Insurance costs

[Pillock]

Yeah, I know a boring topic but I need some pointers, this is stupid.

 

I've got my eye on a Mk4 Golf that's up for cheap money. It's coming back on sites as a GT TDI although not badged as such.

I'm 31 and 11/12ths and have 6 years NCB. No claims or convictions evAr. I brush my teeth and hold the door open for people behind me.

I live in NG21 and the car will be on a driveway at night.

 

Cheapest I can get on these irritating comparison sites is £529... WTF? That's more than I paid for a gr13 Polo when I was 21 with no NCB. I went into a bricks and mortar brokers - need2insure who I believe have been mentioned on here before, and who remembered me from 2009. He's looking into getting it cheaper but he wasn't optimistic, he reckons it's gone up by 30% across the board this year?!!?

 

Does it ever get cheaper for a normal, everyday (and you can't get more prevalent on the roads than a Mk4 Golf TDI) car? I've tried tweaking my details in case a divorced computer engineer was an OMG MASSIV RISK but a single trainer (I have a vague job description) is just as bad. I wouldn't mind but the only reason I'm looking at normal cars is that my "classic" policy on the E36 has also gone up 30-odd-percent this year and it's not so much of a bargain to knock around in a faux-classic.

[Guest]

Cheapest I can get on these irritating comparison sites is £529... WTF? That's more than I paid for a gr13 Polo when I was 21 with no NCB.

 

If it's any consolation, that's piss cheap by Manchester standards.

[pogweasel]

Hast thou tried swiftcover?

Were a good 30% less than everyone else on our galaxy.

[tonedepear]

insurance costs

 

Stupid. Just stupid.

[Pillock]

Hast thou tried swiftcover?

Were a good 30% less than everyone else on our galaxy.

 

£692.93

 

Bumhats.

[Guest]

I SAVED A PACKET!

[ashmicro]

Directline? My Rover's fully comp, with Mutha, sista and missus on the policy as nameds, £198.

[Negative Creep]

Modern cars costing more to repair

+

people who want a brand new 3 series for the month it takes the bodyshop to replace the bumper on their Micra

+

whiplash claims from every 5mph shunt

+

scumbag personal injury lawyers

=

pain for all of us

[Pillock]

Directline? My Rover's fully comp, with Mutha, sista and missus on the policy as nameds, £198.

 

Over £800 from them!

 

Seriously, I'm wondering how it'll ever get cheaper. I'm old, I drive a standard car and keep it on the drive FFS.

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

It is mental, isn't it?

 

As I've said before, I think the reason why insurance is so expensive has little to do with risk-related factors and a lot with the insurance companies being free to behave like a cartel- it is incredible that the "competition authorities" haven't taken any insurer to task for offering more expensive TPFT policies than comprehensive ones (as most of them seem to do). The mere fact that they are allowed to charge you more for having the "wrong" gender, marital status or job title, whereas any other business doing so would have been forced to fold under the weight of DIZKRIMNASHUN claims (BTW, if anyone thinks that these factors noticeably influence the probability of you having an accident, please look up the difference between "correlation" and "causation"), shows just how screwed up is the system.

 

Funnily enough, on trying 4329473297423 insurer combinations with 6 years NCD, my old address in LE3, and a 2-litre mk3 Granada, swiftcover was consistently having some of the lowest prices, but it still came to around 600 pounds. The moneysupermarket.com comparison couldn't beat it, but it gave me a Barclays quote that was near it. Out of sheer curiosity, I went to the Barclays site to find out they no longer do their own insurance, but the cheapest policy (with the same details) was now about 35 quid less. I looked at the quote details, and the underwriter was Co-op Insurance. So I went to the CIS website, and I got another 40 quid off, now comfortably beating swiftcover. When the time comes to actually buy a bloody policy, I'll repeat the find-the-underwriter procedure, and also make sure to have a look for any promo codes/cashback deals posted by the tightwads at moneysavingexpert.com, which can usually net another 30-40 pounds...It will still be a small fortune, and probably more than the car's worth, but at least I'll be pleased that I've done all I could to limit the profits of those robbing bastards!

[Pete-M]

I'm so glad I don't have to do this every year...

 

As an aside, Liverpool is the original insurance disaster area - despite me not hearing of anyone I know having their car nicked for over 10 years. The original 100% loading for the entire of L1-L20 - despite some of the areas being pretty expensive leafy suburbs.

 

Bought a Sierra XR4x4 about seven years ago (D434WOO) and rang around for insewerance quotes, I was over 30 at the time with lots of nice shiny NCB etc, car garaged (in decent area), value £500ish, thatcham 1 with certificate. Searched for both TPF+T and Fully Incomprehensible.

 

Endsleigh came up with the most comical quote - £5500, TPO, so I rang them to see if they'd cocked it up, and for a giggle. Girl who answered took all the details and put them in the computer, and started laughing. I asked her if she thought that was mental, she did, so she took my number and rang the underwriters. She rang back half an hour or so later saying she thought they must have been smoking something and recommended Tesco.

 

Tesco insured it for £450ish, fully comp.

[Lankytim]

Incase anyones interested the wife is with SWIFTCOVER and they allow you to change your car online for free!

[Alpineandy]

I think the reason why insurance is so expensive has little to do with risk-related factors and a lot with the insurance companies being free to behave like a cartel

It isn't a cartel, but they all work on previous claims figures which show certain trends which lead most of them in a similar direction. If it was really a cartel then I'm pretty certain they'd have fixed it so that they alway make a profit, and they don't. Most (NOT ALL!) haven't made any profit from motor insurance for quiet a few years but do it because they want your household-life-pension etc business where the real profits are made.

Although the present big increase of motor premiums is intended to change that.

 

it is incredible that the "competition authorities" haven't taken any insurer to task for offering more expensive TPFT policies than comprehensive ones (as most of them seem to do).

100% agree. It's stupid, just stupid! I guess that despite the FSA insisting that the insurance company send the customer a small book explaining what is/isn't covered, they appreciate that very few people read it. It then costs the insurance company money to explain it to someone that's emotional and wants to claim for something that isn't covered - per the documents sent. Then the ambulance chasers get involved and the insurance company have to defend themselves... It's another sad reflection of the 'someone else will pay' society. But still not justification for TPFT being more expensive.

 

 

The mere fact that they are allowed to charge you more for having the "wrong" gender, marital status or job title,

Taking these crireria out of the deal would result in most peoples insurance increasing dramatically. -I suspect that if it wasn't for this then every insurance company would charge the same price and they'd all be much more expensive. You just have to chase around for the one which doens't have bad experiences of your occupation etc. Oh, there are an awful lot of computer guys who have crashed their imprezza/Evo/M3 etc in the last 10 years.

 

please look up the difference between "correlation" and "causation")

Maybe I mis-understand, but AFAIK the two are very different. Causes are recorded and the figures correlated. I'm sure the actuaries that do the maths appreciate the difference. They are a odd bunch of mathmaticians who will qualify anything they say (what colour is that cow - black and white - for the bit I can see) but they can't plan for the future other than showing the trend from the past.

But how else can it be done?

 

A lot of people moan about it but no one (ever) has come up with a better solution.

Some simpletons suggest it should be government run

Others think we'd be better off without it (they clearly haven't had anyone close to them disabled in a road accident by another driver).

 

PS as mentioned previously on insurance threads - I am not involved with motor/household/life/pensions insurance but am involved is an associated' business.

 

PPS Although I'm sure one year it will go balistic on me, for the last 4 years I've had multi-car insurance (admiral) and it's been quite reasonable, but it only works if you've multi-cars!

[Pillock]

I did hear recently that the EU have decreed that insurance companies are no longer allowed to charge more based on sex. I can't agree, I think they should as long as they can prove the correlation between sex and risk. I can't help feeling that once they rule one "ism" is illegal then the rest will be, and we'll all just end up being charged a flat rate which will undoubtedly be the rate for a 17 year old male glue sniffer living in Beirut. The whole point of their business is to look at the facts presented and calculate risk, it's not far removed from a bookmakers.

 

Anyway. Need2Insure phoned back and sounded pretty hacked off, he can't get the Golf insured for less than about £600 and the BMW is exactly the same as my quote, since they use the same underwriter.

It's not a problem since I had a message saying the Golf I'd looked at was now sold.....

[Albert Ross]

I echo all these thoughts about insurance being expensive. Mine rocketed up to £135 a year,from £89, with modifications listed.... Alternator, overdrive, replacement chassis, roofrack.... One for reliability, one for economy, one for safety, and one for versatility..... nothing that adds performance, nothing that adds speed... But apparently it makes it more attractive to a thief. They obviously never looked at the bloody pictures I sent them. Only Ray Charles would find my dented Diesel Land Rover attractive. I own it, and I hate how it looks. But, I can't be arsed to do owt about the image. It's more about the thing starting in the morning. I reckon keep it looking like shit, and it instantly becomes too eye-catching, therefore LESS attractive to a would-be thief.

 

The Frogface Scorpio Cosworth was nearing the £320 annually mark at one point, too. I might have to give up insuring cars at this rate. I could wing it, as black plates don't ping the ANPR. (At least I don't think they do)

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Fairly recently there was a flurry of info on the news about why car insurance just costs more and more and fuggin more every year. I think there was some sort of governmental cross-party investigation into it. It appeared that the whole industry is one massive fucking merry-go-round of folk (insurance companies, car hire companies, bodyshops, 'personal details' traders and claims direct-style outfits are the ones I can remember) taking bungs off each other and buying and seelling claimant details so that these claims direct outfits can persuade folk to claim for everything from compensation for spurious injuries to maxed-out courtesy car hire and fugg knows what else. It appeared that the original premise of pooling policyholders money to pay for accidents when they happened, had gone right out the window and was now just a means of facilitating this whole secondary industry of ambulance chasing and even 'crumpled wing-chasing'. Ultimately of course its the little guy who's forced by law to buy some car insurance, who foots the bill for all these claims. What a fuggin joke.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12703857

[eddyramrod]

Direct Line is to be avoided at all costs (much like Adele, or football ). When Mrs Ramrod's beloved Proton was wiped out in 2002 they took forever to pay up, and even then screwed us to the floor for the value of the car. Seems a low-mileage looked-after family car is only worth the same as a wanked-out million-mile hack.

But given the present premiums I'm hearing, they probably don't have the price advantage they used to anyway, so there is literally no reason to use them. I had my Volvo 740 for over three years before we left UK, having paid 450 for it on the bay. I dread to think what the insurance cost me in that time (professional driver, late 40s, west Lancashire) but I'm sure I could have bought a fair few more Volvos for the money.

[Pillock]

. I could wing it, as black plates don't ping the ANPR. (At least I don't think they do)

 

They do. They work on edge-detection algorithms which ultimately rely on contrast, the contrast on Black and Silvers is just as good as Black on Yellow/White. Computers these days are fast enough to scan the entire frame for a likely candidate for a numberplate on live video.

 

I wrote an ANPR system for a uni project using a £300 desktop PC, £20 webcam and some mathematical software. No links to databases natch but it'd happily spew out all the reg plates contained in a video feed.

 

If you can get away with black on black, you might be winning.

[Albert Ross]

Well they are "Black and silver" but, it's more like dark grey background with burnished aluminium letters, which turned light grey as they oxidised..... So it's a grey area really.....!

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I wonder if there are any insurers on the continent who will sell you a policy suitable for daily use in the UK. You'd think thats the sort of thing that the EU was created for.

[eddyramrod]

I wonder if there are any insurers on the continent who will sell you a policy suitable for daily use in the UK. You'd think thats the sort of thing that the EU was created for.

 

You would, wouldn't you? There's probably some kind of EU law against it.

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

I wonder if there are any insurers on the continent who will sell you a policy suitable for daily use in the UK. You'd think thats the sort of thing that the EU was created for.

 

Any policy sold in the EU is valid throughout the EU plus the 3-4 associated oddball countries (Norway, Iceland, Switzerland etc). I may end up going down that route...

 

I think there was some sort of governmental cross-party investigation into it. It appeared that the whole industry is one massive fucking merry-go-round of folk (insurance companies, car hire companies, bodyshops, 'personal details' traders and claims direct-style outfits are the ones I can remember) taking bungs off each other and buying and seelling claimant details so that these claims direct outfits can persuade folk to claim for everything from compensation for spurious injuries to maxed-out courtesy car hire and fugg knows what else.

 

This is right on the money (see my next post).

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

Now this quotey thing is going to look seriously effed up, but there is not much I can do.

 

I think the reason why insurance is so expensive has little to do with risk-related factors and a lot with the insurance companies being free to behave like a cartel

It isn't a cartel, but they all work on previous claims figures which show certain trends which lead most of them in a similar direction.

it is incredible that the "competition authorities" haven't taken any insurer to task for offering more expensive TPFT policies than comprehensive ones (as most of them seem to do).

100% agree. It's stupid, just stupid!

 

So you want to buy a nice little carton of strawberries. A lot of people like their strawberries with whipped cream, but you detest whipped cream. You spend all day visiting every supermarket in town. "Coincidentially", EVERY supermarket will only sell you the strawberries in a combo that includes cream. The only old-school greengrocer that hasn't been turned into a Tesco Express will actually sell you the strawberries on their own, but "they are a special order item, mate, and I have to charge a bit more", which ends up being twice the price of the strawberries+cream combo in the supermarket.

Then you realise that the town 5 miles down the road has a few more supermarkets and greengrocers...but, even when the border is open and the economic links are so developed that taxi drivers from the town down the road are allowed to pick up passengers for journeys wholly within your own town, the government will not give you a license to eat strawberries bought in the next town unless you get into a serious fight with 394249324327 different parts of the bureaucratic apparatus.

AND THIS IS NOT A BLOODY CARTEL??

 

If it was really a cartel then I'm pretty certain they'd have fixed it so that they alway make a profit, and they don't. [Most (NOT ALL!) haven't made any profit from motor insurance for quiet a few years

 

How do we know that? Do you have access to the entire set of itemised, audited figures for every aspect relating to motor insurance and ancillary items (e.g. courtesy car cover)? Does ANYONE have access to these figures? I would love to see them! I am not an accountant, but from what little I know, published company accounts don't go into business-unit detail, and you don't have to be an accounting genius to move stuff around to suit your needs, whatever they might be (generate PR to ease resistance to climbing prices, appear less attractive to competitors who could take over and downsize your department to oblivion, mask the disastrous losses generated by your mate's pet mutual-fund-mixed-with-insurance "investment product", you name it...). Google "transfer pricing" for some really hideous examples (outside of the world of insurance).

 

but do it because they want your household-life-pension etc business where the real profits are made.

Now you really are on to something. Would it be a stretch to assume that a single 25 year old guy is LESS likely to buy any of the above crap than a 42 y.o. married mom-of-three? Is there anyone who can guarantee under oath that the former customer isn't charged a little bit more in order to make the latter's loss-leading premium more attractive, so that the insurer can rape her with some industrial-scale cross-selling?

 

 

it is incredible that the "competition authorities" haven't taken any insurer to task for offering more expensive TPFT policies than comprehensive ones (as most of them seem to do).

I guess that despite the FSA insisting that the insurance company send the customer a small book explaining what is/isn't covered, they appreciate that very few people read it. It then costs the insurance company money to explain it to someone that's emotional and wants to claim for something that isn't covered - per the documents sent. Then the ambulance chasers get involved and the insurance company have to defend themselves...

 

The ambulance chasers are slimey bastards, but they are not stupid enough to make a claim for something that plainly isn't covered. A standard-issue e-mail is the only thing the insurance company has to do in order to explain whatever needs to be explained. If the customer keeps calling every day etc, they can still have a schedule of time-based fees to be demanded from persistent numbskulls.

 

 

The mere fact that they are allowed to charge you more for having the "wrong" gender, marital status or job title

Taking these crireria out of the deal would result in most peoples insurance increasing dramatically. -I suspect that if it wasn't for this then every insurance company would charge the same price and they'd all be much more expensive.

 

Why do you think so? Why don't you check what happens in other EU countries, in most of which these things aren't factored into one's premium?

 

You just have to chase around for the one which doens't have bad experiences of your occupation etc.

 

I shouldn't have to do that, not so much because I'm lazy (which I admittedly am), but because it doesn't make any sense. In fact, what it does do is point to dodgy use of statistics- I mean, imagine being a cryogenetics engineer and talking to an insurer who had 2 cryogenetic engineer customers who both crashed their cars.

 

please look up the difference between "correlation" and "causation")

Maybe I mis-understand, but AFAIK the two are very different. Causes are recorded and the figures correlated. I'm sure the actuaries that do the maths appreciate the difference. They are a odd bunch of mathmaticians who will qualify anything they say (what colour is that cow - black and white - for the bit I can see) but they can't plan for the future other than showing the trend from the past.

But how else can it be done?

A lot of people moan about it but no one (ever) has come up with a better solution.

 

Again, see how it's done in Europe. Maybe the "average premium" is only a little bit cheaper than the UK, but the distribution is much more logical, and drivers don't have to pay 3 grand to insure a rustbucket simply because they have no experience, or still have to spend 800 quid for a medium-sized car after 5 years of claim-free driving ("FULL NO CLAIMS BONUS" my arse!).

 

I don't know how the mathematicians work, but I can guarantee you that, even if most of what they do is sensible, their work will be altered to uselessness by marketing guys and "senior executives" who wouldn't know a fraction if it hit them on the head.

 

Some simpletons suggest it should be government run

 

While the government would definitely cock it up even worse if they were to run it, I think that more government involvement is called for. And the solution is very simple: De-bundle the third-party bit (i.e. the insurance required by law) from the additional covers (purely a matter of consumer choice), and put a cap on the price that can be charged for it (unless insuring proven high risks e.g. convicted drink-drivers and those with more than 3-4 claims in 5 years), maybe staggering it across age groups...e.g. a maximum TPO premium of 1200 quid for under 21s, 800 for under 27s, and 400 for everyone else. If it really is so unprofitable for them, they can just quit the entire business and foreign insurers (who already do things cheaper) will come and take their place. When I can get everything else so cheap from China, why does the government force me to buy a particular product from Cheshire?

 

 

Others think we'd be better off without it (they clearly haven't had anyone close to them disabled in a road accident by another driver).

 

 

I think 99% of the population would agree on that clearly not being a good solution!

 

 

PPS Although I'm sure one year it will go balistic on me, for the last 4 years I've had multi-car insurance (admiral) and it's been quite reasonable, but it only works if you've multi-cars!

 

I am convinced that, if I were to go for that, they would find an obscure parameter on which to disqualify me from it.

[garethj]

Direct Line is to be avoided at all costs (much like Adele, or football ). When Mrs Ramrod's beloved Proton was wiped out in 2002 they took forever to pay up, and even then screwed us to the floor for the value of the car. Seems a low-mileage looked-after family car is only worth the same as a wanked-out million-mile hack.

I was with Direct Line and they were pretty good; payed up a fair value for our Galant although it was a week or so before they decided it would be a write off rather than a repair. This was after another car crossed from the oncoming dual carriageway, hitting me at a closing speed of 120mph and the Mitsu rolling a hundred yards down the A10.... Best of luck with the repair, lads.

 

And they've done an alright price on mine and Mrs GarethJ's cars.

[Cavcraft]

Don't get me started on Direct Liars. I'd sooner drive drunk and uninsured.

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

Now that you mention it, aren't DirectLying part of the RBS group?

There you have it, Andy...Government-run insurance!

 

I was with their sister company, Churchill, for a while. I got an absurdly high renewal quote, which was promptly beaten down when I went on their online quote system as a "new customer". However, that "new and improved" quote was still 40p over the Swiftcover price, so I called them, they refused to match the shitcover quote then scoffed at me when I told them that I'd rather change insurers and save 40p into the bargain.

[HillmanImp]

I did hear recently that the EU have decreed that insurance companies are no longer allowed to charge more based on sex. I can't agree, I think they should as long as they can prove the correlation between sex and risk. I can't help feeling that once they rule one "ism" is illegal then the rest will be, and we'll all just end up being charged a flat rate which will undoubtedly be the rate for a 17 year old male glue sniffer living in Beirut. The whole point of their business is to look at the facts presented and calculate risk, it's not far removed from a bookmakers.

 

This comes in from 21 December 2012. It affects all insurance whether it is annuities, life cover or motor insurance. Quite frankly its one of the most stupid laws the EU have come up with. Like Pillock says its risk based. For car insurance it will probably mean that male car insurance will drop ever so slightly whilst female insurance will go up dramatically to equal mens premiums.

 

I deal with annuities on a daily basis. As an illustration of how stupid this law is, we all know that in general women live longer than men. Therefore when pricing up annuities if a women has a fund of £100,000 they will assume she will live for 25 years from her retirement date and therefore give her an income of £4,000pa. They then look at a man who they estimate will only live 20 years so they give him an income of £5,000pa for his £100,000 investment as its likely to be paid out for less time. Going forward, they will have to give the same annuity rate to both which I estimate would be around £4,300 as the male is now taking the risk for the woman living longer.

 

Its the same with insurance, the female is taking the risk for the male claming so she will have to pay more.

 

Like Pillock says, what next? Cant bias insurance based on age or health? Thats the way its going.

 

I would be interested if anyone knows what insurance costs are like in France as I belive they have had unisex insurance rates for some time. Perhaps Mr B or VWP would know?

 

p.s. I dont mean to sound like the Daily Fail here, I just dont like this particular law.

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

wow this annuity thing really IS stupid!

 

However, when it comes to driving, I honestly don't think women are less dangerous than men. In fact, if you take into account the smaller accidents that tend to be underreported, and the fact that more men are company car drivers so it's often convenient to make a claim in the name of the male partner in a couple (because he is not going to have to pay more for his main insurance), I would be willing to bet that women, on average, cause more crashes per mile driven than men.

 

A number of EU countries (I certainly know about Greece and Latvia, and I've heard the same about a couple more countries but I can't remember which now ) have vehicle-based insurance (and NCD- of course you can transfer it to another vehicle when you change), and it's typical to pay a surcharge of around 40% if any of the drivers is under 23. This results in somewhat higher premia for "good" risks (e.g. my mom is paying about 500 Euros for the Sirion, though that's comprehensive and also includes full-fat membership in the Greek equivalent of RAC), but one single claim won't result in a 1000% premium increase, plus the system is more useful to society as a whole because it avoids getting young people priced out of insurance and making them drive illegally and/or lose opportunities for jobs/education.

[CreepingJesus]

For what it's worth, I had a good run with the AA - and there's a handy discount to be had for signing up for assistance too - until they had a massive computer SNAFU, when I went to renew. Jumped over to Swiftcover, as they were much of a muchness pricewise. The only problem I've had with them, is getting the self-printed cover note past some Post Office staff at tax-disc time. But then I started doing that online too, so problem solved.

Years ago, when I was with the local independant, I had a little claim. One of my kids opened the back door of the car onto the car next. Once I'd calmed the idiot whose car it was, down, I offered up my details in full. It was only a little dent, about the size of a £2 coin, with a little scratch in the middle, on an aging Ka. If I'd thought about it, I'd have paid to get one of these dents-out operations to sort it; it would've been a 10 minute job.

Imagine my surprise, to receive notification of a bill well into 4 figures. Now this is where the independant came in handy, 'cos she was able to chin the insurers for a full breakdown of the bill. Interesting reading, when it arrived: costs included recovery to the repair shop (at the VW dealer in Kirkcaldy, when the Ford dealer in Dunfermline is nearer), the estimators' fee, and two days' car hire, of a significantly higher band car than a fucking Ka.

Needless to say, the 'amended' (by me) bill, was sent back, with bullet points on! I phoned the insurance company concerned, just to be sure, and told them exactly what I thought of their 'bill'. The lass on the phone sounded suitably sheepish, and promised to 'look at it'. Have I heard anything of it since? Not a word.

Scamming bastards, the lot of 'em.

[Father Ted]

Don't get me started on Direct Liars. I'd sooner drive drunk and uninsured.

+1

Shower of shite the lot of em