SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
At least one national insurer, AAA, is raising rates on Tesla vehicles based on data showing that the Model S and Model X had abnormally high claim frequencies and high costs of insurance claims compared with other cars in the same classes.
AAA said premiums for Tesla vehicles could go up 30 percent based on data from the Highway Loss Data Institute and other sources.
Tesla is disputing the analysis.
"This analysis is severely flawed and is not reflective of reality," the electric-vehicle maker said in a statement emailed to Automotive News. "Among other things, it compares Model S and X to cars that are not remotely peers, including even a Volvo station wagon."
Anthony Ptasznik, chief actuary of AAA, said the group noticed the anomaly in company data and then investigated other data sources, primarily relying on the Highway Loss Data Institute because of its scope, to confirm its analysis. "Looking at a much broader set of countrywide data, we saw the same patterns observed in our own data, and that gave us the confidence to change rates," he said.
Other large insurance companies, including State Farm and Geico, said that claims data is a major factor in calculating premiums, but would not disclose if their Tesla-owning customers would also see rates rise.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 2, Insightful) by kurenai.tsubasa on Wednesday June 07 2017, @02:36PM (1 child)
I'm thinking Tesla owners just need to shop around if they're with AAA.
I mean, I look at it this way. After my folks discovered I was a shapeshifting demon from the burning hells and disowned me, I needed to find car insurance. So, I was aware that car insurance penalizes people for being assigned the male gender at birth. I used my advanced infiltrator capabilities to confirm this was the case for even bare minimum PL/PD.
Well, that is, all except for one insurance company. I'm still with them. The funny thing was the rate they quoted me was very close to the rate everybody else was offering cisfemales only, so I don't think it's even the case that if you're a cisfemale you'd need to avoid the insurance company I found. This company simply said that it was silly to gouge somebody simply because they were assigned the male gender at birth, and they were willing to prove it by offering everybody cisfemale rates.
Fortunately, car insurance is the way insurance should be (unlike healthcare “insurance”). It's a free market, and it seems to work reasonably well, even despite its being basically a purchase forced by law. (Yes, I know there are 3 people in the USA who don't have cars and don't want them. Good for them.) There are lots of different choices, many seem similar on the surface, but as always ask around (and make sure to get quotes for cars you'll never own too just to be sure). If AAA's analysis is correct, then AAA will do better in the long term even if they lose customers today. If AAA's analysis is incorrect, they'll lose customers and they'll get undercut by the other companies that had better analysis.
Same situation as mine. I disagreed with the analysis of most insurance companies, so I found an insurance company that disagreed with the popular analysis. Seems to have been a win-win, the way the free market is supposed to work.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @03:48PM
Yup, car insurance is a much fairer game than health insurance. Significantly simpler for the consumer too, which makes comparison shopping much easier.
The job of actuaries is to figure out the premium needed to cover the costs associated. If they are low, the company loses money, if they are high they lose customers to other companies that came in lower and they lose money. Their figures are based in statistics, and as such I would trust their analysis pretty well, since they need to be right or they lose money.
This guy might be right or wrong, but the actuarial ecosystem will find the right premium. There is a lot of money at stake.