It's a numbers game really

If you've ever been lucky enough to pick up a copy of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time you may already be aware of the door conundrum, generally known as the Monty Hall Problem.

Let's set the scene.

In front of you are three doors, behind two there are goats, behind one is a car.

You get to win whatever is behind the door you pick. Clearly, while it is possible you may be a fan of goats, I'm guessing that like me you'd rather win the car.

So let's say you choose door 1. Door 2 is then opened and you see a goat.

That leaves door 1 and door 3. Should you switch your choice from 1 to 3?

The conundrum came to mind this week after some news from confused.com. Its research has found that door number 243 is the unluckiest in Britain. According to the comparison site, people with that house number have made more claims on their home insurance than those with any other door number, with 45% having made a claim since January 2007.

In case you are wondering, number 13 was not in the top ten of unlucky houses, coming in at a lowly 182 in the table of claims. Sherlock Holmes aficionados may be intrigued to learn that 221 (with admittedly no b) also made the top ten achieving seventh overall.

So perhaps this year when advising your clients on their home insurance what you should really do is check the list of where they live with the best advice being to move?

And by the way, if you want to win the car rather than a goat, statistically you should switch your guess. But it would take a greater mind than mine to explain why.