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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: 3, Interesting) by fishybell on Wednesday June 07 2017, @01:59PM (1 child)
Safety and insurance rates have, unfortunately, almost nothing to do with each other.
Insurance rates for a specific model of car in a specific area to a specific driver are determined by average costs for that car/area/driver demographic.
Just because a car is the least likely to kill or injure you doesn't necessarily mean it will cost less to insure. If people drive the super-safe car like they're in a demolition derby, crashing into every moving and stationary object they can find, then that car will have a higher insurance rate. It doesn't matter that no one got killed or injured, but that the car got banged up and the costs to fix it are high. It's the same reason why so many sporty cars like the Subaru WRX cost extravagant rates: people drive them like they stole them. I imagine it's the same problem here; Teslas are very, very sporty and their owners drive them as such.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday June 07 2017, @07:52PM
I assume you read that this is about Tealas and not BMW drivers?
Would a Dyson sphere [soylentnews.org] actually work?