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The
following papers on automobile
insurance have been published in
professional journals, the insurance
trade press, and reports. Please
contact us by email
or postal mail
to request a particular article. Please
request an article by its # (number),
and be sure to supply your mailing
address. Each of these paper
publications is now also available
on-line in pdf format. The hyperlinks
are included with the descriptions
below. |
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| #633
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2000 |
| "Why
the standard automobile
insurance market breaks down in
low-income zip codes: A per-mile
analysis of Texas auto insurance
based on testimony before the
Texas House Committee on
Insurance April 6 and 13,
1999" by P. Butler. Report
to the Legislature, 37 pages.
633b-4522.pdf |
| The Texas legislature relied on
this analysis of zip-code
pricing (red lining) and
uninsured cars in passing the
"cents-per-mile
choice" law to cure these
and other maladies produced by
fixed annual rates per-car. As
introduced, the legislation
drafted to NOW's specifications
made the cents-per-mile option a
"mandatory offer" to
all customers by all companies
after a two year phase-in
period.
As passed, the law makes
offering cents-per-mile rates as
an alternative to annual rates
per car voluntary for companies.
Consumers need to demand that
companies take the cure: measure
the miles of protection they
sell for the customers who want
it. |
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| #594 |
1998 |
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"Gas-Tax and Time-Period Insurance
Methods Equally Flawed" by P.
Butler. National Underwriter trade
weekly, June 15, 1998, 1 page.
594.pdf |
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| #570 |
1996 |
| "Automobile
Insurance Pricing: Operating
Cost versus Ownership Cost; the
Implications for Women" by
P. Butler. Proceedings,
Women's Travel Issues Second
National Conference, Chapter 39,
737-751. Federal Highway
Administration, http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/womens/chap39.pdf |
| A good summary of most of the
issues raised in previous
papers, but also criticizes on
risk-measurement grounds the
pay-at-the-pump proposal to fund
auto insurance as a per-gallon
surcharge on gasoline. |
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| #562 |
1995 |
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"Discussion of Robert L. Brown's
`Recent Canadian Human Rights Decisions
Having an Impact on Gender-Based Risk
Classification Systems'" by P.
Butler. Journal of Actuarial Practice 3:
181-190.
562.pdf |
| Discusses the difference between the
need for a constitutional ban on sex
classifications and the allowable use of age
classifications for insurance and other
purposes. |
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| #516 |
1993 |
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"Cost-Based Pricing of Individual
Automobile Risk Transfer: Car-Mile
Exposure Unit Analysis" by P.
Butler. Journal of Actuarial Practice
1: 51-84. (Invited paper for the
inaugural issue.)
516.pdf |
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| #418 |
1990 |
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"Measure Exposure for Premium
Credibility" by P. Butler.
National Underwriter (trade weekly)
(Invited article for annual Auto
Insurance issue.) April 23, 1990. 2
pages.
418.pdf |
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Describes
what's not credible to consumers with
trying to charge for insurance through a
fixed charge on car ownership, or through
a proposed surcharge on gasoline. Charging
by the odometer mile, however, would be
credible to consumers, while
simultaneously having statistical
stability and credibility. |
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#401 |
1990 |
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"Unmetered Premiums Subsidize the
Overuse of Automobile Transportation" by P. Butler.
Contingencies: The Journal of the
Actuarial Profession, American
Academy of Actuaries, May/June 1990.
4 pages.
401.pdf |
|
Begins
with insurers admitting that "we
cannot tell people to drive less"
by providing premium incentives in order to lower
insurance costs, but instead that
society "may need to build better
public transportation systems" to do
so. Provides a summary of #342 (see
below) and adds the effects on
insurance of
reduced driving following the closing of
the Bay Area Bridge by the
California earthquake in 1989. |
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| #394 |
1989 |
|
"Driver Record: a Political Red
Herring That Reveals the Basic Flaw in
Automobile Insurance Pricing" by P.
Butler and T. Butler. Journal of
Insurance Regulation 8: 200-234.
394.pdf |
| Shows that the cost
"justification" for charging
insureds for claims and traffic tickets
is only a cost artifact or symptom
caused by using annual costs per car
instead of costs per mile. Pricing by
driver record, like pricing by credit
score, is merely another cost-difference
symptom produced by auto insurers'
refusal to use odometers to measure the
protection they sell. Battles over
banning or regulating these symptoms,
like battles over pricing by driver sex
and zip code (redlining), serve to
distract attention from the underlying
deliberate ignorance itself. Eliminate
the ignorance and the symptoms go too. |
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| #378 |
1989 |
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"Insurance Department 'Catch 22'
Shields Auto Insurers From Consumer
Challenges" by P. Butler, T.
Butler, and L. L. Williams. Journal of
Insurance Regulation 7: 285-289.
378.pdf |
| Insurance Commissioner required
insurance odometer data on miles, which
companies purposely refuse to collect,
and rejects government data as basis for
finding illegal rate discrimination
against drivers with cars driven less
than average. |
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| #342 |
1988 |
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"Sex-Divided Mileage, Accident, and
Insurance Cost Data Show That Auto
Insurers Overcharge Most Women" by
P. Butler, T. Butler, and L. L.
Williams. Journal of Insurance
Regulation 6: 243-284 (Pt. I), 373-420
(Pt. II).
342.pdf |
| Based on the trial record from
a rate discrimination lawsuit
brought by Pennsylvania NOW in 1986
against five major automobile insurers
and includes a critical examination of
actual company rate manual price
distinctions by driver sex, age, car
use, etc. compared with government data
on accidents and annual miles by driver
and vehicle type.
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