My insurance went up 30% - I don't know the reason

No it doesn’t…

If a vast majority of people who have bad credit and also live in high crimes area then which is the cause…the fact that they have bad credit or that they live in high crimes area. What I read of you so-called PROOF is that they just considered credit rating without determining if it’s the credit itself or the fact they live in a high-crime? There’s a great book I was required to read in my graduate level stats class.

Read it some time.

Correlation does not show cause and effect. There was a study done in the 1930s that found a large negative correlation between the hardness of the asphalt on the New York city streets and infant mortality in the New York City hospitals. Now, if you go out in the dead of winter outside a hospital in New York City and start heating up the pavement with a propane torch, are you going to kill a baby in the hospital? Of course not! There is an intervening factor. In the 1930s when the study was done. Air conditioning wasn’t common and the heat of the summer was responsible for deaths in the hospital and it softened the asphalt on the streets.
Now there may be an intervening factor between low credit rating and insurance claims.

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That’s true and I don’t believe anyone was trying to make that claim. In this case, it doesn’t matter. Babies lives are not at stake nor is any other serious problem that must be solved definitively. Some people will be caught in the net. But it’s a very low percentage according to the studies performed. If you follow the link I provided, it links to the FTC report that has all that information provided.

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That’s true, which is why I didn’t care to speculate about the causal relationship. I recognize there could be all kinds of intervening factors in this question.

In your asphalt question, the original findings were counter-intuitive, and eventually the intervening factor was revealed. Identifying the original correlation did eventually lead to a solution: air conditioning in the hospitals, and any insurance company that sold policies against infant mortality at the time knew to charge higher premiums in places where the asphalt was soft. It would have been an intelligent business decision to do so as long as the correlation existed. After the air conditioning was installed, the higher rates would no longer be justified because the correlation would no longer exist.

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Another high correlation is the relationship between smoking and lung cancer. The correlation is high, but as far as I know, nobody has found the substance in tobacco smoke that triggers cancer. It is possible that there are people who have high anxiety tend to be smokers to reduce the anxiety, and the high anxiety triggers cancerous cells. I had high anxiety as a graduate student and I was s heavy smoker. However, I am also a wimp, so I decided to quit smoking. I quit cold turkey–I strapped a flask around my neck and when I had the urge for a smoke, I raised the flask and took a swig. Actually, I was 31 when I decided to quit–I signed up for a physical fitness program. For the first month, there was a high correlation between the amount of exercise I did and the pain I felt. This was cause and effect. After 6 months, I was running 3 miles a day 5 days a week. I then had a high correlation between the pain between aching legs and the number of days I skipped my run. If I skipped my run for a couple of days, my legs ached The more days I laid off, the more my legs ached. Running, like smoking, was habit forming for me, but running was cheaper. Due to heel spurs, my running days are over, but Mrs. Triedaq and I still fitness walk 3 miles a day five days a week. I hope there is a correlation between exercise and long life. At 76, I want to live a lot more years because there are a lot more people on this board I want to irritate.

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Nope, you only get so many heartbeats and use them up faster if you exercise :wink:

That would still be a correlation, even if negative.

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@TwinTurbo. So the heart is like the mechanical fuel pumps we had on cars back in the early days. I am going to take your advice, buy a carton of Lucky Strikes, a case of beer, quit exercising and enjoy the good life. I don’t know what I will do when in my vehicles. Toyota left out the cigarette lighter and ash tray. Maybe I can find another 1947 Pontiac with these wonderful features.

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'Tobacco smoke is made up of thousands of chemicals, including at least 70 known to cause cancer. ’

Wasn’t always so…and before the chemicals were added…it was still dangerous and higher cancer risk.

Smoking is by far one of the most stupid things anyone can do.