I will attempt to explain why ship insurance based on the ideas and numbers Greedy Goblin proposed will not work. The overall concept could be termed “scaled percentages:” different ships are insured at different percentages of their value dependent upon their ‘tier.’ There is going to be a cutoff where higher priced ships are not taxed at the same percentage as cheaper ones. This double standard is why poor people in real life hate rich people but it’s the way the world works. At some point a payment, if scaled to the same percentage as it would be on certain cheaper items, becomes unsustainable for anyone and the charge exceeds the amount the insurance companies would charge, not wanting to risk driving customers away with exorbitant costs.
At 1 billion isk per day for titan insurance, not even The Mittani himself, with his gold-encrusted hover throne, would be able to sustain such payments over time. That’s problem One with this system. CCP would understand that, with more expensive ships, the same scale wouldn’t work. They would therefore make it a smaller percentage for people flying supers and titans or other ships above a certain price. If CCP goes the route of scaled percentages, newer players will start to cry about how the older players get special treatment and CCP does not want that. As anyone can see, recent changes have been made specifically to pander to the newer players which might seem bad but should have a positive effect on the long-term survival of EVE Online.
The 2nd problem with this idea is that in real life there are people who do not want to and will not pay insurance for their possessions. The same would extend to EVE. Insurance in this way would never work because, for instance, a titan pilot may have trillions of isk but does not want to see it slowly drained away by an insurance premium he may never have to use. The point here is that pilots, whether they fly titans or frigates, can have more than enough isk to replace their ships without a care for insurance at all. There are countless pilots out there, myself included, that probably never have and never will insure their ships. “Don’t fly what you cant afford to lose,” or even better “don’t plan to lose what you fly.” It’s a mind set thing. You would have more people not wanting to pay this ridiculous premium than those that want it. Making it a feature would be detrimental to the game. And if you make it optional, eventually so few would use it that the feature would just become game-clutter, which is something CCP has been trying hard to clean up.
The 3rd problem would be the implementation of mechanics of the new insurance. When you pay are you insuring just the ship you fly that day? What if you fly multiple ships of different classes within a day; are you paying insurance separately for all of them? What about ships just sitting around your hanger are you paying for those as well? What about ships you have on alts logged off like supers or titans that don’t log in for days or weeks because you are not flying them for any reason? What if you sell or trade a ship you were flying – what happens to the insurance money then? Who decides the cutoffs or the specifics? How do you manage it with out alienating some or all of the player base? The do’s and the don’ts would cause too many problems.
In the end, the idea itself is I must admit a nice one but in relation to EVE Online it is one that will never work, for the above reasons. There is too much that can and would come back to hurt CCP overall. CCP is better off just cutting insurance in general and allowing players to learn on their own about not flying what they can’t afford to lose. That is one of the better ideas behind EVE anyways. It is a learning experience!
