Business news on the radio this morning.
A representative from the vehicle insurance industry was speaking of their rising costs, noting that last year they paid out 110% of the money they took in in premiums.
Parenthetically, she said that those people who go online to get quotes are monitored as to the responses they make - those that change their answers to see if they can get a lower quote get their premiums loaded for doing so.
Which is unfair. I could be an Engineering Consultant, Principle Engineer, Company Director, Electrical Engineer, Instrument Engineer. Some of which don't properly describe my position and others that aren't on their list, but all of which are correct. If they don't have a proper category for my profession, why should I be penalised for trying more than one of the closest options?
I've wondered about that, never found it affects things ...
I put in almost-but-not-quite-accurate answers to a comparison site work out which insurer and options to go for, and then go to their site and put in the correct details in order to buy it. That avoids my details being spammed across all the insurers on a comparison site, and any kind of profiling like this doesn't work.
Another thing I've noticed is not to do searches after about 9pm, as some insurers computers are down for maintenance. You get fewer, often higher, quotes back as a result.
Theo
Been that way for 10 years, when I worked in insurance.
When you can't allow that women drive better than men* you have to use all sorts of proxies to infer it.
There are lots of little gems buried in the stats actuaries use.
*Or at least cost less to cover.
It isn't the only marker.
Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh !
I've always tried to get a 'one hit' quote, because it feels like under the bonnet that could well happen.
Same with booking flights. I have had the price increase while I sit there procrastinating
I had that some years back booking on Easy Jet, you would get a price but if you looked elsewhere and came back the EJ price had gone up. At the time the remedy was to flush all cookies and you would get the original price back. I think they have got more sophisticated about it now.
Richard
Do that here:
Theo
It has indeed been with Easyjet bookings, so there we are....
A possible remedy is to search using a third party site like Skyscanner. I don't know exactly how they work but I suspect they don't forward every query to EZY, they do some local caching so that people searching for the same dates at roughly the same time get the same prices. At the very least EZY can't single you out from all the others via cookies.
When you've decided, go direct and book in a single hit.
(this research-decide-pounce technique also works for cashback sites, where you can buy using a second browser with the cashback login to ensure the affiliate commission gets allocated to your cashback account and not some other referrer you used in the research phase)
Theo
Sounds like something this government needs...
I know. I spotted it just after posting, but it didn't seem worth a follow-up to correct it.
Always been similar. Your need to clear your cookies when trying different information.
Try putting publican or anything to do with the alcohol trade :)
Please NO, we have enough principles as it is, without engineering any more!
Easy Jet always changed their price depending on how many seats they had left. At one time I could book an easy jet flight for work and get a cheap flight by booking, say a week, in advance. The "management" then decided after obtaining a price they wanted to approve it first. They then took 2 or 3 days to sign it off by which time the price had increased fivefold :)
I read somewhere that women generally have more accidents, but that they tend to be smaller ones, thus cheaper to repair, particularly when the excess is taken into account.
I'm astounded the number of times I see it spelt that way, even on job adverts. Someone I met once even had that spelling on his business card !
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