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From: tron@fluke.UUCP (Peter Barbee)
Newsgroups: net.auto
Subject: Re: Red Cars and Rabbit going fast
Message-ID: <1006@vax1.fluke.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 7-May-85 15:05:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: vax1.1006
Posted: Tue May  7 15:05:28 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 8-May-85 06:24:25 EDT
References: <265@osiris.UUCP> <5100008@hplsle.UUCP> <2579@tekig.UUCP> <1942@sdcrdcf.UUCP> <705@ssc-vax.UUCP>
Reply-To: tron@fluke.UUCP (Peter Barbee)
Organization: John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc., Everett, WA
Lines: 31

>
>Yes, the insurance companies have; it costs more to insure a red car.
>
I'm surprised at this one, about a year ago I needed to get a new insurance
agent (my then current compny declined the privelege of continuing to insure
me). So I really hunted around - trying to optimize price for the following
conditions; 30 years old, male, mediocre poor driving record, red Alfa Romeo.

I found that how companies rated my driving record to be nearly universal, but
how they rated the car varied greatly.  This car is a 2 door sedan (by strict
definition of the difference between a sedan and a coupe) with a pretty average
power to weight ratio.  It is red and it is gorgeous (please allow
subjectivity) - it very much looks the part of a high performance sports car
but in reality it isn't, especially in the "go" department.

Anyway, 3 companies gave it extra points (because of high yearly average
repairs) and 4 companies gave it the same rating they gave my Dasher wagon.
It appears the two things the companies cared about were power to weight
ratio and yearly average repair costs.  One agent let me look at his listings
and he had a listing for each catagory.  It was fairly interesting - the
repair costs listing was broken down into average number of claims and cost
of claims for every model of car you can think of - if I recall correctly
it was the Chevy Monte Carlo that led the "number of claims" sweepstakes,
I don't remember which car was the overall leader.

By the way, 4 of the companies never asked me what color the car is, and the
agent who I did insure with was very surprised at the rating the car got
after he got a look at it.  

Shop around,
Peter B