The insurance industry is notoriously afraid of transparency, and the state-based rate filing system makes it too easy to divide and conquer. This is an industry ripe for disruption via total transparency.
A lot of industries are ripe for this kind of disruption. With availability of more and more data there is a growing asymmetry between companies and consumers. Just yesterday I looked up something on Amazon. Sent the link to my girlfriend. She saw a price that was $10 more. Same often happens with flights. And in US healthcare the patient doesn’t even have the slightest idea what things will cost or what discount the insurance gets.
To have functioning markets both sides need information but with all these algorithms the information gets very one sided.
Out of curiosity, are you and your girlfriend in the same geographic market & served by the same amazon warehouse? And are you both prime members?
I wonder if this is personalized to the individual or based on other factors.
I wanted to order something the other day that should be in a local store, but wasn't, and random specialty websites had stuff for $20 plus shipping. So I found something equivalent on Amazon for $8, and when they pestered me about signing up for Prime to get free shipping, I did it and then set a calendar reminder for a week later to cancel it after I got my order. This sort of game could well make people working at Amazon feel justified in manipulating customers, but there doesn't seem to be any choice except to play the game everybody is.
Random things on Amazon that I consider buying are often double or triple the price they should be, so I try to buy anywhere else if at all possible these days.
Maybe it showed you the lowest-cost vendor, and showed her the lowest-cost vendor with Prime shipping? And the difference was $10?
Or was it shipped from and sold by the same place?
Creating total transparency into this process would be suicide for these companies - they absolutely do rate on zipcode, and poor neighborhoods absolutely have higher rates because of fraud, break ins, and generally higher claim rates. However, if you didn't rate on zipcode, then you are under-priced for these areas and you will be killed by adverse selection.
TL;DR these companies have figured out how to obfuscate filings so people don't see them blatantly charging more for XYZ, and risk public outrage.
The information is there, therefore it is transparent. It's sort of on you if you are unwilling take it as a second job and/or hire a suite of professionals to help you understand.
The state based system allows for a diversity in regulatory regime that wouldn't happen at the federal level.
Since I hear relatively many "insurer didn't pay" stories (often because of a weird detail), I don't have much trust in insurance and do place a lot of value on actually understanding what will be covered.
I'm still a fan of a good deal, but confidence in reliability is a pretty important part of the features, no?