Breeze, do you work in a call center? Non-owner policies cover liability, not physical damage coverage to your auto. Financial responsibility laws require that you carry LIABILITY coverage. (to pay for damages/injury to a 3rd party to the insurance contract- the 3rd party being the "other person you hit" in simple terms) Liability ratings are based on the driver not the type of car you are driving. Physical damage coverage (comp and collision) is where they discern between a station wagon (piece of crap, not worth a damn therefore less costly to insure) and a sports vehicle (worth more - costs more to insure & may have a "performance surcharge" due to high speed, tendency to roll, etc) Don't tell me you're going to buy a penis extender... uh.. Corvette.. and drive it like Granny's station wagon. LOL
Great. Then I get to hear you bitch about how high licensing fees are because your neighbor had three accidents last year and you haven't had one for twenty years, and you think your licensing fee is too high. Same with "pay at the pump" theories.
Actually, the station wagon I was thinking of was my boss's brand new silver Volvo, which is definitely not a piece of crap and is certainly worth quite a bit more than my beat-up old sedan. Comp and collision apply to your own car. Shouldn't liability coverage take into account statistical information about the amount of damage your vehicle type is likely to inflict on the other car if you are at faut in a collision? E.g., common sense dictates that (with all other variables being equal) I'd rather be *hit* by a Chevy Metro hatchback than by a Ford Expedition, because (all other variables being equal), the smaller car will typcially do less damage (based on the inertia, alone) and be less likely to cause injuries to me or my passengers. Less damage/injuries = lower total claims payouts for the insuring company. Ergo, a driver who chooses to drive a Chevy Metro should pay less for liability than the same driver would pay for liability on an Expedition. (Unless, of course, statistical evidence shows that the incidence of at-fault collisions is higher for Chevy Metro drivers than Expedition drivers (with the statistical sampling grouping drivers of similar driving-record profiles, of course). This could offset the previous paragraph.) Even if this isn't the way the underwriters do it, it sure would make sense to me if it was. (It makes more sense than using credit rating as part of the auto insurance underwriting models. And it definitely makes more sense than some of the crap they use to calculate the FICO, itself.) -ingenue
ingenue, all kinds of things are taken into account when determining a "rate." That's why actuaries get paid the big bucks! It's not very simple at all, which is why insurance doesn't make sense to most people. Prior to 97 when I started in the business, I didn't know a thing about it except I had to pay for it every month. I'm still learning new things every day. I agree that credit scoring for insurance isn't quite right. Back when I was unemployed I drove VERY carefully -- in fact I think I drive better now because of the paranoia I was under all that time I didn't want to get in an accident without registration or insurance (very irresponsible, but you do what ya gotta do) -- and I still drive like I don't have tags or insurance. So, I think having financial problems and bad credit made me a BETTER driver. My last accident was back when I had a 700-ish score. oh well. BTW isnt a volvo supposed to be one of the safest cars you can own (like, you wont get maimed as bad in an accident?)
Yes, doody, I just took a position with GEICO in Jan. in the Virginia Beach call center. I'm very impressed! They are sure being good to me I think their underwriting is off the wall, LOL - but I don't really care - not my area of expertise.
Hrm. In other news, I got my very first moving violation ticket today. I expected my first ticket to be for something I knew I had done, like speeding, maybe. But this morning I was surprised to get pulled over and even more surprised that the cop said I didn't stop for a stopped school bus going the other way on the other side of the four lane highway. Thing is, I never saw a stopped bus this morning at all. I always stop for a flashing yellow kid-laden behemoth. It's important. I don't know what I'm going to do when I go to court. I've racked my brain and I'm *sure* I saw no bus. Visibility wasn't great this morning but I'm sure I would have seen all the flashers if they had been on. Cop also said that all the other traffic stopped but not me - I know that's not true, because another car was in the lane next to me for the entire stretch of road until I got pulled over. And even if I could miss a big, flashing bus, I'm sure I would have noticed the cars right next to me slowing and stopping for no apparent reason. I don't know whether I should take the cop's word for it and plead guilty, or plead not guilty because *I'm* still not convinced I did this. Worried that if it's my word against the cop's I am screwed. My roommate says that the grade school busses run earlier than my citation time and the high school busses run later and she said she'd try to get the bus schedules for me. (Cops in my county are known to lie. This is an empirical observation. A (presumably just off-duty) cop rear-ended me in his K-9 unit Ford Bronco, and tried to tell me that it was my fault. I think it embarrassed the State Trooper.) After I got over my shock, I discovered irritation that the cop was so cheerful about what should be a grave matter. The chipper "Drive Safely" goodbye was about as genuine as a slap in the face to send me on my befuddled way. Stressed and Depressed, -ingenue
Problem is if there isn't a big enough window between the busses for my ticket to have been in between, or worse, if a bus is scheduled to go by at approximately that time.... I still didn't see one! There are very few place along that stretch of road that could have a bus stop, it's a four lane-highway. Although when I found out the bus was southbound (I, northbound), I asked if the "four lane divided highway" exclusion would excuse a failure to stop. Apparently not if it isn't a raised median (on this highway, like many in Georgia, the median strip is a continuous two-way turn lane.) I think a lot of people are getting screwed by this technicality. I can't stop obsessing about this. -ingenue
1* There are none.It's a shell game. 2*This is why scoring won't work and FICO is fraud. 3*Another reason scoring is a farce. 4*I found this out 18 years ago about the insurers and the banks both. 5* to cover up the truth.
Yes, so I hear. That's what I originally meant. They should have lower insurance rates than those that drive "death on wheels" vehicles. (Statistically smaller claims = lower insurance premium.) -ingenue
