The Science of Insurance
My car insurance is due to be renewed soon, so I've been ringing around to get quotes. With every company I've tried, I've given them the same information, and I want the same product. Now, those of my chums who work in financey companies assure me that there's lots of Science and Reasoning behind how they calculate all their stuff, and you would have thought that insurance, being a huge part of the financial industry, would be just as sciencey.
Well, no. If it was sciencey, then for the same inputs (things like what car I drive, what accidents I've had and when, how old I am, where I live etc) then the outputs would be the same. Except that, for identical policies, I've had quotes ranging from £900 to £1,650.
There is quite obviously no science and no rational calculations behind insurance quotes, they're just making shit up.
So I phoned up. "Oh, sorry, that quote isn't valid any more." Er, wtf? "Let me find a fresh quote for you... that'll be £335." As compared to the previous one, which was £270. Clearly I had become £65 less safe in the intervening day of not driving.
This is such a bunch of arse I said, sorry, no way, I'm not paying that. If you can do better then maybe.
So Ms Call Centre goes away with a promise to "see what I can do" and phones back 15 minutes later saying "I've just spoken to my supervisor, we can give you the same deal for £275, we're really not supposed to do this" (yeah, right, I'm your special friend and you thought you'd risk the sack just for me).
Unfortunately for her I'd spent the intervening 15 minutes on Confused.com (a subsidiary of Admiral who are equally evil, but hey) and had just got insured for £260 from some other bunch of fraudsters. No doubt it'll be the same rigmarole next year. Hey ho.
Posted by Richard Fairhurst on Fri, 20 Jun 2008 at 10:39:42