"In your friend's case, the fact that she had two claims adjusted her relative risk profile"
For car insurance it makes sense, as the risk is specific to the driver, so the number of claims tells you something about the insured's driving.
But, for home insurance, isn't it mainly about the property rather than the individual? And isn't that mostly about location and property type?
Will this continue to affect her premiums if she moves? Will it also affect the new owner of her home, even though they weren't party to the previous claims?
> For car insurance it makes sense, as the risk is specific to the driver, so the number of claims tells you something about the insured's driving.
Not necessarily. One of my friends had his parked car hit by a drunk driver while he was not in it. His insurance premiums still went up after claiming for the damage.
Even in that situation there's an element of avoidable "own risk" that could be priced into the premiums. Someone whose parked car gets hit by a drunk driver is more likely to:
- Not park their car in a garage overnight, exposing them to various damage to the car.
- Not park their car in a garage when they go downtown.
- Park their car near bars or other places statistically more likely to have drunk drivers around.
I'm not saying your friend did any of that and that it wasn't a complete freak accident, but on the scale of everyone that's being insured there's surely correlations like that that justify the premiums going up.
- not buy a house that's next door to a homeowner who rents the home to a person who is willing to drink and drive.
In case you didn't pick up on it, I'm calling your bullet points bullshit.
It's kind of like arguing over code, there's always going to be something you can nitpick as not optimal. There will always be something a person could possibly have done to prevent the issue (like committing suicide that morning), but it's a question of what's reasonable, and it is not unreasonable to expect a vehicle parked correctly in a parking spot to not be hit by another vehicle.
The topic of discussion is not what's reasonable activity. Of course it's reasonable to legally park your car outside, it's also reasonable to go rock climbing.
We're talking about insurance. There's certain reasonable activity that exposes you to heightened risk. Your car is at higher risk parked outside than in a garage.
Who should assume the cost of that heightened risk? Should the insurance company charge a person with a garage and a person without one the same premiums? Should there be no consequences for damage that could have been avoided by storing your car in a garage?
If the answer to those questions is "yes" you've created a moral hazard. Why would anyone store their car in a safer location if their insurance company will pay for any damages without their premiums going up?
To categorically say that this shouldn't be priced into insurance is to say that some buyers of insurance with higher risk profiles should be subsidized by those with lower risk profiles.
Now of course insurance companies are far from perfect. They have limited data to work with and it wouldn't be cost effective to figure out whether some individual customer had a one-off freak accident or not.
But over their entire customer base it's not an unreasonable approximation to connect your premiums to traffic incidents you were involved in, even though you were not at fault.
Not being at fault is not the same thing as not having exposed yourself to heightened risk. The police deals with the former, insurance companies deal with the latter.
> Not being at fault is not the same thing as not having exposed yourself to heightened risk.
By moving in next door to a drunk, how dare you.
The problem with your example, and the reason it doesn't apply to this particular discussion, is the rates will go up if a drunk drives into your garage door and hits your vehicle.
Is it because of a heightened risk, or is it because the insurance company removes you from their special "never had to pay anything out on you" list?
someone who gets a DUI is at an increased risk for wrecks, this is reasonable. Someone who is parked in a parking spot is not, that is not reasonable. The driver is already paying a rate based upon where they live, they have ALREADY paid for that risk.
> One of my friends had his parked car hit by a drunk driver while he was not in it. His insurance premiums still went up after claiming for the damage.
What the heck? Can you elaborate on this? How is this even legal?
Very simple. If he knew who caused the damage, then that person and their insurance would have paid for it. His premiums wouldn't go up by a bit. But if you got hit by a drunk driver, and they disappeared, then you are using your own insurance to fix your car - so of course your premiums will go up. That's exactly why, if someone damages your car while you are driving it(breaks off the mirror, scratches the side, breaks the fender), at least try to write down the registration number of the other car if you can. Otherwise the damages will be coming out of your insurance, not theirs :P
For car insurance it makes sense, as the risk is specific to the driver, so the number of claims tells you something about the insured's driving.
But, for home insurance, isn't it mainly about the property rather than the individual? And isn't that mostly about location and property type?
Will this continue to affect her premiums if she moves? Will it also affect the new owner of her home, even though they weren't party to the previous claims?