Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images • Hacker News Board

Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#281

Post by lm411 » Sat, Apr 06, 2024, 8:45 PM UTC

brogrammernot wrote: post #69

landedgentry wrote: post #17

I'm less concerned about the spying and more concerned about insurance companies arbitrarily non-renewing policies with no recourse for the consumer. Insurance is heavily regulated for good reason, and insurance should be a source of stability instead of anxiety.

Alright, I spent years working and building 0-1 insurance products. Let me peel back some stuff that’s been happening behind the scenes. Some officials are elected and some are appointed which all depends on the state. Appointed officials are usually more reasonable and elected are not because higher rates = mad voters = re-election chances lower. For a long time, insurers have struggled to get sufficient rate change…

Here in British Columbia, our provincially owned insurer (ICBC) saved significant money because of fewer claims during Covid. They even issued a rebate to most drivers. Though they also noted losing some revenue due to fewer or lower premiums being paid. The amount saved was far greater.

https://assets.ctfassets.net/nnc41duedoho/BNR4qtOTGPJuyQADtK...

I wonder if the difference was largely because of Canada's more strict lock downs. The roads were nearly dead here for quite awhile.

Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#282

Post by dilyevsky » Sat, Apr 06, 2024, 8:45 PM UTC

jeffbee wrote: post #167

Auburn, California, is a mistake and should be uninsurable, and I don't want either my tax dollars or my insurance premiums being used to subsidize the treehouse lifestyle of exurban home owners. Whether this specific person's roof is rotted or not isn't really the point. Right now, the real estate sprawl industry is running their printing press at 110% design speed, trying to convince everyone that people who live o…

The problem is not the sprawl, it’s the out of control construction costs due to regulation and insurance premium caps due to… you guessed it - regulations

Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#283

Post by gmd63 » Sat, Apr 06, 2024, 8:46 PM UTC

xcv123 wrote: post #261

gmd63 wrote: post #67

Insurance bothers me for a few reasons: 1. What pisses me off more than anything else, it enables fraud that otherwise wouldn't exist. People manufacturing calamities and then claiming insurance allows dishonest people to get ahead in life over people who are honest and concerned enough about the future to buy insurance. Additionally, insurance fraud is net bad relative to other types of fraud because it encourages c…

> So, a company allegedly tasked with helping the public live safely wanted me to, at the time, ask my COVID infected host to waltz in to the doctor's office and spread around a pathogen that could kill patients. Nice. No. That is done over the phone or video chat. Not required to physically attend a doctors appointment in order to obtain a doctors note for COVID infection. It's called telemedicine or virtual consult…

Yes. Here's the actual covered event from the policy:

"The Sickness, Injury or death of you, your Family Member, your Traveling Companion or your Service Animal. The Sickness or Injury must first commence while your coverage is in effect under the Policy, must require the in-person treatment by a Physician, and must be so disabling in the written opinion of a Physician as to prevent you from taking your Trip (either because your condition prevents your travel, or because your Family Member, Traveling Companion or your Service Animal requires your care);"

Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#284

Post by brewdad » Sat, Apr 06, 2024, 8:47 PM UTC

gumby wrote: post #143

trogdor wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are insurance rates regulated by the government? I understand that the state has a strong interest in ensuring that insurance companies are adequately capitalized, but I don’t understand the state interest in directly regulating premium prices. (Or is that not what you are referring to?)

For the same reason credit card interest rates are regulated: there's an asymmetry in bargaining power. Car prices are not regulated because there are plenty of options for the consumer.

More than that, you can choose to go without a credit card. Insurance is mandatory for most people. Either the law requires it or a lender requires it in order to approve the loan.

Insurance rates are regulated for the same reason most states regulate utility rates. You can’t really opt out and the markets where price regulations have been removed have left most consumers worse off.

Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#285

Post by cortesoft » Sat, Apr 06, 2024, 8:47 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #231

neilv wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is basic insurance for ordinary people a for-profit business at all, rather than something the collective (administered by the state) does to soften any misfortune that hits any of its members?

Mathematically, if you sell insurance at break even, you're guaranteed to go bankrupt - on an infinite time scale, the "spike" of a random walk martingale (this last word means, it doesn't make a profit) will exceed every level, i.e. it will wipe out any amount of collateral / capital / equity the company might have. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_iterated_logarithm

This is why you have re-insurance

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinsurance

If the final insurer is the government, you don't have the risk of ruin because you have control of the money printer.

Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#286

Post by cortesoft » Sat, Apr 06, 2024, 8:49 PM UTC

username332211 wrote: post #194

neilv wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is basic insurance for ordinary people a for-profit business at all, rather than something the collective (administered by the state) does to soften any misfortune that hits any of its members?

If you do that, you must also regulate the sort of vehicles ordinary people can buy and the sort of homes they can own. After all, we can't have the community suffer an unsustainable loss because some guy earned too much money and selfishly bought a Camaro. So, obviously the collective should create a list of cheap and economical cars ordinary people are allowed to buy. If that doesn't feel right to you, remember, th…

Even if the government ran the insurance program, you wouldn't be forced to charge everyone the same amount for their insurance. The Camaro driver could pay more for their coverage.

Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#287

Post by stalfosknight » Sat, Apr 06, 2024, 8:50 PM UTC

lokar wrote: post #117

jjtheblunt wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not seeing you motivate or justify the rate increases.

The insurance companies are loosing money. Rates have to go up.

And yet there's seems to always been enough money for stock buybacks and disgustingly excessive executive compensation.

Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#288

Post by stalfosknight » Sat, Apr 06, 2024, 8:51 PM UTC

brogrammernot wrote: post #69

landedgentry wrote: post #17

I'm less concerned about the spying and more concerned about insurance companies arbitrarily non-renewing policies with no recourse for the consumer. Insurance is heavily regulated for good reason, and insurance should be a source of stability instead of anxiety.

Alright, I spent years working and building 0-1 insurance products. Let me peel back some stuff that’s been happening behind the scenes. Some officials are elected and some are appointed which all depends on the state. Appointed officials are usually more reasonable and elected are not because higher rates = mad voters = re-election chances lower. For a long time, insurers have struggled to get sufficient rate change…

And yet there's seems to always been enough money for stock buybacks and disgustingly excessive executive compensation.

Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#289

Post by medion » Sat, Apr 06, 2024, 8:51 PM UTC

This aerial stuff now enhanced by AI is a privacy rights nightmare - in Australia, local councils are utilizing high res images shot by plane, which are AI analysed for infractions - ie. Illegal outbuildings, cut trees, earth works greater than a metre in depth, solar panels placed without auth etc. This kind of tech is going to be abused by both the private and public sector to no end. The images have a resolution to the point where veins on a tree leaf are perceptible.

We are literally going to be monitored from the sky by AI for a lot of things, and from a legal standpoint at this stage there is nothing to stop anyone from doing it.

Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#290

Post by forgetfreeman » Sat, Apr 06, 2024, 8:57 PM UTC

mopenstein wrote: post #247

Hendrikto wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Very few people hate having insurance in case of accidents but a lot of people hate having guns stuck in their back and told to pay up for other people. I pay a rate based on my risk factors which I actively work to maintain as low as possible. I don't want to be forced to pay for every reckless idiot in my country (of which there are too many to count). But I also hate non-voluntary anything, so I'm weird.

And without exception the folks fixated on the notion they're paying the way for someone else fail to grasp, on the most fundamental level, the notion of a public good. There are days where I think it'd be amusing to suspend federal and state law in the Dakotas just to see how long it took before regional warlords took over.