Cuvva – Car Insurance by the Hour • Hacker News Board

Re: Cuvva – Car Insurance by the Hour

#51

Post by cmdrfred » Fri, Jul 31, 2015, 7:39 AM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #50

cmdrfred wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just always felt a more equitable distribution of funds (as PA is a no fault state) is to have the people who have $100,000 cars to buy the insurance as they are the ones with the disposable income to afford it. The guy making 8 dollars an hour at Walmart with his 900 dollar beater isn't getting much value from that set up.

What exactly would you propose should be done to place the burden on the guy with the $100,000 car? If you don't require that the guy with the beater buy insurance, all you're doing is setting him up to be bankrupted of whatever little he does have if he's at fault in an accident. And what if he crashes into another poor slob making $8 an hour at the Wal-Mart who managed to take out a loan to buy a slightly nicer car…

four issues:

1:the guy making 8 bucks an hour can only afford minimum coverage, the insurance provides no coverage his car.

2:if we require people get insurance anytime they may potentially put others at risk then why isn't it required when you purchase a firearm? or alcohol? or rat poison? or a pet dog? or a baseball bat? The list goes on forever.

3: The cost of providing the car insurance is far below the cost of providing it when you exclude a few bad actors. (to date for me I've paid in over 20 grand, 0 return) Why is the rest of society providing a subsidy to people who can't drive? it isn't an accident when you change lanes every 30 seconds, tailgate, and drive aggressively. Why is society providing a subsidy for people with expensive cars as well? I've never had a 'accident' and yet I'm expected to pay a company for a product that gives me little value until I die, and while someone who has a 'accident' pays slightly more monthly than me I feel I cover far to much of the burden for them.

4:I drive a datsun in vintage racing events, my skill is far above the average driver. I can tailgate at 90 miles an hour with drum breaks. Why aren't my rates lower? beacuse the free market isn't allowed to do it's work on insurance companies due to a regulatory structure that was put in by insurance companies. Why does my credit score count by my skill does not? regulatory capture.

Re: Cuvva – Car Insurance by the Hour

#52

Post by GFischer » Fri, Jul 31, 2015, 11:53 AM UTC

BillinghamJ wrote: post #11

Hey. I built Cuvva. Exciting to see it posted on HN, causing a lot of traffic to our site! Cuvva is currently UK-only. Here if you drive a friend's car, you're normally only covered for damage to third parties. With Cuvva, it's a full comprehensive policy. This is not typically relevant for the US. However we are interested in the potential for other products which might work in the US.

Congratulations! Awesome product, and I like your landing page and blurb a lot.

And I love the FAQs :)

https://support.cuvva.co/hc/en-gb/articles/202311812-Can-I-u...

Re: Cuvva – Car Insurance by the Hour

#53

Post by Retric » Fri, Jul 31, 2015, 1:47 PM UTC

cmdrfred wrote: post #51

mikeash wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly would you propose should be done to place the burden on the guy with the $100,000 car? If you don't require that the guy with the beater buy insurance, all you're doing is setting him up to be bankrupted of whatever little he does have if he's at fault in an accident. And what if he crashes into another poor slob making $8 an hour at the Wal-Mart who managed to take out a loan to buy a slightly nicer car…

four issues: 1:the guy making 8 bucks an hour can only afford minimum coverage, the insurance provides no coverage his car. 2:if we require people get insurance anytime they may potentially put others at risk then why isn't it required when you purchase a firearm? or alcohol? or rat poison? or a pet dog? or a baseball bat? The list goes on forever. 3: The cost of providing the car insurance is far below the cost of p…

2: You only need insurance to drive on public roads otherwise it's optional.

3: 20k is 4: Drum breaks don't mean much human physical reaction speed is to slow to safely tailgate period.

Re: Cuvva – Car Insurance by the Hour

#54

Post by mikeash » Fri, Jul 31, 2015, 5:23 PM UTC

cmdrfred wrote: post #51

mikeash wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly would you propose should be done to place the burden on the guy with the $100,000 car? If you don't require that the guy with the beater buy insurance, all you're doing is setting him up to be bankrupted of whatever little he does have if he's at fault in an accident. And what if he crashes into another poor slob making $8 an hour at the Wal-Mart who managed to take out a loan to buy a slightly nicer car…

four issues: 1:the guy making 8 bucks an hour can only afford minimum coverage, the insurance provides no coverage his car. 2:if we require people get insurance anytime they may potentially put others at risk then why isn't it required when you purchase a firearm? or alcohol? or rat poison? or a pet dog? or a baseball bat? The list goes on forever. 3: The cost of providing the car insurance is far below the cost of p…

Mandatory liability insurance has actually been proposed for firearms. I imagine the reason it's not actually law is because rabid NRA types see any such requirement as an unconstitutional infringement of their 2nd Amendment rights.

As for the rest, the risk is far lower. How many people are injured in baseball bat accidents each year? How much property damage is caused by dogs? How often does alcohol result in damage to a third party beyond the culprit's ability to pay, outside of alcohol-related car accidents?

Insurance costs vary enormously with your demonstrated risk, which includes your driving record. If you're a safe driver, and demonstrate it with a low accident and traffic citation rate, you pay much less than somebody who crashes and gets pulled over a lot.

Your statement that you can safely tailgate at 90MPH with drum brakes makes me think that you're actually one of those unsafe drivers who merely thinks he's safe because he's gotten lucky so far. No amount of skill is going to save you from human reaction times, or the guy in front of you having superior brakes. If you are in fact skilled, then your skill does count, to the extent that you can demonstrate it in a concrete manner.

Re: Cuvva – Car Insurance by the Hour

#55

Post by cmdrfred » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 1:11 AM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #54

cmdrfred wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

four issues: 1:the guy making 8 bucks an hour can only afford minimum coverage, the insurance provides no coverage his car. 2:if we require people get insurance anytime they may potentially put others at risk then why isn't it required when you purchase a firearm? or alcohol? or rat poison? or a pet dog? or a baseball bat? The list goes on forever. 3: The cost of providing the car insurance is far below the cost of p…

Mandatory liability insurance has actually been proposed for firearms. I imagine the reason it's not actually law is because rabid NRA types see any such requirement as an unconstitutional infringement of their 2nd Amendment rights. As for the rest, the risk is far lower. How many people are injured in baseball bat accidents each year? How much property damage is caused by dogs? How often does alcohol result in damag…

Not a single accident or moving violation ever, I pay 120 a month for minimum coverage because I have shitty credit. What I do on a racetrack under controlled conditions is entirely different than what I do on the road. I keep my stopping distance between me and the car in front of me.

Re: Cuvva – Car Insurance by the Hour

#56

Post by mikeash » Sat, Aug 01, 2015, 1:42 AM UTC

cmdrfred wrote: post #55

mikeash wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mandatory liability insurance has actually been proposed for firearms. I imagine the reason it's not actually law is because rabid NRA types see any such requirement as an unconstitutional infringement of their 2nd Amendment rights. As for the rest, the risk is far lower. How many people are injured in baseball bat accidents each year? How much property damage is caused by dogs? How often does alcohol result in damag…

Not a single accident or moving violation ever, I pay 120 a month for minimum coverage because I have shitty credit. What I do on a racetrack under controlled conditions is entirely different than what I do on the road. I keep my stopping distance between me and the car in front of me.

Your credit score counts because credit score is a good predictor of accident risk. Apparently nobody really understands why, but that's how it is.

Insurance is all about trying to predict the future, which is tough. The tools are imperfect. But they're decent, and the data supports using credit score as a factor.

Re: Cuvva – Car Insurance by the Hour

#57

Post by richmarr » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 10:05 AM UTC

bri3d wrote: post #26

scott00 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think coverage by the mile or the hour for primary drivers would be of interest to a lot of car owners in US urban areas. An existing player, Metro Mile, markets their product as pay-per-mile, but the majority of the cost actually comes from a fixed per-month fee. Of course that might be because what I want makes no actuarial sense...

Most US states require that a car be continuously insured as a condition of its registration, so I think a fixed per-month fee is inevitable. Each US state also regulates insurance completely differently, so trying to break into "the US market" with an insurance company is really trying to break into 50 different legal areas. Very similar to the other article on the HN frontpage today about US "FinTech" / money trans…

> ...require that a car be continuously insured...

This doesn't seem like an issue, maybe I'm missing something. You just model it as continuous insurance based off mileage rather than insurance that's only active when driving. Metromile et al are conventional insurers except that they use actual rather than estimated mileage in their pricing.

I think the real reason that there's a monthly fee is that actuarial risk isn't linear with mileage.