911 karma · joined June 28, 2016
As APIs became reliable & fast, they imposed limits on them
So not sure what was lost considering it sounds like they didn’t work well and when they did work they were incredibly slow aka self imposed rate limiting
People make these comments then have no problem swapping their car out every 4-5 years and it’s like what do you think happens with those eventually?
That experience is actually what led me to switch over to Product among other things, I get it when people joke (half joke) about considering retirement rather than going through that again.
Did I win? Of course not, it’s hard for non-technical people to fully appreciate these things and any sort of larger infrastructure work, esp for developer productivity because it goes back to well how you going to measure that ROI.
Anyways, this was fun to read and brought back good engineering memories. I’d also like to say, as it brought back a bug I chased forever, fuck you channelfactory in c#.
Good luck, you got this.
Everyone is upset their rate is going up but the issue is lack of ability to use predictive underwriting because of what you said and more.
If everybody is sharing all the risk that’s the same thing (obviously I’m being simplistic) as them underwriting the risk themselves.
Also human nature is to look at the odds and not believe you’re going to be that 1 in 125,000 :)
They’re obviously related but less regulatory focus on rates, more on cost of business and that.
Edit: Basically you can run at a loss (most do) for a limited period of time but have to show that you will be liquid on the other side of the losses.
I didn’t deal much on commercial insurance btw, I have _some_ awareness of that.
So, it’s a complex thing but the state has a vested interest in drivers being insured because of state / federal funding for roads, infrastructure and all of that.
The original intent was to stop humans from being greedy assholes and to provide a stick for when they messed up. Without the states involvement, insurance would likely go the way of used auto with “buy here pay here” lots which is a net negative for the state & society as a whole.
They want to make sure that “fair” prices are set so that there isn’t an overly disproportionate amount of people who need the insurance not having insurance. In reality, the less risky drivers do for all intents and purposes help off-set the cost of the more risky people but all of that is hidden in the premium logic.
At the end of the day, what has happened though is the state’s regulatory group overstepping their bounds (in my opinion) and ignoring good faith proposals with data showing why rate increases are needed which leads to situations we’re in now.
Having been in that world (I left it) I can honestly say there has to be some regulations or regulatory body because a lot of these folks spend so much time looking at numbers (actuarial science in general) they forget the fact there are humans behind those numbers.
The point is that regulators have not been allowing rate increases with good faith justifications for years and now that they see their actions have caused companies to pull out they’re pointing the finger at the companies when it’s their poor judgment for years coming to fruition.
Even worse for the consumer is that insurance rules say you have to “offer” insurance in the state to get your license.
Well, you don’t want to drop your license but really don’t want to have a bunch of policies. What do you do?
You make it impossibly difficult to get insurance. I’m not going to name names but a lot of insurance companies in California are doing this.
No online applications, have to call in, have to fax in or mail paperwork required and so on…
If you can’t use predictive attributes, many not allowed in California, you’re not going to get reinsurance interest because you can’t really balance the risk across different risk types for drivers.
So the end result is the customer pays more, despite their driving record being clean, because that’s the only way to manage through the risk.
I agree with your commentary, my point was that they’re (insurance companies) unable to use the information they learn or newer predictive elements to help avoid the mismanagement.
Arbitrary decisions by these elected or appointed officials, as I have seen first-hand, ignoring the reality that if they aren’t able to off-set that risk it comes at great cost to the company first and their constituents later as a knock-on effect results in the only way to not have it “blow up in their face” by removing services.
So to your point, the lack of ability of control rates in a more reasonable fashion (I’m not pro no regulations btw) actually results in the same thing you’ve pointed out above - the ones who need the insurance the most can no longer get it or cannot get adequate coverage.
Some officials are elected and some are appointed which all depends on the state. Appointed officials are usually more reasonable and elected are not because higher rates = mad voters = re-election chances lower.
For a long time, insurers have struggled to get sufficient rate changes approved. A literal quote for you during Covid was, “Son, I’m looking out my window at downtown {city} and I don’t see many cars on the road. We won’t approve the rate increases.”
This was with actual data of losses increasing due to supply chain disruption of auto parts, labor increases and many more things.
We basically had to write policies and hope for the best despite knowing the data / trend lines forecasting major losses.
Fast-forward and what do you have - major losses by all of these companies - and so these companies have two choices: - Try to get rate approvals - Exit the market or line of insurance
For California, the latter is the better option because at least for auto you cannot use credit, telematics or other very predictive attributes to price the risk. This results in essentially pooled risk which in aggregate drives up rates for all. Simply put, California officials did this to themselves.
For other states, the first option works but the rate increases are now significantly higher because it was near impossible to get any adequate rate increases last few years.
So, the bill has come due and it sucks for everyone as it’s either a) higher prices or b) can’t get insurance (Florida folks for certain types) or c) limited suppliers not being able to get reinsurance to share the risk results in higher rates that customers can’t afford so they go without.
You would expect a bicycle from a bicycle manufacturer and be rightfully upset or annoyed if they sent you a unicycle but presented it as a bicycle.
It’d be generous to say Gemini is even producing a unicycle when end users are asking for a bicycle.
Jordans have been and continue to be one of the most sought after shoes for people’s collections.
Edit: yes, it’s wild but there’s a market for collectible shoes and if you google around you can see how lucrative it is for folks
What parts of the learn more sections or pages didn’t make sense to you?
Is that what you mean with like 40% of the plan having extra legroom?
Options seem to be:
“Standard legroom (79 cm/31 in) Conveniently located in the front, directly behind the Economy Comfort zone Quick access to your seat during boarding”
Or
“Enjoy extra legroom (+10 cm/4 in) and recline (up to 5 cm/2 in) Be one of the first Economy Class passengers to board Conveniently located in the front of the Economy Class cabin”
If they aren’t going to offer payment, try asking for an extra day of PTO for every on-call incident or simply for the flexibility to “leave” early when there’s a heavy on-call period.