These forums have been archived and are now read-only.

The new forums are live and can be found at https://forums.eveonline.com/

Player Features and Ideas Discussion

 
  • Topic is locked indefinitely.
12Next page
 

A Fix for the insurance system

Author
ORCACommander
Obsidian Firelance Technologies
#1 - 2012-10-07 20:25:59 UTC
Ya i know its another one of these topics but i did a general search for the word insurance on on this sub forum and had no topic directly addressing since june and that was a complaint not a proposal on how to fix the system. Lastly do not post if your only comment is to say "do not fly what you can't afford to loose" or" learn to play eve" by those statements the only opinion you have worth contributing is the complete removal of the insurance feature all together. This thread is not about that this about trying to fix it.

We all know the insurance system by and large is not worth it since its all a based on ccp coded mineral values in the database and does not take into account market flux ever since they realized what an isk waterfall they made when people could manufacture and buy below value value and perform insurance fraud. However inferno brought an important change, everything that is sellable on the eve market now has a server wide average price associated with it which correct me if i am wrong is a snapshot taken during down time.

Now that we have this server average to work with we can have a proper pay out and price of insurance. A player decides to insure his ship. this player wants platinum aka 100% of ship hull value. the insurance engine queries the average price of that hull and sets the pay out of that ship upon destruction to that server average and calculates the cost of the policy accordingly.

since it is a server wide aggregate and does not track what was actually paid for ship the propagation of insurance fraud is minimal and requires long term monitoring. Only possible abuse i can think of is from a manufacturer possibly SDing his own product for a gurenteed instant sale instead of trying to compete on the market. which can easily fixed by insurance being void on a self destruct.
Sheynan
Lighting the blight
#2 - 2012-10-07 20:44:02 UTC
CCP already did this. Especially interceptors/dictors/HICs get a payout higher than their mineral value. CCP did not deem this necessary on any other T2, faction, pirate or T3 hull. (And rightfully so, if you want to fly one of those, don't fly it when you can't replace it.)
ORCACommander
Obsidian Firelance Technologies
#3 - 2012-10-07 20:54:53 UTC
I don't fly those so i never noticed. I just think things should be equitably applied or not at all, the insurance company of eve should make no distinguishing between a tech 1 hull, tech 2 hull or tech 3 hull. If anything insurance should cost more on ships that blow up most often. either way you are adding potential dozens of millions of isk onto the cost of the ship that does not get computed into the pay out average which cuts the pay out margin noticeably. Even with insurance they way i propose you can still not afford to loose a ship as this does not cover modules, Seen the prices of deadspace invs lately?
Alx Warlord
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#4 - 2012-10-07 21:05:39 UTC  |  Edited by: Alx Warlord
I got a nice sugestion for the reinbursement system HERE : Don't Make the ships reinbursed as ISK. Gives LP intead and give a option to use these LP to buy-back some recently lost hull.

This way there will be a ISK Sink on the Insurance.
And this would heat PVP and the economy.
ORCACommander
Obsidian Firelance Technologies
#5 - 2012-10-09 22:01:40 UTC
to messy. that would require the making of a new system and another lp store.
Trelgar Akiga
Non scholae sed vitae
#6 - 2012-11-11 01:10:30 UTC
I agree, the insurance system as it is now is a joke. If you fly T2 or T3 ships there is no sense in even bothering with insurance. It is another case of fix what is in the game now, before adding tons of new broken stuff.
Elvis Fett
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#7 - 2012-11-11 05:16:47 UTC
They should just get rid of insurance across the board. If you die, you lose it, buy another one. You shouldn't get your money back. Insurance takes what should be a great resource sink, dying, and turns it into an isk faucet via insurance.

Really insurance doesn't make much sense from a RP standpoint either. What kind of insurance company is this, and how do they turn a profit? They don't drop my coverage even though I total 100% of my ships and make billions in claims. This insurance company is losing money.
Omnathious Deninard
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#8 - 2012-11-11 08:41:56 UTC
Sure it could pay out 100% of the average market value, if the payout was reduced based of the sec status where the ship was destroyed, ex 1.0 system pays out 100% value, a .5 system pays out 50% average value, 0.0 pays out 0% value :)!

If you don't follow the rules, neither will I.

Angeal MacNova
Holefood Inc.
Warriors of the Blood God
#9 - 2012-11-11 18:58:34 UTC
Just a thought but.....

What if, you pay a monthly fee (A small % of the ship's average value at the time of purchase), and in return you get a replacement hull instead of isk.

http://www.projectvaulderie.com/goodnight-sweet-prince/

http://www.projectvaulderie.com/the-untold-story/

CCP's true, butthurt, colors.

Because those who can't do themselves keep others from doing too.

Crimeo Khamsi
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#10 - 2012-11-11 22:56:50 UTC  |  Edited by: Crimeo Khamsi
If you want to fix insurance, then the correct way would be to make it work like ACTUAL insurance. Which would be trivial, since CCP knows all of their own actuarial tables and all of its players' accident rates with absolute accuracy.

You start out with 70% deductible (a deductible is what it is now in game, not a premium, since you don't pay over time), or something low that doesn't cover mineral costs, to prevent new alt abuse. Then, the longer you fly accident-free, the lower your deductible. Have a few accidents, and your deductible goes up, etc.

Pretty simple. Stops any sort of insurance fraud, because your deductible would quickly reach 99% or whatever if you trashed your own ships right out of the factory (and even if you use fresh alts, you only get third of full average galactic price).

it's also fairly easy to add to the existing system without any new GUI changes or complicated mechanics at all.
Danika Princip
GoonWaffe
Goonswarm Federation
#11 - 2012-11-11 23:08:18 UTC
Crimeo Khamsi wrote:
If you want to fix insurance, then the correct way would be to make it work like ACTUAL insurance. Which would be trivial, since CCP knows all of their own actuarial tables and all of its players' accident rates with absolute accuracy.

You start out with 70% deductible (a deductible is what it is now in game, not a premium, since you don't pay over time), or something low that doesn't cover mineral costs, to prevent new alt abuse. Then, the longer you fly accident-free, the lower your deductible. Have a few accidents, and your deductible goes up, etc.

Pretty simple. Stops any sort of insurance fraud, because your deductible would quickly reach 99% or whatever if you trashed your own ships right out of the factory (and even if you use fresh alts, you only get third of full average galactic price).

it's also fairly easy to add to the existing system without any new GUI changes or complicated mechanics at all.



And that makes insurance absolutely useless. Does it get any use outside of taking the edge off of PVP losses? I mean, if you're losing ships in missions, you're terrible.
Crimeo Khamsi
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#12 - 2012-11-12 02:30:04 UTC  |  Edited by: Crimeo Khamsi
Danika Princip wrote:

And that makes insurance absolutely useless TO PVPERS. Does it get any use outside of taking the edge off of PVP losses? I mean, if you're losing ships in missions, you're terrible.

FTFY

You seem to be defining "insurance" as "permanent discount." That's not what insurance means. If you think the game needs to have less of an "edge" to pvp losses, then don't hide behind the smokescreen of "insurance." Go make a feature suggestion of your own for lowering the mineral costs of ships.

The definition of insurance is to distribute occasional risks amongst a pool of possible victims of that risk. Obviously this doesn't apply to PVPers who lose ALL of their ships.

Thus, insurance would not be used by PVPers, which is entirely reasonable, since insurance makes no sense for somebody who trashes everything they buy.

Insurance WOULD be used by, for example, haulers. Or by covert ops scouts, or other people who don't intend to get blown up, and who often do NOT get blown up. Insurance policies would allow them to distribute their risk so that those who do happen to get blown up will share the losses with those who are luckier. I.e. the whole point of what insurance is supposed to mean.
Angeal MacNova
Holefood Inc.
Warriors of the Blood God
#13 - 2012-11-12 07:11:57 UTC
Crimeo Khamsi wrote:
a deductible is what it is now in game, not a premium, since you don't pay over time


A deductible is the amount of money you are willing to pay up to cover repair costs. Thus, if you pay a higher deductible, you will have a lower premium for a given coverage.

What the game offers now is a 3 month premium and a lump sum payout for losing your ship.

http://www.projectvaulderie.com/goodnight-sweet-prince/

http://www.projectvaulderie.com/the-untold-story/

CCP's true, butthurt, colors.

Because those who can't do themselves keep others from doing too.

Crimeo Khamsi
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#14 - 2012-11-12 07:30:31 UTC
Angeal MacNova wrote:
Crimeo Khamsi wrote:
a deductible is what it is now in game, not a premium, since you don't pay over time


A deductible is the amount of money you are willing to pay up to cover repair costs. Thus, if you pay a higher deductible, you will have a lower premium for a given coverage.

What the game offers now is a 3 month premium and a lump sum payout for losing your ship.

My apologies. I was under the impression that premium was a term reserved for recurring payments on open-ended insurance contracts, but apparently it is for any payment.

Regardless, the main point remains that what we have no in EVE is not anything remotely close to actual insurance. It is really nothing more in this game than a very roundabout and confusing way of changing the recipes for ships to cost fewer minerals than they appear to. That's all.

Might as well just change the recipes up front and save everybody the extra clicking, if you're not going to actually make it work like insurance.
Danika Princip
GoonWaffe
Goonswarm Federation
#15 - 2012-11-12 11:23:33 UTC
Crimeo Khamsi wrote:
Danika Princip wrote:

And that makes insurance absolutely useless TO PVPERS. Does it get any use outside of taking the edge off of PVP losses? I mean, if you're losing ships in missions, you're terrible.

FTFY

You seem to be defining "insurance" as "permanent discount." That's not what insurance means. If you think the game needs to have less of an "edge" to pvp losses, then don't hide behind the smokescreen of "insurance." Go make a feature suggestion of your own for lowering the mineral costs of ships.

The definition of insurance is to distribute occasional risks amongst a pool of possible victims of that risk. Obviously this doesn't apply to PVPers who lose ALL of their ships.

Thus, insurance would not be used by PVPers, which is entirely reasonable, since insurance makes no sense for somebody who trashes everything they buy.

Insurance WOULD be used by, for example, haulers. Or by covert ops scouts, or other people who don't intend to get blown up, and who often do NOT get blown up. Insurance policies would allow them to distribute their risk so that those who do happen to get blown up will share the losses with those who are luckier. I.e. the whole point of what insurance is supposed to mean.



Yeah, see, the pool of people you're talking about is going to be a tiny fraction of the pool of people who currently use insurance. Haulers only lose ships if they're stupid and/or unlucky, same with scouts. If insurance doesn't cover you for flying something you know you're going to lose, then why should it cover you for trying to haul a bil of stiff in a badger? Or for jumping into 0.5 space known to be full of gankers?

Remove insurance for PVP ships, and you might as well remove it for everyone, especially if you're trying to claim realism. Do you think your insurance company would pay up if you drove through somalia and got yourself shot?
Angeal MacNova
Holefood Inc.
Warriors of the Blood God
#16 - 2012-11-12 15:39:02 UTC
Crimeo Khamsi wrote:
Regardless, the main point remains that what we have no in EVE is not anything remotely close to actual insurance. It is really nothing more in this game than a very roundabout and confusing way of changing the recipes for ships to cost fewer minerals than they appear to. That's all.

Might as well just change the recipes up front and save everybody the extra clicking, if you're not going to actually make it work like insurance.



True.

What may work in the game that would closely resemble insurance would be, we select the type (eg. platinum) and instead of paying more for a higher pay out, we are willing to pay more for a lower monthly payment and instead of a payout, we simply get a replacement.

http://www.projectvaulderie.com/goodnight-sweet-prince/

http://www.projectvaulderie.com/the-untold-story/

CCP's true, butthurt, colors.

Because those who can't do themselves keep others from doing too.

Crimeo Khamsi
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#17 - 2012-11-12 17:30:24 UTC  |  Edited by: Crimeo Khamsi
Quote:
Yeah, see, the pool of people you're talking about is going to be a tiny fraction of the pool of people who currently use insurance. Haulers only lose ships if they're stupid and/or unlucky, same with scouts. If insurance doesn't cover you for flying something you know you're going to lose, then why should it cover you for trying to haul a bil of stiff in a badger? Or for jumping into 0.5 space known to be full of gankers?

Remove insurance for PVP ships, and you might as well remove it for everyone, especially if you're trying to claim realism. Do you think your insurance company would pay up if you drove through somalia and got yourself shot?


Yes, the insurance company would do that, if the insurance covers it. In fact, I do travel fairly often, and I have an insurance policy right now on my camera equipment in real life that covers it carte blanche, no matter if it is lost, stolen, damaged, anywhere in the world, for any reason. Including my camera getting shot in Somalia.

It costs (a little bit, not that much) more than some rinky dink insurance, yes, but as long as both parties are clear up front on what the situation is, you can indeed get insurance for ANYTHING. All they do is they simply look at the worldwide estimated rate of electronic equipment damage instead of United States rate of equipment damage, and set their rates so that they make a slight profit off of the correct numbers. Bada Bing, Bada Boom!

Your claims that insurance would be rendered useless are off base, and betray a misunderstanding of how insurance works in general. It doesn't MATTER how often haulers or scouts get ganked. The insurance rates would already take into account that probability, no matter how small. So the rarer it is, the better a deal you get on your insurance (if it happens to 1/100 haulers over 3 months, then if you were a trustworthy non-fresh-alt character with a clean insurance record of not making above average numbers of claims, you could buy insurance for something like 2% of the cost of your ship). It gets more lucrative the less often accidents happen. So there IS no such thing as "not enough" or "too many" accidents for insurance to cover. Insurance is self adjusting by nature.

In real life, there would be limits imposed by the number of staff people at the insurance company and paperwork costs, etc. So they wouldn't bother anymore at some point if the margins were too slim. But CCP can run its insurance with an all-knowing computer script, so none of that matters.



Again, what you want is not insurance. What you obviously want is a flat % discount on the mineral cost of all ships. I'm not necessarily against that, but its not what the thread is about. It's about a realistic insurance system that would NOT go out of business in 24 hours, like the current one would.
Tavarus Excavar
Obsidian Firelance Technologies
#18 - 2012-11-20 23:52:15 UTC
glad to see debate going on in my thread but we have strayed from from talking about my idea. I kinda like the idea of payout being modified based on sec status of where it was destroyed but then i think there should only be 1 price level of insurance.

Quite frankly i am trying to keep real life out of it in order to offer as simple solution that works as possible
Tavarus Excavar
Obsidian Firelance Technologies
#19 - 2012-12-12 04:45:43 UTC
quick bump to get this some visability now that the expansion stickies are gone for a while
Shadow Monarch
Non scholae sed vitae
#20 - 2013-01-09 18:38:51 UTC
Bumping this for visibility, as well as my two cents:

I wonder if a "driver history"-based insurance would be a decent solution. It would be more dependent on the pilot's history as well as what kinds of ships they lose. Also factored into the costs is the rate of loss or how many ships are lost in a period of time, say a month.

Eg: John Doe loves to PvP in Rifters, but he loses lots of them. As a result, his insurance costs are higher for rifters than, say, a hulk he uses for mining. If, over the course of a month or so, he decides to focus on mining and his rifter losses drop, then his insurance costs drop for rifters too.

Also factored into this calculation would be total ship losses of any type. So, if he's insuring a hulk, it would be higher if his total ship loss (including rifters, and all other losses) in the past month was higher.

The upside to this system is that it would encourage pilots to be more careful and smart about how they engage in PvP, or it would motivate them to make more ISK to support their insurance. It would also encourage pilots to branch out to other ships. The downside, of course, is that the entire system would be rather complex and convoluted.
12Next page