Two parked cars smashed into, Lordship Lane.

[Dbrskh]

Just drove by two parked cars that looks like someone smashed into? Near the wash & dry on Lordship Lane? If it was a hit & run I hope the culprit is caught!

[bob]

Think it must have been last night or early morning no third car around.

Bob S

[bargee99]

Police had stopped a car outside The Lordship last night about 9:30 and an officer was walking up and down the bit outside the launderette. Maybe connected?

[Jim1234]

One of the cars is still there. Assuming the owner is away or something, I really feel for them.

[kford]

Yep, that Honda CRV is a write-off

[DulwichLondoner]

And now, thanks to our brilliant legal system, the insurers of those poor car owners will be entitled to charge them more for years to come for a no-fault accident, even if they didn't have comprehensive and don't claim.

[DaveR]

And now, thanks to our brilliant legal system, the insurers of those poor car owners will be entitled to charge them more for years to come for a no-fault accident, even if they didn't have comprehensive and don't claim.

Sorry, what does this have to do with our legal system?

[uncleglen]

Probably because insurance companies can do what they like and we have no legal re-dress when they charge you extra ??? for putting yourself and car in a situation where it is more likely to get hit!

[DaveR]

"Probably because insurance companies can do what they like and we have no legal re-dress when they charge you extra ??? for putting yourself and car in a situation where it is more likely to get hit!"

Forgive my ignorance but what legal redress are you talking about? If you put yourself and car in a situation where it is more likely to get hit then it's logical that the risk, and hence the cost of insurance is higher?

Insurers aren't entitled (to use the language above) to charge anybody anything - they offer you a price, you take it or you shop elsewhere. I was in this exact situation a couple of years ago i.e. my car got written off after some fool smashed into it parked outside my house in the middle of the night. At renewal the insurers quoted ?150 more, so I went to another company and ended up paying about ?10 more. By the following year the premium was back down to what I'd been paying before.

Motor insurance premiums just get spat out of a computerised pricing model with some basic actuarial stuff factored in, but all the firms use different models and it's a very competitive market (all the big motor insurers have been making losses for most of the last 10 years). If you shop around you'll always get a better deal.

NB - the legal system has nothing to do with it.

Edited to add - if anyone is the victim of a 'hit and run' incident and you think the police might have been involved there is a form you can fill in to get details of the other driver and insurer and contact the other insurer direct to, in effect, make a claim.

[DulwichLondoner]

@DaveR, the legal and regulatory systems are relevant to the extent they allow this (being penalised for accidents which were clearly not your fault) to happen.

In some cases, an accident that was legally not your fault might have been avoided had you been more prudent. This is why motorcyclists and cyclists learn to ride defensively, i.e. assuming that every road user is an idiot whose only purpose in life is killing them: arguing it was legally not your fault will do little to help you get up from a wheelchair and move with your own legs.

In other cases, it is pure bad luck and the accident was unavoidable. Someone smashing into my properly parked car. A drunk driver changing lane and hitting me. Another motorist hitting me from behind because he was texting. Etc. etc. Being penalised for this is, IMHO, unfair, not to mention statistically unsound: these things could have happened to anyone, there was nothing I could have done to prevent them, they happened to me because of bad luck, not because my behaviour was in any way ?riskier?. Oh, it is also ridiculous if I don?t make any claim (e.g. I don?t have comprehensive), and therefore my no-fault accident doesn?t cost my insurer anything.

Again, the legal and regulatory framework allows this to happen. It doesn?t allow other kinds of discrimination (eg by race, religion, etc) but it allows this to happen.

Yes, insurers use complex algorithms to price their policies. But they are black box models: it is effectively impossible to assess the impact of a single factor; they may work decently in aggregate, but on individual cases they can and do spit out nonsensical results. If I had had a penny for every nonsensical quote I received I?d be rich!

Just recently, I was getting quotes for a 2014 and a 2015 motorcycle (NB: this specific motorcycle didn?t change between these two years). The 2014 model was cheaper to insure if declared in a garage (makes sense), the 2015 one was cheaper to insure if declared on the road than in a garage!!! All of this with the same insurer. This is the last one I remember, but over the years I have seen plenty such examples.

[DaveR]

Sorry, I still don't get it. The legal and regulatory system "allows this to happen"? I can't think of any other type of transaction that is regulated in the way you suggest this should be. Your real criticism appears to be that in your opinion it is unfair and absurd, but those things are generally unregulated - if a bakery decided to charge triple the price for cakes every Thursday, or because it is raining, that would be unfair and absurd but not obviously calling for legal/regulatory action.

Discrimination is prohibited relating to specific, identifiable qualities of the victim - what's the quality here that is engaged?

And taking your example:

"Just recently, I was getting quotes for a 2014 and a 2015 motorcycle (NB: this specific motorcycle didn?t change between these two years). The 2014 model was cheaper to insure if declared in a garage (makes sense), the 2015 one was cheaper to insure if declared on the road than in a garage!!! All of this with the same insurer. This is the last one I remember, but over the years I have seen plenty such examples"

what bit of the legal system should be changed as a result?

[DulwichLondoner]

I suppose I was unclear.

The example about the nonsensical price differences between garage vs open road were a simple example of how the pricing algorithms can spit out results which are, well, nonsensical. The algorithms may work decently in aggregate, but nonsensical results at the individual level are still very much possible. Not much we can do about it, TBH - let's just not pretend there is some exact science behind those price differences.

As for the legal and regulatory system, well, insurance is a heavily regulated industry. It would be perfectly conceivable for a country to decide that motorists should not be penalised for no-fault accidents, and to enforce this. The UK doesn't do it - this doesn't mean doing it would be impossible, unfeasible, nor wrong.

[Penguin68]

At the risk of this thread getting lounged (but it must be close anyway) - you are rather wanting to change the capitalist rather than the legal system.

Whilst private companies can apply probability algorithms to set insurance risks and thus costs this is what will happen. The owner of a car which is struck (whilst parked) is more likely to continue to park in ares of such risk than an owner who hasn't had their parked car struck. That is what accident and claim statistics suggest, and that is where the algorithm takes them. It's not 'fair' but is is, apparently, true. In the same way the insurance class of vehicles can change if they become an increasing target of theft. Nothing to do with the insured person/ vehicle, but a sad fact. And your insurance will increase if you change cars, even to a vehicle in a lower (less risky) class because people are more likely to have an accident in a new (to them) car!

A state insurance system (one not motivated by profit) might choose to apply different 'rules' - but the rules are those applying to capitalist economies, not a legal system.

[Penguin68]

It would be perfectly conceivable for a country to decide that motorists should not be penalised for no-fault accidents, and to enforce this

And the result would be that all motorists would see a rise in their premiums, even where they choose to park or drive in safe(er) areas! This is not 'penalising' motorists (though you can interpret the effect as that) but applying a better risk analysis to them.

[DulwichLondoner]

@Penguin68, you are assuming that no-fault accidents are always a statistically sound indicator that one is a riskier motorist and more likely to be involved in other accidents in the future. May I ask why you believe this? Have you run lots of statistical analyses on years of data to reach this conclusion?

Common sense would suggest that this is not the case, that no-fault accidents are not always a reliable indicator of greater risk. I am, of course, happy to be proven wrong. I?ll be looking forward, for example, to hearing how an idiot smashing into the car parked on my driveway, or a driver hitting me from behind while texting, explain why I?d be more dangerous, or how these single isolated cases mean that I park or drive in statistically more dangerous areas. Especially if I don?t have comprehensive or decide not to claim, in which case this has not cost the insurer anything.

You say: ?it is apparently true?. How can you be so sure?

Motor insurance has been barely profitable for years, so I?m not saying that insurers are making extraordinary profits at our expenses (although the system could certainly be improved: https://www.spectator.co.uk/2015/10/the-car-insurance-industry-is-a-disgusting-racket/ ).

All I am saying is that, when pricing is driven by back-box algorithms, there isn?t always a clear, statistically sound reason as to why two situations which are very similar are priced very differently ? sometimes it?s just a nonsensical result. None of the examples you mention, for example, come even close to explaining why the same bike would be cheaper to insure in a garage vs kept on the road depending on whether it came out of the factory in 2014 or in 2015.

Also, I am not aware of many other industries where pricing can vary so wildly. Banks change their products all the time, one bank may lend to you while another may not, etc, but it?s very unlikely to find a lender that charges you 3 times as much as another for, say, a mortgage, whereas similar, if not greater, differences in motor insurance are not unheard of.

PS Another beauty of our system is that insurers can legally refuse to pay for the consequences of a heart attack. Not all countries allow this. I assume you will tell me why it?s OK because it?s a free market, and how premiums would rise otherwise, right?

[actuarygi]

Agree with what you say DulwichLonder.

The pricing structure for general insurance products are very complicated because of the huge number of variables that are fed into the pricing model for each individual car. While it is generally true that the premium reflects the riskiness of the policyholder, this is at best an aspiration. The level of riskiness of one car versus another can only be an estimated based on a variety of sources that include the insurer's own data, industry data as well as subjective judgement and profit target. It is quite probable for the algorithm to spit out non-sensible results from a consumer perspective, as Dulwichlondoner suggests.

I also agree that it is not fair for the non-faulty driver to cope with a premium increase because of a non-fault accident. These costs should be shared by all policyholders as bad luck is as likely to strike one car as another. And I also agree that the government has a role to play here since private vehicle insurance is compulsory. You may be lucky to get a cheaper premium from another insurer but you can't count on luck all the time.

[Penguin68]

Please do remember that the part of the insurance pricing algorithm that first kicks in (after, for driving, personal details are taken into account, such as age, driving experience and past driving record - claims and convictions) is address. Some addresses are 'riskier' than others. So, already, we do not expect someone in an area where car crime and accidents are low to cross-subsidise someone who chooses (or indeed is forced) to live in an area with high accident and car-crime rates. That also may well be 'unfair' - but it reflects the risk the insurer will have to pay out on the insurance. If you take precautions (have a car alarm) your insurance will be lower, and yet car theft is a no fault crime! Of course general statistics when applied to an individual may not 'be fair'

Of course regulation could change this. Young women drivers are statistically far less likely to have an accident than young male drivers - but anti-discrimination legislation forced ensurers not to take sex into account in future in determining premiums - charges went up for (blameless and less risky) women drivers - although I didn't actually hear of them falling for men, I must admit.

But the underlying model for insurance of any kind is to balance out risk. Regulation may ensure that some risks must be removed from the calculation, of course, but the effect of this will be to increase costs to the insured, in the main. Governments are allowed to redistribute wealth, but I am less happy with them doing that through regulation of the insurance market. Particularly as that redistribution may not match social needs. If 'no fault, no increase' is your watchword then the High Net Worth Individual not at fault becomes subsidised by the state pensioner who had made no claim. Is that what you want?

[DulwichLondoner]

@Penguin68, I think it is not fair because I struggle to understand what statistical evidence supports it.

Charging a prudent 18-year old more than a 30-year old may not be "fair" but there may be a statistically sound reason to do it. Same for charging a Londonder more than someone who lives in Nowhereshire. But charging me more because an idiot smashed into my car while it was parked? Especially if I don't have comprehensive, don't claim, and therefore don't cost my insurer a penny more? Insurers should price risk, right? So if I didn't have comprehensive before, am not applying for comprehensive now, what does the insurer care? People could smash into my parked car every 6 hours , and it would still not cost the insurer a penny more!

You continue to be convinced it is all statistically sound, yet you have not answered a single one of my questions. How do you know? Have you run detailed statistical analyses yourself? Or do you just "trust" the insurers?

Out of curiosity, have you ever dealt with mid-sized to big data at all? Do you know what spurious correlations are? http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations

Anyone who has ever worked with large amounts of data knows all too well how difficult it is to distinguish noise from meaningful relations, especially when resorting to black-box models.

[Penguin68]

Out of curiosity, have you ever dealt with mid-sized to big data at all? Do you know what spurious correlations are?

Yes, have and do. I have been involved in 'big data' for a long time - including (at the time) some of the biggest data analyses then being run outside government (as I worked then for one of the major utilities with, at one time, close to 20 million individual customer records generating billions of event records weekly these were genuinely large numbers). At one time, for data gathering and analysis, including bespoke market research, I was handling budgets in the ?10s of millions. And I am statistically trained.

Insurance companies keep (and share) records of events. The probability of one event happening if another has happened is quite well tested (and Bayes theorem allows us to understand how the probability of assessing a probability can be derived), and where the base is common (an accident or theft happening to a customer to whom an accident or theft has already happened) quite sound. The logic even is sound. If you park in areas where there are bad drivers (and most people do regularly park in the same sort of areas, as they are near their homes, places of work or places where they go for entertainment or shopping - most people's habits are pretty clear) - then you are more likely to be in a no-fault accident, possibly more than once. If you live or regularly park where there are car break-ins likewise. Areas with bad drivers or break-ins are defined by areas where these are being reported and/ or claimed on. Your making such a claim (or reporting such an incident without making a claim) places you in those areas.

And you say you don't have comprehensive insurance. So if someone was in your parked car when it was hit, and they were injured, they would have a claim (as a third party) against your insurance (actually, I assume you probably have 3rd party, fire and theft, so if you car was hit and then burst into flames you would also be able to claim).

Insurance companies apply specific rules, and they apply them at the first even handedly. I have, over the last few years, always been able to negotiate the price of my annual insurance down.

I don't have access to the various accident statistics available to insurance actuaries. However, I have no reason to suppose that insurance companies are acting as a cartel to manipulate pricing using spurious statistics. That would be illegal (the cartel element certainly). Various bodies (Which, the motoring organisations) would, I suspect, be considering this possibility - if you believe that such a cartel is in operation you should contact these, or the Competition Authorities.

Once again - on an individual basis 'it's just not fair' - Yes. But insurers operate on group not individual risks. As they can never afford to drill down deep enough to assess people except as belonging to cohorts.

[Rubik]

Hello all

One of the smashed cars (the one that was towed the next day) belonged to me and someone mentioned there was a thread on here.

There aren't a huge amount of details to give, but for those interested: On Friday night last a car lost control just past the lights and hit our car, a neighbour's car from a few doors down, and pushed that car into a third car. I was fighting off jetlag and half asleep on my sofa when it happened so it was a bit of a shock to hear a loud noise and see the car pushed onto the pavement. The driver stopped out of the way down the next side road (outside the lordship). I believe the landlord called the police and the guy came back up to us to leave his insurance details and contact information. It wasn't a hit and run, and his car was towed that night because frankly it was a bit of a mess and in the way. Everything all very polite and gentlemanly.

The police came about an hour later and took details and what not, we've got a replacement courtesy car and are waiting to find out if the car is a write off (I suspect it is). I believe the car still there is getting taken away soon. I'm not sure who is meant to sort out the bumper that came off the first car??

Apparently it's the second time cars have been hit on that stretch, which is a little surprising given it's meant to be 20 mph and a straight bit of road but there you go. I expect our premiums to go up a bit, though I will say the insurance company (Admiral) have been pretty good so far, having a tow truck and courtesy car delivered straight away (and a similar small SUV not just a tiny hatchback either).

No one was hurt which is the main thing, and thanks to those above who expressed concern.

[Penguin68]

Apparently it's the second time cars have been hit on that stretch, which is a little surprising given it's meant to be 20 mph and a straight bit of road but there you go.

As I said, above, areas where there are bad drivers are areas where there are bad drivers. Insurance companies have the statistics to show this. Until speed bumps were put into my residential road there were a number of parked cars hit (and one young pedestrian) within 100 yards of my house - actually since the speed bumps no accidents.

I am glad nobody was hurt and you are being well handled by your insurer.

[DulwichLondoner]

@Rubik, glad to hear you're OK!

@Penguin68, so you are telling me that enough data is available to suggest that those who have their cars smashed into, through no fault of their own, while they are parked, by some random idiot are riskier drivers, and are more likely to cost the insurer more money, even if they didn't have comprehensive and are not applying for a new comprehensive policy?

You talk about the car exploding. How many cars explode after being hit? Especially at relatively low speeds, like those (hopefully) of residential back roads?

I am sceptical to say the least. I cannot rule it out with absolute certainty but I am sceptical. The question, however, is always the same: how can you be so sure? Either you are an actuary in an insurance company, and have run the numbers yourself, or you are placing some semi-religious blind faith and trust in the insurers. I cannot think of a third explanation.

Or are you telling me there is a statistically sound reason why a 2014 motorcycle is cheaper to insure if declared on the road than in a garage, while the same identical motorcycle, but which came out of the factory in 2015, is cheaper to insure in a garage than on the road?

We could go on with similar other examples for ages but I'm hoping the gist of the message is clear.

PS I remember an interview with a Fintech lender who said they had found "evidence" that people filling in the application forms all in upper case behaved differently to those who used lower case letters. If you have statistical training, and are used to working with large amounts of data, I believe you'll recognise this as one of the many examples where distinguishing noise from meaningful relationships is not straightforward. After all, if it were, we wouldn't see such huge differences among insurers.

[ianr]

> Or are you telling me there is a statistically sound reason why a

> 2014 motorcycle is cheaper to insure if declared on the road than

> in a garage, while the same identical motorcycle, but which came

> out of the factory in 2015, is cheaper to insure in a garage than>

> on the road?

Have you asked the insurance company to explain the anomaly?

Is it reproducible?

[DulwichLondoner]

Asking the insurance company is a waste of time. You can only ever speak to call centre people on minimum wage who are trained to come up with some waffle to explain that the computer said so, so suck it up. It's not like you can speak to the actuaries who make the pricing models, and, even if you could, most algorithms are black boxes where you cannot really quantify the impact of a single parameter.

I don't have a car, but other anomalies I have seen with motorcycle insurance were cheaper and less powerful motorcycles being much more expensive to insure than bigger, more expensive and more powerful ones; even for TPFT only (so cost and availability of parts shouldn't have been a factor).

Also, some years ago I was considering buying a cheap Asian scooter, a Sym. A new model had just come out (identical to the old one except for some minor cosmetic changes; insuring the old one cost ca. ? 300, insuring the new one more than ?1k (same engine, same power, same everything except for the shape of the lights.

Motor insurance has been barely profitable for years, so I'm not saying insurers are making squillions at our expenses. But let's please not say that their pricing is always sound, rational and justified.

[actuarygi]

It may be fair to the insurer to charge more premium for those who park their car in a riskier stretch, fairer in that they can discourage customers in this area from buying insurance from them and they can pay less claim. But it is not fair for the car owner whose lives on that stretch of the road and therefore park their car there and as a consequence have to suffer a bit more no-fault accident through no fault of his/her own. What would be fairer is to share this kind of risk amongst all policyholders.

Penguin68 Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

The logic even is sound. If you park in

> areas where there are bad drivers (and most people

> do regularly park in the same sort of areas, as

> they are near their homes, places of work or

> places where they go for entertainment or shopping

> - most people's habits are pretty clear) - then

> you are more likely to be in a no-fault accident,

> possibly more than once. If you live or regularly

> park where there are car break-ins likewise. Areas

> with bad drivers or break-ins are defined by areas

> where these are being reported and/ or claimed on.

> Your making such a claim (or reporting such an

> incident without making a claim) places you in

> those areas.

>