My son is nearing the legal age to drive an automobile. He is a very safe and experienced driver. In order for him to drive the state requires him to be insured. The insurance will be much much more than mine based upon his age and how long he has had a drivers license. The county we live in also will be a factor in determining how much we will pay. This does not seem fair at all especially considering that this is sanctioned by the state. Old people are more prone to poor vision and slow reaction but I don’t think we discriminate against them without a good reason. (accident, ticket, etc.) Thoughts?
I started a thread about this last summer. It was my first post even and it went to like 3 pages! I was very proud. Here it is:auto insurance age discrimination
I think you are totally right! I have never been in an accident or received a ticket, but my rates were through the roof because other people in my age group drive like idiots. It is not right. I am over 25 now, but I still think it is B.S. to charge people under 25 more for no good reason.
Everyone should start at the same rate, and then if you get in an accident or incur a ticket, your rate will go up based off of how much damage you did to the car, or how much faster than the speed limit you were going. If the statistics are correct, and more people under 25 get into accidents, then more people under 25 will still have higher rates.
I don’ think where you live should matter either. If the statistics are correct, and certain cities are higher risk than others, then those cities will have more accidents, and therefore more people with higher rates…just like it is now, except people will get a chance to keep their rates low by driving safely.
It just doesn’t make any sense to me. Age has NOTHING to do with driving ability.
OK, Sorry to repeat the thread. I did a search on “insurance” and didn’t come across your thread. I’ll check it out.
What bothers me far more than rates based on age or sex are rates based on your credit history.
What the hell does your credit history have to do with how safely you drive?
Age based rates I can understand, if not necessarily agree with - the longer you’ve been driving, the safer you are at it, in theory. I am far more iffy on rates based on sex…but based on your credit history? What, if you don’t have a credit card, you automatically suck at driving?
The credit thing does stink too. Also they use your status as home owner or renter to help determine rates. I can understand it but it doesn’t make it right, again considering that your state government forces you to do business in this manner.
The whole insurance industry is complex to me, but they are a big money maker. I heard they survived the Great Depression. I imagine they have strong lobbyists, so that’s why we can’t understand a lot of the rules. Health insurance seems worse than car insurance. If young drivers cost most to insure, why are their health care premiums cheaper? 
Sigh. Old cogger alert.
Healt insurance rates are lower for younger people because (and I know this will surprise you), they generally have less things go wrong with them. As we age (or so says my doctor), stuff starts to break down, expensive stuff like your heart, kidneys etc.
We pay insurance companies to ‘assume the risk’ that something bad will happen. We pay a small amount (relatively) so that if something really big and bad happened, we wouldn’t be sunk. THey, of course, having been paid by lots of people to assume the risk, are looking for ways so that they, too can make a living. So, if there’s not a big chance that some one will get into an accident, then they’ve lot less risk.
However, it’s not just amount of accidents, it’s relative amounts of driving. The elderly would generally do significantly less driving per year than the young. Why? well, the youth are more likely to A. be working plus B. be going to school, plus C. have a relatively active social life where they’d be picking up lots of friends.
Violet: Young people are a lot less likely to go in for expensive procedures like heart surgery, hip replacement, etc.
I would have a lot less ill will toward auto insurance companies if they would base it on driving experience rather than age - who would you rather be in the car with, a 30 year old who just got his license this morning, or a 20 year old who’s been driving for 5 years?
What confuses me even more is that some people say discrimination based on race is Not Okay, even though they have no problem with discrimination based on age. If the statistics show, without a doubt, that people with skin lighter than “5” on the Rembrandt scale are significantly more likely to make claims (which is what the insurance companies really care about), what’s wrong with charging them a different rate? How is that different from charging a different rate because you’re over 40, or under 20?
WAG here - cause we can come up with a half baked theory why age would effect the rates (relative experience, miles driven, other risk taking behaviors), while it’d be difficult to come up with a theory of why the skin tone would have any effect on driving.
( I agree w/you re: the amount of experience)
A few points:
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Discrimination is legal, and always has been (even in state-mandated areas, such as auto insurance) if there is a legitimate (compelling, etc., depending on the type of insurance) reason for it.
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It is axiomatic that insurance premiums are dependent upon the oods that the insured party will actually call on the insurer, as well as the potential amount of the claim. I don’t think that anyone would argue that a trucking company that transports nuclear waste should have to pay more for (state-mandated) insurance than a trucking company transporting milk.
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It is a fact that younger drivers, as a class, will have more accidents in a given year than older drivers.
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There is a way around charging younger drivers higher premiums - make an individual assessment of each driver. However, the administrative costs of such a massive undertaking would serve to considerably drive up the costs of insurance for all drivers.
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Mandating equal insurance premiums for younger and older drivers would serve to discriminate against older drivers. Currently, older driver’s lower premiums is based on the fact that, as a class, they are less likely to have accidents and therefore call on the insurer to pay out. If premiums are equalized, premiums for older drivers would have to go up. Insurance companies would still want to get both enough money to pay off on any claims for the year, plus make their profit. I fail to see why forcing older drivers to pay more than their fair share of insurance premium costs in order to subsidize the premiums of younger drivers should not be considered discrimination against older drivers.
Sua
If they are indeed just looking at odds and probabilty, and I think they are, it just seems alot like legal gambling.
More young drivers have accidents so we charge more for young drivers auto insurance.
More crimes are committed in black neighborhoods so we charge black people more for home owners insurance.
Will someone in the industy please tell us WTF is up.
Speaking only on my observations of myself as I’ve aged, and now of observing my contemporaries, children and younger cousins as they’ve aged, I think that, in most cases, a 30 year old assesses risks better than a 20 year old. Therefore, a 30 year old with less experience on the road will assess the risks better and will (again, generally speaking) be more risk averse in his driving as a 20 y.o.
Before the gangbang starts, yes, I know of 20 year olds more experienced, more mature and more risk averse than 30 year olds. Insurance tends not to look at the individual as a person, only as a bunch of statistics. That is why it is not based on individual driving record; it is based on driver, age x, y accidents, z tickets, etc.
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He may be very safe when driving with an adult passenger in the vehicle but how experienced can he possibly be?
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It seems completely fair to me even though I wasn’t exactly happy about it. As a male under the age of 25 I know exactly what it is like to get insurance.
Are older people less prone to getting into accidents?
Marc
You’ve never seen me on the run from my creditors.
This is exactly the point. My son has a maternal grandfather and a step grandfather who are both in the Heavy equipment / construction business. Since a very young age he has been driving. He has demonstated his ability not only to safely drive an automobile but the ability to safely operate a bulldozer, rubber tire back hoe, track hoe, dump truck, not to mention motor cycles and ATVs. Exactly where do I get to have this considered by his insurance company?
Willy the issue isn’t how safely you’ve seen your son drive, it’s how safe will he drive w/o you in the vehicle.
My son was a very safe driver while I was in the car.
with his friends in the car, however, throwing gumdrops at passerby’s apparently was a good thing to do. :rolleyes:
Currently, he’s car-less, 'cause he thought he was ‘a perfectly safe driver’.
My son is no different than alot of kids raised in rural agricultural areas. I am not with him when he is working with his grandfather. No one is with him when he drives a dump truck all day moving earth from one side of the site to another. He is quite able to safely operate the vehicle amoungst all kinds of other construction vehicles roaming around with very little order to thier movements. I grew up “trucking tobacco”, it was perfectly legal for a 13 year old to operate farm trucks engaged in agri business. This is really valuable experience that does contribute to a young persons ability to drive and holds no weight with insurance companies while statistics do. I know why, but that doesn’t make it right.
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He drives bulldozers, back hoes, track hoes, dump trucks, motor cycles, and ATVs on public roads without any adult supervision?
I’m not exactly sure why they should consider it. Have you ever observed your teen driving on public roads without knowing an adult was observing? Have you ever seen how your teen drives with other teens in the car and no adult supervision?
You kid might be the best driver in the world. Unfortunately the insurance companies go by statistics and statistically he’s not the safest bet. I know how frustrating that is. My sister had a brand new Mustang and she paid less in insurance then I did on my used Saturn.
Marc
And driving heavy equipment at 20-odd mph has exactly what to do with driving a '76 Camaro on the interstate? So he can steer and brake in limited interaction. But what can he do if he’s running 75 in the right lane and the guy 20 feet in front of him brakes to dodge a deer?
I’ll tell you, at 16, I’d have probably plowed up his ass. At 25, I’d have probably hit the guy in the left lane without knowing it. Now at 33, I think I’d have paid enough attention to the road around me to know if there were someone in the left lane, what the shoulder looks like ahead, and be able to assess if plowing up the other guy’s ass is my best bet for survival.
Try to remember being 16 (or 18), and remember that you thought you were immortal; I did. Yes, your son is being stereotyped, but for good reason. I pay more attention to the road and the whole environment because I’m now afraid to die, or kill my wife or daughter. I didn’t then, because at 16, nobody dies.
I would submit, sir, that driving a truck or whathaveyou on a farm or construction site is pretty damn close to irrelevant to determining whether or not a kid is going to be a risk on the public roads. What your child has experience with is the physical tasks of controlling a vehicle. They ain’t that hard to pick up.
The skills that young people lack (and your son likely does too, unless you have let him out on public roads) are such things as: anticipating the actions and reactions of other drivers; determining how much room he needs to come to a stop from 65 mph (unless he’s really revving that truck across the construction site); determining how weather conditions affect stopping, turning, etc.
And, of course, either grandpa or people working for grandpa are around, so I doubt your son is getting loaded before getting behind the wheel of the dump truck.
Put your son against another 16 year old, and, at low speeds, I’d probably feel more comfortable with your son driving me around. But put him against a 30 year old who has never seen the inside of a dump truck or been on a construction site, but who instead has 130,000 miles experience driving on interstates, trunk roads and subdivisions, in rain, sleet, snow and fog, and the 30 year old wins hands down. And the 30 year old’s rates are (and should be) lower.
Finally, Sweet Willy, remember there is no such thing as a free lunch. Would you object to have your insurances rates increased to pay for decreasing your son’s rates?
Sua