Source: Zebra releases auto insurability score to reveal how badly you actually drive | TechCrunch Well, The Zebra, the startup car insurance marketplace, just introduced a new tool called an insurability score to face folks with the cold hard facts of their truly terrible driving. The tool lets drivers find out what data affects their insurance premiums, by how much and what they can do about it (probably, because it’s the insurance industry, nothing). “For the 250 million drivers nationwide, auto insurance is both a major expense and a critical safeguard to protect them from disastrous events,” said Joshua Dziabiak, the founder and chief operating officer at The Zebra. “Until now, people have only been able to get rates from auto insurance companies, without any insight into what’s behind them, but they need to know what factors affect their individual risk, and what that means for their coverage and rates. Consumers have a lot more control over their car insurance than they might think.” Turns out to be a front for "esurance". Nothing inspires confidence than to be a false front to a potential customer. Bob Wilson
i thought you paid premiums, so that if you had a claim, they had the money to pay you. why is it that when you make a claim, your rate goes up?
That's right. The insurance companies used to just not take you on if you were sick, kick you to the curb, or delay okaying benefits until you died. The core reason between the auto and health insurance companies is greed.
It used to be that car insurance companies based insurance rates on the claim costs for the combination of driver group & vehicle. IIHS testing was to help reduce claim costs by increasing vehicle safety. Instead of the test results lowering premium rates for the good vehicles, it just increases the insurance company profit. That was obvious when comparing the rate for my 2017 Prius vs my other vehicles.
i just don't understand how you pay $1,000./year for 40 years, then make a claim for a few thousand dollars, and they crank your rate up. okay, i do understand greed.
My car insurance comes up next month so I did a little shopping around. Near as I can tell, advanced safety technology has no effect on the quoted rates. For example, National wants to charge the same $1000/year as Farmers, my current insurance company. I think the way it works is you buy an advanced safety technology car and drive it for 3-5 years without an incident. Then you get a good driver discount as a side effect of the car avoiding an accident. Bob Wilson
We have two cars with the modern safety systems. The insurance companies see two factors: Fewer accidents - should lower rates, but they need data (experience in the real world over time) to determine the effect Higher price repairs - don't have a low speed accident that cracks your Toyota front emblem (the radar unit is right behind it and $$$) So for now they are seem to be just ignoring the impact (pardon the pun) of this new technology on their pricing models. JeffD
