People named Mohammed apparently pay more for car insurance

balky12 · 24 Jan 2018 at 16:21

Dis86 said:
Name. Address. Registration. Shouldn't need anything more...

You have no idea how insurance works then do you?

What about vehicle type/ age...
Experience of person...
What type of use is the insurance for?
Where car is kept...

Just a few.

All valid questions to asses risk.

Dis86 · 24 Jan 2018 at 16:23

balky12 said:
You have no idea how insurance works then do you?

What about vehicle type/ age...
Experience of person...
What type of use is the insurance for?
Where car is kept...

Just a few.

All valid questions to asses risk.

Nope. Read elmarkos post. Can't use that info.

balky12 · 24 Jan 2018 at 16:28

Dis86 said:
Nope. Read elmarkos post. Can't use that info.

Well if he thinks that he is clueless.

Admittedly I don't work in motor insurance however I deal with Marine, Aviation and Energy...

So much information can and is used by underwriters/ actuaries to model, price risk..

Name isn't one. However age(experience) and location are regularly used.

Kenai · 24 Jan 2018 at 18:10

Dis86 said:
So...why do different age groups get charged more for car insurance compared to others if you can't use age?

Surely easily attained by proxy by asking for length of time licence has been held, there will be the odd person passing tests in their 30s but by and large if you bet on someone having held a licence under a year being under 20, I reckon you'd come out on the right side of that bet more often than not

Avenged7Fold · 24 Jan 2018 at 18:40

Check the difference in quote between a fresh 17 YO driver and a fresh 25 YO that has just past, with the same car and address. There is a considerable difference

Kenai · 24 Jan 2018 at 19:39

That's far too much effort so I'll take your word for it, I struggle to get the motivation to do quotes for my actual insurance that involves money

geekman · 25 Jan 2018 at 03:51

Where I live, insurance is based purely on the car, they don’t ask you anything about previous claims or driving history. They do ask for your name and address, but those are simply contact details and doesn’t affect the premium at all.

I pay £340 for my Audi A6 and £280 for my Dodge Caliber, both fully comp for any driver on a US / EU / Mexican licence. I’m 23 and used to pay upwards of £1k in the UK, so that was a nice surprise.

I have absolutely no idea how the companies make any money over here given the amount of accidents I see every day, I can only assume it’s due to the fact we don’t have the compo culture you get in the UK.

dowie · 25 Jan 2018 at 15:07

Dis86 said:
Name. Address. Registration. Shouldn't need anything more...

well that isn't right at all, you'd have rather dubious models, additional unknown risk on the books and therefore higher premiums

Dis86 · 25 Jan 2018 at 15:15

dowie said:
well that isn't right at all, you'd have rather dubious models, additional unknown risk on the books and therefore higher premiums

That was my point. There's a reason so much information is required.

dowie · 25 Jan 2018 at 18:52

Dis86 said:
That was my point. There's a reason so much information is required.

ah sorry, had skimmed read through and didn't realise

deuse · 25 Jan 2018 at 21:38

dowie said:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/motors/5393978/insurance-race-row-john-mohammed/

Obviously this needs some further details as I'm not sure how much I'd trust the sun to investigate something like this well but ostensible this is rather dubious and awkward for the firms to say the least! If someone's name is affecting a pricing model then they probably have got some rather awkward questions to answer going forwards, especially if regulators take an interest in this. It is a bit surprising if true as I'd previously assumed the insurance industry was quite conservative and rather old school with their models and I'm surprised someone's name is even looked at for this purpose*.

If true then this perhaps is one of the downsides of the whole "big data" thing, you can end up with potentially quite discriminatory results (also a current research topic in machine learning - assessing the "fairness" of algorithms) - for example google classifying black people as gorillas, or the dubious differences in search results when searching for pictures of white people vs pictures of black people etc...

(*partly why I'm still wondering if there is some other explanation for the sun's results)

Every company has to make a prophet some how....

jamoor · 25 Jan 2018 at 23:06

geekman said:
Where I live, insurance is based purely on the car, they don’t ask you anything about previous claims or driving history. They do ask for your name and address, but those are simply contact details and doesn’t affect the premium at all.

I pay £340 for my Audi A6 and £280 for my Dodge Caliber, both fully comp for any driver on a US / EU / Mexican licence. I’m 23 and used to pay upwards of £1k in the UK, so that was a nice surprise.

I have absolutely no idea how the companies make any money over here given the amount of accidents I see every day, I can only assume it’s due to the fact we don’t have the compo culture you get in the UK.

Labour on repairs is cheaper I would have thought.

Dis86 · 25 Jan 2018 at 23:09

jamoor said:
Labour on repairs is cheaper I would have thought.

Parts too probably

dowie · 25 Jan 2018 at 23:12

deuse said:
Every company has to make a prophet some how....

(I think someone else made that joke already though)

jamoor said:
Labour on repairs is cheaper I would have thought.

Yup, presumably.

I'd guess that another factor is how much they value life too - what does it cost if you kill someone or leave them permanently disabled...

plus perhaps Mexican actuaries are lazy

geekman · 25 Jan 2018 at 23:48

jamoor said:
Labour on repairs is cheaper I would have thought.

Very true - didn’t think of that.

Dis86 said:
Parts too probably

Definitely not - can confirm, having just paid £1750 to have a steering column replaced in my Audi

Dis86 · 26 Jan 2018 at 00:19

geekman said:
Very true - didn’t think of that.

Definitely not - can confirm, having just paid £1750 to have a steering column replaced in my Audi

Ah but did you go for official Audi or locally produced knock off/patent parts?

geekman · 26 Jan 2018 at 04:15

Dis86 said:
Ah but did you go for official Audi or locally produced knock off/patent parts?

Official Audi, pattern parts don't exist for that car here. You'd think that would be reflected in a high premium, but it's not much more than my Caliber which has pattern parts available for almost everything.

deuse · 26 Jan 2018 at 16:46

dowie said:
(I think someone else made that joke already though)

It's the way I tell them

Avenged7Fold · 26 Jan 2018 at 16:51

You cant compare coverage between countries. Claim rates, road and people are different, as well as how the insurance companies operate. Many parts of the world require insurance to drive but have little regulation on it, so you can buy insurance for you or your vehicle depending on the country and even if you had a crash you have to jump through hoops to claim any amount or a token amount.

By comparison we probably have stricter standards of minimal cover required and how insurance companies can operate and their rates likely have to reflect that as well as the affordability.

Dis86 · 27 Jan 2018 at 08:51

geekman said:
Official Audi, pattern parts don't exist for that car here. You'd think that would be reflected in a high premium, but it's not much more than my Caliber which has pattern parts available for almost everything.

Genuinely interesting. It must really be down to rates of pay and probably lower operating costs through regulation etc. Wonder if people are more tolerant of minor shunts and stuff out there too.