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The British are exceptionally good drivers, to the point that UK car insurance market is not actually profitable (most companies in the UK use it to diversify capital not make money).
Unless you're being sarcastic about British drivers, this makes no sense unless auto insurance is strictly optional and most good drivers owners are opting not to buy it and only the bad drivers have it. Better drivers actually means higher profits as the carrier needs smaller cash reserves for claims and, in addition to income from investment, which is where insurance carriers make most of their money, they would be earning income from premiums as well, which few carriers manage from year to year. Is insurance optional there?

...and how is driving on the wrong side of the road an indicator of being a good driver?
 
Unless you're being sarcastic about British drivers, this makes no sense unless auto insurance is strictly optional and most good drivers owners are opting not to buy it and only the bad drivers have it. Better drivers actually means higher profits as the carrier needs smaller cash reserves for claims and, in addition to income from investment, which is where insurance carriers make most of their money, they would be earning income from premiums as well, which few carriers manage from year to year. Is insurance optional there?

...and how is driving on the wrong side of the road an indicator of being a good driver?

29D0B642-6F8A-4F87-A393-FB8D2FAF5BC7.jpeg
 
Unless you're being sarcastic about British drivers, this makes no sense unless auto insurance is strictly optional and most good drivers owners are opting not to buy it and only the bad drivers have it. Better drivers actually means higher profits as the carrier needs smaller cash reserves for claims and, in addition to income from investment, which is where insurance carriers make most of their money, they would be earning income from premiums as well, which few carriers manage from year to year. Is insurance optional there?

...and how is driving on the wrong side of the road an indicator of being a good driver?
Wasn't sure how boring it would be so didn't give enough detail!

I'm not an expert on motor insurance but this is my understanding. If you are an expert some sentences will over explain things (e.g. the sentence about premiums) this is more to make the sentences flow into each other rather than explaining the concept to you. You probably understand these things better than me!

No, as far as I know motor insurance is compulsory in the UK.

You are right of course that lower claims means lower reserves. Of course this only translates into higher profits if premiums are covering the (lower) reserves - otherwise you are still making a loss. However, the British market is very competitive, which of course tends to lower premiums, meaning that in general they aren't enough to cover costs. It's competitive because during the 90s a large number of companies simultaneously entered motor insurance due to the perceived ease of making profit due to how safe the British are as drivers. The market has remained "frozen" roughly in that state since. In general I believe it's quite difficult to make a profit in the British market as a result.

Another important factor is that when the internet started up, British insurers started working with aggregator websites, which basically allow a person to input their rating factors once, and then present them with a list of quotes from a wide variety of companies. These websites tend again to drive down prices, as when it is sold like this, the companies can't compete on anything but price. See here if you'd like to read more.

Here's a graph from the Association of British Insurers (they are in industry representative body there - "biased", I guess you might say, but they collect industry data) showing profit and loss in the UK motor insurance industry -

0ee53dfb-69ea-4a58-919f-69223297323a.jpg

Unfortunately the graph is given without labelled axes, which is an irritating habit, but it shows very little profit as you can see. In the accompanying text, they state that the industry has been profitable only 3 times in the years 1994 - 2017.
 
Wasn't sure how boring it would be so didn't give enough detail!

I'm not an expert on motor insurance but this is my understanding. If you are an expert some sentences will over explain things (e.g. the sentence about premiums) this is more to make the sentences flow into each other rather than explaining the concept to you. You probably understand these things better than me!

No, as far as I know motor insurance is compulsory in the UK.

You are right of course that lower claims means lower reserves. Of course this only translates into higher profits if premiums are covering the (lower) reserves - otherwise you are still making a loss. However, the British market is very competitive, which of course tends to lower premiums, meaning that in general they aren't enough to cover costs. It's competitive because during the 90s a large number of companies simultaneously entered motor insurance due to the perceived ease of making profit due to how safe the British are as drivers. The market has remained "frozen" roughly in that state since. In general I believe it's quite difficult to make a profit in the British market as a result.

Another important factor is that when the internet started up, British insurers started working with aggregator websites, which basically allow a person to input their rating factors once, and then present them with a list of quotes from a wide variety of companies. These websites tend again to drive down prices, as when it is sold like this, the companies can't compete on anything but price. See here if you'd like to read more.

Here's a graph from the Association of British Insurers (they are in industry representative body there - "biased", I guess you might say, but they collect industry data) showing profit and loss in the UK motor insurance industry -

View attachment 8700

Unfortunately the graph is given without labelled axes, which is an irritating habit, but it shows very little profit as you can see. In the accompanying text, they state that the industry has been profitable only 3 times in the years 1994 - 2017.
They still drive on the wrong side of the road, though. :wink:
 
They still drive on the wrong side of the road, though. :wink:
We do as well! Pain in the arse! I have to drive like a granny on the continent and took a while to break myself in when I was living in France.
 
Whereas you can't install roundabouts because you'd be driving around them widdershins and accidentally summoning demons with all the cursing going on in rush hour traffic.
Oh, they took them all out recently? Caltrans needs to let us know about these changes! :tongue:
11.jpg
 
Hey guys I just joined after a member of another forum informed me of this place. I joined for the no politics rule. Not that I don’t enjoy political discussions but not if diversity of thought is frowned upon.

I have diverse tastes but lean more towards settings I like than systems. I’m also a print collector.

Cheers :thumbsup:
 
Hmm. I too have had thoughts about moving to NZ. I've registered and filled some of their government immigration assistment/information forms and emailed their EU embassy once. Was thinking of moving more to the countryside and perhaps becoming an innkeeper...
 
Hi Magister! Did you read the hotly political discussion up-thread before you posted this?

You can go around the roundabout to the left, or you can go round the roundabout to the right. Me personally here's my idea about roundabouts.
LOL. I just read a little of a thread in this subforum I’m assuming you’re taking about. I’ll say one thing. It could be worse. Like limiting threads to mutual political mastutbation I see on another forum. :eat:

Edit: that’s all I have to say about that
 
As a pedestrian in the UK, this is not my experience :sad:
I'd have said the same, but having visited Bulgaria we at least don't treat road regulations as vague guidelines like some places.
 
I'd have said the same, but having visited Bulgaria we at least don't treat road regulations as vague guidelines like some places.
Reasons I will never again drive my own vehicle in Tijuana: (1) painted lane dividers, if there even are any, are taken as random lines on the ground, (2) traffic lights are just pretty colors to ignore, (3) pedestrians just step right out in front of you, (4) pedestrians will walk right down the middle of the road, (5) the speed limit is determined solely by whether there is something in front of you that you will hit if you don't slow down, and (6) right-of-way is determined solely by the size and strength of your vehicle and whether you will win if a collision ensues.

But I'll drive a rental with insurance on it...suckers! :gunslinger:
 
Hello all. I'm Smith. I'm a Brit (I see y'all chatting shit about which side of the road we drive on :tongue:) but I live in the US, and work in the video game industry.

My dad got me into RPGs years ago when I was a wee lad and he was running AD&D with his mates. Since then I've branched out into a wild bunch of stuff, mainly narrative focused. Lately I've not had the time to get into campaigns, especially as I typically end up DMing if I want to play something that's not DnD or Pathfinder.

Pleasure to meet you all! Seems like a lovely little pub you've got going.
 
Howdy yall. Been playing on and off since 2nd grade when I traded some transformers for a pile of red box / 1e AD&D books (best trade ever).

Recent favorite is the newer Delta Green, but my only regular game is 5e d&d... cause yeah, that's what people play. Working on writing a diceless system.
 
Howdy yall. Been playing on and off since 2nd grade when I traded some transformers for a pile of red box / 1e AD&D books (best trade ever).

Recent favorite is the newer Delta Green, but my only regular game is 5e d&d... cause yeah, that's what people play. Working on writing a diceless system.
Have you looked at the Marvel Universe RPG (otherwise known as "the one with the red and white stones") from 2003? It was pretty good but seemed like it needed more playtesting. I recall it having more than one cover but this is the one we (briefly) played:
51FVjHkHCDL__SX334_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
 
Have you looked at the Marvel Universe RPG (otherwise known as "the one with the red and white stones") from 2003? It was pretty good but seemed like it needed more playtesting. I recall it having more than one cover but this is the one we (briefly) played:


Yeah, that's a game that really could have benifitted from a second cleaned-up edition. The underlying system was excellent, but the original rulebook was a bit of a mess.
 
Have you looked at the Marvel Universe RPG (otherwise known as "the one with the red and white stones") from 2003?


I skimmed it, but never tried playing it. Looks like it was sufficiently unpopular that copies are well under $10 these days, so I'll probably snag one.
 
I skimmed it, but never tried playing it. Looks like it was sufficiently unpopular that copies are well under $10 these days, so I'll probably snag one.

Just before the game was released, in Inquest magazine (the old offshoot from Wizard that covered games and CCGs), there was a substantial "quick play"/introduction to the MURPG that IMO was 100x better than any explanation they provided in the actual rulebook. I think if that "primer" had been incvluded in the rulebook, it might have done better at conveying the system to new players. I think it was mostly killed by coming out at a time when the D20 fad was hitting it's zenith, and it seemed most consumers weren't interested in a new system, but I don't think the rules presentation helped. Anyways, I don't have any idea what issue of InQuest that was, but it's definitely worth tracking down.
 
I skimmed it, but never tried playing it. Looks like it was sufficiently unpopular that copies are well under $10 these days, so I'll probably snag one.
I wasn't playing RPGs when it came out, having taken an almost complete break from 1992/93 through (maybe) 2005, so when I came across it on a shelf at a bookstore it was marked down and I managed to get the supplemental books for cheap as well. I also found a cheap copy of the main rulebook that I bought for a friend. It was a pretty good game with good concepts but it was badly edited and I seem to recall a glitch or two where certain powers cost far too little for how effective they were or far too much for how ineffective they were, but it's been probably a decade since I last read it or played it.
Just before the game was released, in Inquest magazine (the old offshoot from Wizard that covered games and CCGs), there was a substantial "quick play"/introduction to the MURPG that IMO was 100x better than any explanation they provided in the actual rulebook. I think if that "primer" had been incvluded in the rulebook, it might have done better at conveying the system to new players. I think it was mostly killed by coming out at a time when the D20 fad was hitting it's zenith, and it seemed most consumers weren't interested in a new system, but I don't think the rules presentation helped. Anyways, I don't have any idea what issue of InQuest that was, but it's definitely worth tracking down.
I would like to read that.
 
Too busy going to college, then playing rock'n'roll, then running a weekly poetry event at a nightclub and publishing outsider poetry.

I don't buy it. You have a rigorous job, are married with two kids, run around doing Erik Estrada impersonations at local events AND you have time to participate and run several games here! You need a better excuse Mister.
 
granted this is two decades on, but I remember reading the IQ version of the rules and they were clear, to the point, and had me really excited about the game, but then the game came out and the rulebook was very...annoying I think is the best description. The rules are there, but the organization wasn't conducive to any sort of reference for play (I also had issues with the graphic design, but that's neither here nor there). I'm going to try and grab a copy of that Inquest, hopefully should still be pretty cheap. I can usually find old issues of Wizard for a buck or two.
 
Hello, RPG Pub!
I'll be honest; I found this place because I'm looking to shill my game. It's that simple.
I've been playing DnD since the start of 3rd, have played loads of systems in between, and have been an avid homebrewer for most of that time; mostly with a focus on system. Loved making classes, feats, clans and disciplines for V:tM, and other such additions to systems.
Then, a good while into DnD 4th, I ran a game that made me decide that, no, I should really just cobble together my own game system. That was... A long time ago.
Anyway; here I am, to shill and hopefully chill. :smile:
 
Hello, RPG Pub!
I'll be honest; I found this place because I'm looking to shill my game. It's that simple.
I've been playing DnD since the start of 3rd, have played loads of systems in between, and have been an avid homebrewer for most of that time; mostly with a focus on system. Loved making classes, feats, clans and disciplines for V:tM, and other such additions to systems.
Then, a good while into DnD 4th, I ran a game that made me decide that, no, I should really just cobble together my own game system. That was... A long time ago.
Anyway; here I am, to shill and hopefully chill. :smile:
Well, welcome to the Pub either way. At least you're honest about your goals, so that's a bonus:smile:!
 
Hello, RPG Pub!
I'll be honest; I found this place because I'm looking to shill my game. It's that simple.
I've been playing DnD since the start of 3rd, have played loads of systems in between, and have been an avid homebrewer for most of that time; mostly with a focus on system. Loved making classes, feats, clans and disciplines for V:tM, and other such additions to systems.
Then, a good while into DnD 4th, I ran a game that made me decide that, no, I should really just cobble together my own game system. That was... A long time ago.
Anyway; here I am, to shill and hopefully chill. :smile:
Shilling is fine, but for best results I recommend against merely copying and pasting vague Kickstarter adspeak and posting it, then getting upset and insulting potential customers if asked for details about your game. :wink:
 
Shilling is fine, but for best results I recommend against merely copying and pasting vague Kickstarter adspeak and posting it, then getting upset and insulting potential customers if asked for details about your game. :wink:
:sad: That thread was amazing though.
 
*Laughs* No worries; my system's free, so I'm going to save you the oh-so-professional salespitch you're expecting. There is no kickstarter, no book sale, no... Anything, really. I just want to share what I made with people who love roleplaying. We are going to monetize the site with ads, though, so be warned!
Ahem.
Also: I love to talk about my system! Ask me anything (about the system), criticize it all you want. You like something? Great! You think something's wrong with it? Even better! Though... Do it in the topic I made that actually shills it; that keeps it on-topic. ;)
 
Hello, RPG Pub!
I'll be honest; I found this place because I'm looking to shill my game. It's that simple.
I've been playing DnD since the start of 3rd, have played loads of systems in between, and have been an avid homebrewer for most of that time; mostly with a focus on system. Loved making classes, feats, clans and disciplines for V:tM, and other such additions to systems.
Then, a good while into DnD 4th, I ran a game that made me decide that, no, I should really just cobble together my own game system. That was... A long time ago.
Anyway; here I am, to shill and hopefully chill. :smile:

Welcome, TalespinnerEU!

Feel free to shill your game in my chat room as well if you like! Just follow the link in my sig. :smile:
 
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