Insurance

Post by **Dog Pants** » November 17th, 2005, 9:39

I've been wondering about the relative benefits of insurance for a while now. I saw a post in the Eve forums that explained how, especially for T2 ships, you barely get a return on them. What do you guys think, 'cos it's taking me ages to get the money together to insure my Cyclone and even then it's not fitted out. I don't have the balls not to at the moment though without a pretty convincing argument.

friznit · Post by **friznit** » November 17th, 2005, 11:32

I havn't seen the figures for T2 ships and such, but presumably if you work out the insurance return as a percentage of the total cost of the ship, this can give you a pretty good idea.

Now by cost, I don't mean ISK value. Cost is a combination of time spent mining/buying resources, including high ends; BPCs; factory hiring; building time; and fitting weighed up against the relative time spent accruing the cash for said insurance. You have to make an judegment based on effort verses return.

Secondly, Rather like RL car insurance, if you think you will lose the ship, go for 100% insurance. It is a one of payment and I think of it as an investment with a positive return.

Eg. My Ferox: 9 mill invested in insurance gives me a 24 mill ISK return if I lose a 50 mill ISK ship (assuming no mods are recovered). If I can mitigate the cost of replacement (ie. reduce the 50mill outlay on a new fitted ship) then I increase the percentage return of full insurance.

So, for a bc type ship this is a relatively low effort so IMO worth it. For a T2 ship or Dread, the effort required to build the damn things is so great that a few ISK from insurance isn't really gonna make a difference, apart from make you feel slightly less gutted that you lost the thing in the first place.

Now, given the length and bullshit in this reply, you can probably guess that I am at work.

Short answer: As Hehulk

Post by **Dog Pants** » November 17th, 2005, 11:45

Wow. I was expecting you to argue against it based on previous conversations. I'm confident my Cyclone will be destroyed not too long after I start using it in combat, so I'll shut up and stick to insuring it.

The point with T2s is that you only get 100% official market value, but as they are sold by players the actual cost is up to 2000% higher (so I'm led to believe). This makes the return from insurance pretty miniscule in their case.

The conclusion I've come to is that I'm going to stick to tackling and fighting in Rifters for now. As the saying in Eve goes; only fight with what you can afford to lose.

amblin · Post by **amblin** » November 18th, 2005, 10:39

Post by **Dog Pants** » November 18th, 2005, 11:17

amblin wrote:insurance only lasts 3 months

Only? You mean ships last longer than that?

Hehulk · Post by **Hehulk** » November 18th, 2005, 11:24

amblin wrote:I honestly think CCP need to review their insurance policy so that it includes contents of a ship; modules, weapons, ammo and cargo.

I agree with this in theory, but unfortunatly it would be far to abusable in practise. During my forum whoring (and I know I'm not the only 5punk eve-o forum whore) I've seen this arguement more than a couple of times, and it always seesm to rasie 3 main points.

1) Put in custom insurance so we can cover the cost of ships, mods, ammo, drones, clones and whatever else. problem with this system is that it's game-breakingly openended. If ccp let us set the amount of insurance we get back on a sliding scale for how much we spend, what's to stop someone insuring thier ship, undocking, enaging the self-distruct and making themselves 5 times richer instantly. then doing it again, and again, and again.

2) Base the value of the insurance on the value of the items. Problem here is deciding upon the value of the items. if you use the database values it falls far short of the actual market value, and you'd be hard pushed to use the market value as not only does it vary so much from day to day, you can get the mods at different prices in different regions. there's a reason I always go to lonetrek for my shield teck

3) don't put in custom insurance. Quite honestly, this is what I want. Perhaps increase the base value of the insurance slightly, but don't put in anything based on what the player says. I know not everyone would abuse it, but those who did would would ruin it for the rest of it.

Just my three cent

amblin · Post by **amblin** » November 18th, 2005, 13:45

Hehulk · Post by **Hehulk** » November 18th, 2005, 15:46

amblin wrote:Hell, why don't I just start an eve-insurance company?!

The way PVPers lose ships? How the hell would you make any isk?

amblin · Post by **amblin** » November 18th, 2005, 18:25

Anhamgrimmar · Post by **Anhamgrimmar** » November 18th, 2005, 20:21

amblin wrote:
Hehulk wrote:The way PVPers lose ships? How the hell would you make any isk?
no claims bonuses! Stupidly high premiums for certain corps & automatic invalidation of policies if war is declared on or by the claimants corp... Basically the same way real insurance companies make their money - never paying out!

sound like an extension to 5punkorps business to me. now youve got youR nice shiney ship, would you like to insure it. if your ship dies, we give you money, and then you are contracted to engage the enemy on our behALF