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Last time I travelled through London the tube broke down for 45 minutes and I missed my train as a result. This ended up costing me £50 (my train ticket was of the non-exchangeable, non-refundable kind).
I could have claimed £25 back from my travel insurance, but the hassle and lost time of filling
out forms and making phone calls was not worth such an amount.
So I had an idea: What if the Tube/Metro/Subway company offered a user friendly "mini travel insurance" for its customers?
This is how it would work: When you charge you oyster card (or equivalent smart card) you can set it to "insured mode". From that moment on you pay an extra 20% on top of the normal charge.
In the event that your train is delayed by more than 30 min (This information is fed into a central computer by the train drivers), you automatically receive £50 credit on you oyster card when you touch it out at the end of the journey. No questions asked.
Switching between insured mode and uninsured (standard) mode is possible at any time. So most passengers would simply continue using the normal mode. But those who rely on the tube to make it to a train/plane/important appointment could switch to insured mode for the day.
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Wouldn't that insurance simply be about the same price as buying a refundable/exchangeable ticket in the first place...? |
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Here's a better solution - get the
Germans to run it. I just spent time in
Berlin and the trains there are super
cheap, regular, very fast and run to the
minute. In fact the whole public
transport system is superbly efficient,
and a pleasure to use, unlike the
London Underground, which is a
congested, sweaty nightmare by
comparison, but then look who's in
charge of it. |
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<Dunkirk Spirit> London Underground isn't so bad - you soon accept that desire for personal space is just an irrational fetish, you appreciate your own personal hygiene regime more, and you also get to see the odd bare knuckle fight free of charge. </DS> |
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3 million people use the London underground daily...and cause it's so crap, the number of claims would put it out of business almost immediately. |
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Unless they have insurance of their own, but wait...no one would insure them. They're the London underground, and they're crap. |
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no we should get the swiss. |
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If you're waiting for a train in switzerland, and the train doesn't arrive on time it would mean one of two things; |
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1) you're not in switzerland |
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2) you're not wearing a swiss watch |
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//3 million people use the London underground daily...and cause it's so crap, the number of claims would put it out of business almost immediately.// |
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You don't seem to understand how insurance works. Everyone who is insured pays something into a pot. When a train breaks down the money in the pot gets redistibuted to those few insured who were on the train. |
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I don't see why it would make any difference whether 10, 1000 or 3 million people are insured. |
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If the tube breaks down more often the premiums would simply go up. |
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//Wouldn't that insurance simply be about the same price as buying a refundable/exchangeable ticket in the first place...?// |
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Of course in the very long term everything averages out. But that is true for any insurance. |
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