Elite Insurance makes no sense

Aewarin Jameson

Aewarin Jameson
dcforeman said:
No, this system needs to be rethought. There should be daily or weekly charge. That's how real world insurance works. So why the heck is it so weird in Elite? why as a business model doesn't it make any sense at all?
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I agree that the insurance model seems ... well to me odd : as long as you have cash you always have free insurance and only pay the excess when you explode. It should be (IMO) that you pay for insurance up front - you decide on a duration (in game time) and level of cover (tiered ranks, eg: 100K, 500K, 5M, 50M, 200M, etc) and the premium is based upon your choices. You then pay for peace of mind :)
 

Kitiara

Kitiara
dcforeman said:
Oh stop moaning, lol. The first thread is what made me think about the system. That's when I realised why it was flawed as a business model. And lets face it, Elite is all about the business model, be it fencing stolen goods, collecting bounties, so why shouldn't insurance make more sense? Sure it's just a game, but that doesn't mean it can't be a better game.
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The point is, it's not flawed.

Every ship that's sold includes the insurance premium in it's purchase cost. What is not included is the excess payment to me made in the event of a claim.
 

Jaiotu

Jaiotu
dcforeman said:
Ohh a cut of the profits that's a nice idea actually. In fact another player discussed the Pilots federation. What if we had different pilot federations, or unions or groups that take different cuts of your profits. Perhaps there's one that takes 50% of everything you make + a small weekly fee that means there's no excess to pay. Perhaps there's a cheap group that only take 1% but only give you a sidewinder if you die. It would give players a lot more choice.

What about joining illegal pirate federations too, where you have to give up a canister of cargo every time you sell at their base in return for limited insurance. You know alot of fun could be had with the insurance system and it would make the pilot federation vs rivals alot more interesting.
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That's what I'm talking about. Let people manage their own risks. If I'm willing to pay a higher deductible then maybe I'll choose to pay a lower percentage of profits to the insurance company. Or maybe I've found myself an awesome trade route so I ditch insurance altogether because I'm greedy and want the profits for myself. Or I'm accident prone so I'm willing to pay over half of my profits so I don't pay anything at all to get my ship back.
 

dcforeman

D
Remiel said:
You owe me a new irony meter.
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Sorry I can't afford to buy you a new irony meter, cause a python took my all my cash. He should have a cargo hold full of land systems, I'm sure he has cash to spare. I just hope he can hold all 112 containers of it or tat's alot of wasted credits.
 

Kitiara

Kitiara
Liqua said:
I agree that the insurance model seems ... well to me odd : as long as you have cash you always have free insurance and only pay the excess when you explode. It should be (IMO) that you pay for insurance up front - you decide on a duration (in game time) and level of cover (tiered ranks, eg: 100K, 500K, 5M, 50M, 200M, etc) and the premium is based upon your choices. You then pay for peace of mind :)
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Conceptualise it as, for example, the premium for an asp is 600,000 credits. The ship costs 6,000,000 credits. When you acquire the ship, you pay 6,600,000 for both ship and policy.
 

{SAS}Stalker

{SAS}Stalker
You pay your premium at the point of purchase, its a hidden cost to the manufacturer who is your insurer, the make significant money on players that dont claim and by the fact that they produce the ships incredibly cheaply compared to their retail value.

The buy back cost is your excess on the policy. Your available loan can make up a shortfall of upto 200k so the minimum balace you should keep if you are that way inclined is buyback value - 200k.

Its really not that difficult!
 

TartanDragon

TartanDragon
You pay for insurance up front when you buy your ship. When/if it is destroyed you then pay the excess/deductible at time of destruction.

Whats not to understand?

Why try to make it more complicated than it needs to be?

Sorry you lost the ship and time but the system works if you work with it.
 

dcforeman

D
Jaiotu said:
That's what I'm talking about. Let people manage their own risks. If I'm willing to pay a higher deductible then maybe I'll choose to pay a lower percentage of profits to the insurance company. Or maybe I've found myself an awesome trade route so I ditch insurance altogether because I'm greedy and want the profits for myself. Or I'm accident prone so I'm willing to pay over half of my profits so I don't pay anything at all to get my ship back.
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Yeah, giving the player the choice. Elite is all about choice. Which trade routes you fly, what role you play, what jobs you take. Giving the player that freedom would be amazing.
 

Aewarin Jameson

Aewarin Jameson
Kitiara said:
Conceptualise it as, for example, the premium for an asp is 600,000 credits. The ship costs 6,000,000 credits. When you acquire the ship, you pay 6,600,000 for both ship and policy.
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That is how it would be viewed in a real world model: Ship for 6M but you hand over 6.6M as you're paying up front for perpetual insurance.

Fine.

Why then are people being caught short by not having enough cash, and yet you paid for it upfront ?

What am I missing here ? (sorry for being obtuse)

What's the extra for that people don't have and are forced to go back to sidewinders ? (I haven't left a sidewinder yet since last wipe and it's been ages since I looked at the death screen :eek:)
 
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Renegade Roach

R
dcforeman said:
Haha for a game that's more than 1200 years in the future I think we can all live with FSD and Energy shields.

But I can't live with an econimic model that makes little sense. But hey if you don't care about that why are you posting here?
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How about space flight limited to a few hundred m/s, or weapons systems with only 3k range... in space... firing kinetic weapons even? There are many elements of this game which are arbitrary decision based on what makes for 'better' gameplay in FD's eyes, which is why it's not particularly useful to refer to the game as a sim at all.

While I agree with the sentiment that there need to be more credit sinks at the high end of the game I don't feel that an overly complex insurance system is a great way to go about it. Personally I don't want to spend my time in game hunting around systems for a good insurance deal, or having to calculate the cost of installments into my credit making. Insurance based on installments would also be overly punitive for casual players. Keeping up with weekly or monthly payments on high end ships for those who have a limited amount of time in game would not be fair in any way.
 

OnePercent

OnePercent
While I'm not excited about paying for insurance the OP has a point, it isn't insurance since there are no monthly or anual fees to the insurance company. Therefore every time your ship gets destroyed the insurance company is at a massive net LOSS, To those saying the pilots federation covers your insurance fees, then the pilots federation is at a massive net LOSS. So who pays the fees?

If this were to ever get implemented correctly, please give us players the choice to buy insurance cover for our ships or not thanks.
 

dcforeman

D
TartanDragon said:
You pay for insurance up front when you buy your ship. When/if it is destroyed you then pay the excess/deductible at time of destruction.

Whats not to understand?

Why try to make it more complicated than it needs to be?

Sorry you lost the ship and time but the system works if you work with it.
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Well, if we're not making Elite any more complicated than it needs to be, why have 400 billion star systems, lots of different competing reputation systems? Why affect the economic growth of the universe by out collective efforts. Why have a news paper, and conflicts.

Heck, we should just all dump Elite Dangerous on that basis, and revamp the 1982 version of elite :)
 

TartanDragon

TartanDragon
Liqua said:
That is how it would be viewed in a real world model: Ship for 6M but you hand over 6.6M as you're paying up front for perpetual insurance.

Fine.

Why then are people being caught short by not having enough cash, and yet you paid for it upfront ?

What am I missing here ? (sorry for being obtuse)

What's the extra for that people don't have and are forced to go back to sidewinders ? (I haven't left a sidewinder yet since last wipe and it's been ages since I looked at the death screen :eek:)
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Because they do not keep enough to cover the excess/deductible. Insurance only covers around 95% of ships cost, the payment up front. The other 5% is due when the ship is destroyed. So you need to keep that in your account after you buy your ship and until its destroyed or you start in a Sidey again.
 

dcforeman

D
%OnePercent% said:
While I'm not excited about paying for insurance the OP has a point, it isn't insurance since there are no monthly or anual fees to the insurance company. Therefore every time your ship gets destroyed the insurance company is at a massive net LOSS, To those saying the pilots federation covers your insurance fees, then the pilots federation is at a massive net LOSS. So who pays the fees?

If this were to ever get implemented correctly, please give us players the choice to buy insurance cover for our ships or not thanks.
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Absolutely! Heck no one likes paying insurance haha, but then I'm sure everyone would also love to be able to buy a python without any work as well, I know I sure would haha. Insurance is a fact of life, I don't see why it should be any different in Elite.

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TartanDragon said:
Because they do not keep enough to cover the excess/deductible. Insurance only covers around 95% of ships cost, the payment up front. The other 5% is due when the ship is destroyed. So you need to keep that in your account after you buy your ship and until its destroyed or you start in a Sidey again.
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Question, if the insurance company isn't taking regular fee's off you. Who's paying the 95% you're not?

I know (now) how the respawn system works. Again, the point of this thread is that the respawn system doesn't make any economic sense. Who's absorbing the 95% cost of all these player ships that are constantly being destroyed? Cause I'd LOVE to have THAT bank account if they can keep funding it as it is being haha.
 

Jaiotu

Jaiotu
Of course there are hundreds of ways to explain the current system's economic viability. Anyone with a little imagination can come up with a rationale for it works (and several folks in this thread have offered theirs). Here's how my imagination explains it:

Your insurance fee is paid by the stations. They require the services of traders, bounty hunters and other unmentionable services in order to operate. They keep pilots flying by subsidizing the cost of ship replacements and only requiring pilots to pay a small percentage of the replacement cost to the insurance company as a good-faith gesture. The system works because every member in the chain gets a benefit. The pilot gets to stay in business, the stations are provide with freight services and the insurance company earns a profit from the stations.

Having an imagination is great. Wishing that frontier would provide a canonical explanation for how the system works is no crime however.
 
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