Insurance Statistics

[Dan Cordon]

My apologies on the last post. In trying to be concise, I think I was
just unclear :o) The agents I've talked with are all correct in their
statistical assumptions. Given that I may choose from any # of vehicle
to drive on a given day, there's equal chance that I'm going to wreck
any one of them. Granted, some cars see 7k miles a year, others are
seeing close to 200 miles. Still, lets just assume that they all get
driven equally. In that case, there's equal chance of any one of them
being in an incident.

However, what they do with the statistical information isn't correct.
The insurance companies justify charging full (or slightly discounted)
cost for each vehicle because they have the came chance of accident. But
as most of you have stated, the chance of accident for each vehicle may
be the same, but by having more vehicles the chance of any one vehicle
is far less than it would be with fewer cars.

Either way, I suppose that's the price we pay for having a passion. Just
like any other adict....I mean love, it comes with a cost.

Now, on a completely unrelated note: All this talk about backlighting on
my clock and digital display has me eager to tear in to it. Where would
I go about getting the correct bulbs to put in the backlights? Is this
something my local parts store should have, or are they semi-special
that I'd get from an audi place?


> Thus far, most agents have played statistics with me. They argue that if
> you drive all your cars, you have the same chance of getting in an
> accident with any of the cars, and thus they should all cost the same
> for insurance. This statement is true (more or less), but they use that
> to justify charging you full price for each vehicle.
>
--
Dan Cordon
Mechanical Engineer
University of Idaho - Engine Research Facility