We’ve all heard them: urban myths, folklore, legends. But are they true?

 AMI’s insurance data has put seven tall tales to the test. *

Urban myth 1: Shopping carparks are a top spot for vehicle dings and scrapes

The saying goes that you shouldn’t park next to the trolley bay, because your car will get dinged.

But do the insurance stats stack up?

“It’s a hard one to tell,” says AMI Executive General Manager Claims, Wayne Tippet, “Because minor scrapes and dings won’t always result in an insurance claim.

“But what I can say, is that between June 2022 and May 2023, we received 6,541 claims relating to supermarket or shopping centre incidents – and 1.8% of those claims were for more than $10,000.

“It also appears that the lead up to the weekend is when you need to have your wits about you the most, with Thursday (15.6%), Friday (16.8%) and Saturday (15.4%) ranking the highest for shopping-related claims.”

The verdict: True (probably)

Urban myth 2: Red cars cost more to insure

This one’s straight forward: false.

“We don’t collect this information when providing quotes for vehicle insurance,” says Mr Tippet. “Premiums are made up of a range of factors, such as location, car make and model, the sum insured of the vehicle, and overall level of risk - but definitely not colour.”

So, there’s no (insurance) reason to hold back on your car-colour ambitions.

The verdict: False

Urban myth 3: Put it in rice

These days we can’t live without our phones, but what about the oft-given advice to put waterlogged phones in rice, to dry them out?

In the past year, AMI received 2,781 claims for water damaged phones, and of those, 171 people (about 6% of claims) reported they’d tried the rice trick – but without success. Anecdotally, we’ve also heard success stories too – but they won’t feature in our claims data as these are the people who won’t need to make an insurance claim.

The verdict: Undetermined

Urban myth 4: It’s bad luck to walk under a ladder

While we don’t know how someone’s luck may change after a mishap with a ladder, we do know that we had 688 claims relating to ladders in the last year.

Most of these were for phones or glasses being dropped from height, but we’ve also had claims where a gust of wind has blown over a ladder and damaged windows or other items below.

“Glasses and ladders appear to be a risky combination,” says Mr Tippet. “We’ve had quite a few instances of people’s glasses slipping off while working on a ladder, with them either falling off people’s faces or tops of heads on to the ground, and even being stepped on.”

The verdict: Undetermined

Urban myth 5: You’re more likely to crash close to home

Let’s take a look at the stats:

• 28% of all car collision claims (29,250 claims) were within 1km of the person’s home.
• 30% of claims (32,131 claims) were between 1km and 5km of the person’s home.
• 42% of claims (45,064 claims) were over 5km from the person’s home.

“The stats certainly suggest that this myth holds up,” says Mr Tippet. “Our data doesn’t show the reasons, but it’s possible that people relax and drive a little less carefully when they’re on familiar roads.”

And it turns out you don’t even have to be driving – in the last year, we had 7,060 claims for cars that were damaged while simply parked at home.

The verdict: True

Urban myth 6: Lightning never strikes the same place twice

“This is a tricky one, as we could receive several claims for one single lightning strike,” says Mr Tippet.

So, what lightning claims has AMI received?

“We received 430 claims related to lightning damage in 2022, with 2019 the biggest year of the last 10, with 465 claims,” says Mr Tippet.

Over the past 10 years, the top three lightning spots in New Zealand were the Waikato 18% (357 claims), Auckland 15% (288 claims), and Canterbury with 14% (283 claims).

If we drill down to find the suburbs that feature most frequently in these claims, the Waikato is front and centre – Cambridge, Te Awamutu and Hamilton central are the three most commonly struck suburbs.

The verdict: Undetermined

Urban myth 7: Don’t shower during a thunderstorm

Have you heard the saying that if you shower during a storm, lightning could travel through metal plumbing, and the combination of metallic pipes and water can increase your risk of being struck by lightning? 

“In the last 10 years, we’ve only received one claim along these lines, when lightning struck a hot water overflow pipe on a roof,” says Mr Tippet. “The lightning travelled through the pipework and into the house, fried the power meter box and caused an amplifier, dishwasher and DVD player to stop working.”

The verdict: False (probably)

Urban myth or not, what’s certain is that life is bound to bring up the unexpected. AMI is proud to support its customers whenever they need us, whatever the reason.

*Claims data relates to the period from 01/06/2022 to 31/05/2023.

*The lightning strikes data is for a 10-year period, from 01/05/2013 – 30/04/2023.