Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: $Revision: 1.6.2.16 $; site pbear.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!mtuxo!mtunh!mtung!mtunf!ariel!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!hplabs!pesnta!greipa!decwrl!decvax!cca!pbear!peterb From: peterb@pbear.UUCP Newsgroups: net.flame Subject: Re: Re: Women/men and the consumption of Message-ID: <6700019@pbear.UUCP> Date: Thu, 4-Jul-85 19:58:00 EDT Article-I.D.: pbear.6700019 Posted: Thu Jul 4 19:58:00 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 11-Jul-85 05:32:58 EDT References: <524@rtech.UUCP> Lines: 36 Nf-ID: #R:rtech:-52400:pbear:6700019:000:1552 Nf-From: pbear!peterb Jul 4 17:58:00 1985 >> >> A friend of mine tried to get insurance on her car but the >> insurance companies (3 of them before she said to hell with it) >> refused to consider her for low cost insurance because her husband had a >> marginal driving record (2 tickets in 6 months after 12 years without >> a single violation) >> >> jeanette l. zobjeck >> > >AAACK! This sounds extremely illegal. How do they get away with it? >Jeff Lichtman at rtech (Relational Technology, Inc.) >aka Swazoo Koolak It's simple... At least statistics says it is... All of insurance is based on statistics and the ability to apply it to predict when an event can happen. In this case statistics are being used to predict when a car accident will occur. Instead of applying distubution and percentile deviations to every single application, each insurance company produces cross-tables that take into account many factors, with one of the major factors being the change in driving habit (here being negative since he recieved two tickets in past 6 months after 12 years of clean driving). This "minor" change is amplified by the formulae to make the premiums larger during the first 6 to 12 months since those months would be the ones with the largest deviation from the normal. As time passes and if there are no more tickets, the premium will drop since the deviation will approach a more "normal" value. There's nothing illegal about it... it's just mathamatics at work earning money for the insurance companies... Peter Barada {ihnp4!inmet|{harvard|cca}!ima}!pbear!peterb