various types and make decisions about its significance. Vehicle type, driver age and occupation, postcode, past history of accidents/thefts/claims/convictions - these are the typical factors insurers are interested in. Each insurer has their own view of the weight various factors should be assigned. Bear in mind that insurers are not only interested in past fault so much as future risk. If somebody stole your vehicle, or damaged it while parked, the fact that this was not your fault is neither here nor there - the risk of it happening again is one of the factors the insurer may take into account. If there were a lot of claims last year in your postcode area, or your demographic, that places you in a higher risk category. Higher risk = higher premium. Don't get me wrong, I have no love for insurers and know very well they will shaft us at every opportunity. All I am saying is that when they do apparently mad things, there is often method in their madness.
If an insurer finds that the type of customer who goes for TPF&T embodies a higher risk of claiming than the type of customer who goes for Comp, how will that be reflected in the quotes? This is a rhetorical question, by the way.
you would like to think they would look at your history and find only one claim made in 30years of driving/riding. sorry two. one thirty rears ago and one 18years ago where the other driver was to be found at fault. but appreciate what your saying.
If you think their decisions are mad now, give it another 2 years. Insurance is one of of the largest boom sectors we're seeing for analytics and data science, moving away from diagnostic to prescriptive.
That's a very good point. Insurance is based on the concept of shared risk. Therefore it has to base premiums on general trends according to age, location, vehicle model etc. Sometimes it's to our advantage, sometimes not. As the data gets more detailed it undermines this basic concept. For those with impeccable records and good luck, this will be to their benefit. For others, not so much. Learner drivers for instance. It feels like we're no longer prepared to cover their mistakes. All that said, if you're with DL, find a decent broker and you'll improve your premiums enormously. They're not cheap and are bloody useless when it comes to claims (decisions based on costs only, rather than right or wrong. Very efficient).
