Insurance premium is based on surname now?!

Haggisman

Haggisman

Haggisman

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Joined
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Location
Birmingham
So based on previous instances where people have run various quotes and had their policies secretly changed by their insurance companies, I've been doing new quotes under a fake surname.

Found a quote I'm happy with, go to buy it, so change my surname to the correct one, my quote jumps from £880 to £2,500... wtf?!
 
Phoned them, and it looks like it's a different underwriter who don't like my surname, would there be a particular reason for this?
 
Haggisman said:
Phoned them, and it looks like it's a different underwriter who don't like my surname, would there be a particular reason for this?
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Of course. The people that calculate risk for them (actuaries) will have all sorts of statistics at their disposal that tell them....oh, maybe that people with the surname Jones who drive green Ford Mondeos are more likely to crash than people with the surname Davis driving the same car. It doesn't seem like it makes sense, but that's what their statistics say and that's what the underwriter bases their risk on.

It's not discrimination, it's not voodoo, it's just statistical probabilities.
 
Haggisman said:
So based on previous instances where people have run various quotes and had their policies secretly changed by their insurance companies, I've been doing new quotes under a fake surname.

Found a quote I'm happy with, go to buy it, so change my surname to the correct one, my quote jumps from £880 to £2,500... wtf?!
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What is your surname? I'll go run about 100 quotes off with 9 points on license, several previous claims and many car modifications :cool:

Should help build up your profile a bit :p
 
Hmm...

Would it be classed as fraud to take out a policy with an "accidental typo" in the name, and then "notice" and correct it? :p
 
JRS said:
Why?

If they are exposing themselves to a higher risk, then they charge more. They're insurance companies, not charitable foundations.
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Based on surname? Which has no possible link to risk whatsoever?

FWIW it's a relatively common British surname...
 
Haggisman said:
Based on surname? Which has no possible link to risk whatsoever?

FWIW it's a relatively common British surname...
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Tell that to the actuary somewhere who has nine pages (single-spaced, double-sided) of crash statistics that indicate that they should charge more for people with certain names working certain occupations driving certain cars living in certain areas. It's a hell of a lot more complicated than 'nurr why do they charge me more because my name is Smith nurr?' ;):p
 
Haggisman said:
Hmm...

Would it be classed as fraud to take out a policy with an "accidental typo" in the name, and then "notice" and correct it? :p
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I did that for my last policy, confirmed everything online then "corrected" it when they called me to get the payment details. The quote went up by about £400, I kicked up a massive fuss and after speaking to supervisors etc, they honoured the original quote.
 
JRS said:
Tell that to the actuary somewhere who has nine pages (single-spaced, double-sided) of crash statistics that indicate that they should charge more for people with certain names working certain occupations driving certain cars living in certain areas. It's a hell of a lot more complicated than 'nurr why do they charge me more because my name is Smith nurr?' ;):p
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It's not a simple process but you'd expect that something is wrong in the calculation somewhere to triple a quote from one surname to the other.
 
JRS said:
Tell that to the actuary somewhere who has nine pages (single-spaced, double-sided) of crash statistics that indicate that they should charge more for people with certain names working certain occupations driving certain cars living in certain areas. It's a hell of a lot more complicated than 'nurr why do they charge me more because my name is Smith nurr?' ;):p
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I realise that, but to triple the premium based on 1 letter in my surname? Really? :(

SDK^ said:
Common you say - lots more opportunity for people with that surname to crash then. Hence, higher risk !
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Not as common as say "smith", but it's not what you would consider unusual!

Anyway, if it's common, then also the potential for more people with that surname with exemplary driving histories :p
 
The only thing I can think of is that the sample set of data is so small and there is one idiot out there driving with the same name as you. :p
 
My surname is simple, British sounding, and very rare. So I have that going for me... :D

Just changed my name on a quote to "Dick Cretin" and the quote went from £1250 to £1780. :p
 
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