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Comment by lambda | Hacker News Reader

So, I haven't actually tried the service (due to my privacy concerns, as well as just time). I was assuming they would use more information than that (credit info, vehicle accident history, etc) if they were going to do a good job of modeling how car insurers do pricing.

The amount of information you mention is not as troubling (though you missed your email address), but I would still like to know that they will delete that information after they are done with it, not retain it forever while maintaining the right to give it to pretty much anyone they want as long as they are "affiliated" with Leaky.

And yes, a YC startup may be more trustworthy than an insurance company, but on the other hand, the insurance company needs to collect that information, and is much more heavily regulated, while Leaky, as a private company under not much regulation, can do pretty much anything it wants.

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I haven't read your comments (too long, no time) but I think you should fix them. They seem like they might be critiques of a product you haven't even tried.

If you haven't read them, how do you know they are critiques of a product he hasn't tried?

I tried it and found that it underestimated my insurance cost by exactly $500 with both Geico and Allstate but interestingly the spread between the two was correct (about $100)

I've noticed some other really oddities (and the pricing is way off for me, unfortunately -- if only I could get a policy for what they're saying!).

For example, if I list my occupation as "Consultant", Leaky says Geico will give me a $150 discount. Bizarre.

Edit: Clarifying that Leaky says Geico will give me a discount, not that Geico actually does.

Auto insurers will definitely give you a discount for certain fields of employment. "Engineer" drops it $100 or so every time I've tried. My business cards sometimes say "Software Engineer", but I dropped out of a math program, so it's pretty bogus.

Haha, yes but... Consultant. I hope somebody in Hartford, CT (or equivalent) at least finds the notion of giving a discount for having a title which is almost entirely devoid of meaning.

Leaky guys -- I'll try to ring Geico and tell them I'm a consultant so I'd like my $150 discount. Will let you know how it goes.

sakai -- We take our accuracy very seriously; email us at sayhi@leaky.com and we'll look into it.

If you're in California (the only state that we officially support), we're within 1% in about 50% of cases and within 3% in about 80% of cases - and we're always getting better. However, there are still occasional outliers that we are always trying to identify and fix.

If you're outside California, well - the prices will be different. However, the magnitude changes (eg for switching cars) will be similar to what you would see in your state.

As for the occupation discounts - those come straight from the insurers' filed documents.

>"a YC startup may be more trustworthy than an insurance company"

This, and that it is probably true, makes me embarrassed for my country and how awful we allow businesses to be to people.

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