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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.
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(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday June 07 2017, @04:13PM
As far as the insurance company is concerned, if it gives you fifteen minutes warning then bursts into flames or if you just barely escape before the whole thing explodes, the end result is the same -- your car is totaled and they have to pay for it. Failing *safe* doesn't necessarily make it cheaper to insure, *not failing at all* does. Teslas use a lot of new technology, and they've clearly added a lot of sensing to detect and compensate for any failures of that technology...but it still fails and insurance still pays for it.
I'm not saying that Teslas *are* more expensive to insure, just that I don't think it's unreasonable that they could be. They're very expensive cars, using a lot of new tech, that probably get driven kinda rough by some drivers (if they've got that much power, they're gonna use it), and there aren't many on the road yet so the few incidents we've heard of represent a larger share of the total than they would if it was any other car.