Car Insurance

Miy renewal with LV is 9th December. Insurance companies tend to leave the renewal notice to the last minute to give you less time to "shop around." So they've not contacted me yet.

But I've just rung them.

As always, you get the "press one, press two" nonsense, but the best one is "Are you thinking of leaving us?" or whatever option, which gets you straight through to a "real person."

On asking what my renewal quote would be, I was presented with a 12% increase. When I suggested that it was a bit steep, I got the usual; "All car insurance premiums have increased."
When I didn't seem happy, she asked me if I'd got any other quotes, to which I replied; "No, but now I've got yours, I can start looking." I then got a; "Just a minute, I'll see if there is anything we can do." A short wait produced a premium a couple of percent up on last year for the same cover.
I checked on line, entered all my details on the "Money supermarket" site and found that LV produced a premium lower than the original quote but higher than the revised quote.
It was third best, but not by much and the two others which were slightly lower wanted twice the excess that I have with LV.

So I'll stay with them, despite the bit of "sharp practice."

 

It's all driven by variables and depending on how you interface with the company largely determines your premium. My advice, join a car club and find out who works in the trade.:wink:

 

Car club?

You'd have me watching Top Gear next!

My romance with the car ended at eighteen when I parted with my 22 year-old Austin Seven Ruby convertible I'd bought just after my seventeenth birthday. I wore out a set of tyres, serviced it myself and I had to replace a bearing in the dynamo which cost me 1/-d.
They don't make 'em like that any more!

It revived briefly in the early eighties when I bought a new blood red Alfa Romeo Giulietta 2ltr. All aluminium twin cam engine canted at 30 degrees to get it lower. 2 twin-choke down-draught Webber carburettors, torque tube to the gearbox at the back with a de Dion back-axle. You just glided past XR3s on the motorway. You have these "I need to recapture my youth moments" don't you? But they soon pass.

The mechanics were suberb but the body rusted to buggery.

I've had 4X4 "soft roaders" for the last ten years, as they are a "convenience" the seats are at "bum height" and my wife who has MS can get in and out of 'em without banging her head.

But thanks anyway for the advice.

 

Car insurance is compulsory legalised theft. Ok, I can see the point of car insurance, but in practice it a rip off. Lets say you have a good, well maintained but ageing car and it is insured thirdparty, fire and theft. You tell the insurance company how much you think its worth, taking into account the going rate and the condition its in. Then someone crashes into you and totals it. You make a claim which turns out to be a total loss claim. The insurance company takes the value of your car, their idea being the lowest figure in the Parker's guide. They deduct your excess from that, so the amount they pay out won't buy you another car of comparable quality. Your no claims discount is affected. Ok you get that back when your insurer has finished suing the other person's insurer, but initially you're out of pocket there too. Then lets say you have paid to protect your no claims (I do). You keep your no claims BUT when you next get a quote, you still have to say yes to the question 'Have you made a claim in the last x years?', and this bumps your price up.

We are legally obliged to have at least third party cover if we drive, and because of this insurers can really milk us.

Insurance companies tell us about their costs constantly going up, but many of them are still in the FTSE 100 so they can't be struggling that much.

 

If I remember rightly, at one time you didn't have to have car insurance if you deposited £20,000 with some government agency. This was still in effect I think in the late fifties.

 

I think the same is true now, except the figure is £75,000 last I heard. Of course it may have gone up again since, and if it hasn't yet, I'm sure it will.

That's purely academic though because I guess not many people have got a spare £75k burning holes in their pockets, and if they did they could stick it in the bank and use the interest payments off it to pay for their third party cover for their motor.

 

All insurance is simple. Do not accept the quote your existing insurance company is offering you first off. Look around, get other quotes then go back to your existing company and tell them you have got a better offer. If they want to keep you, they'll try to match it (or as near as possible). If not, say thank you and move on to another company. No skin off your nose - you still get insured, they lose your money. Hardly rocket science...yet so many people stay with the same company year after year after year, which is what they bank on.

 

I think I have been lucky - my insurance is only £2 more than it was three years ago - all other things being the same. On that basis I didn't even bother to look around. Though I usually do.

But I would agree that insurers will negotiate. A couple of years ago the written quote was higher than the online quote (after removing the introductory discount) - and cheaper than all other quotes. So I rang them and the lass on the phone said she would match the lower internet quote.

 

I always do a new search every year.

Earlier this year I changed my motor. In doing so my annual premium went up by nearly £200 (pro-rata'ed for the few months I had left on the policy so not so bad). When renewal time came I got my renewal notice and went online. I phoned my old insurer to tell them not to automatically renew, and I got the usual spiel about seeing what they could do etc, and I just replied 'well you'll have to try pretty hard to be honest because I've had several quotes cheaper than yours', they said they were sure they could beat it, and then I told them that most quotes were over £100 cheaper than theirs. They eventually came back with something that made theirs only £50 more than the others, and I politely told them no thanks.

It is worth noting that the companies you speak to are rarely the actual insurers, they are just brokers, that is sales people. They are after their commission. Fair enough, we all have to earn a living, but it does mean they often don't bother to tell you things that might bring the price down.

For example, most actual insurers, when assessing risk, look at your typical annual mileage and how you will use the car. The broker will typically put you down for unlimited mileage and 'social, domestic and commuting'. That pushes the risk up significantly, as rush hour urban driving is when a significant number of bumps happen, and obviously the more miles you cover, the higher the risk (there is a formula that reckons there will be on average one fatality for every so many thousands of miles - I can't remember the figure). If you specifically tell the broker that you will only do, say 10,000 miles per year and that you don't use the car for commuting, they can usually find a cheaper deal because you are a lower risk.

For us chaps, it is also worth considering putting the missus on the same policy. Women are considered a much lower risk than men, and the insurers take this into account. I once had my policy reduced by about £100 by putting my wife on the policy as a learner (I did actually start teaching her). I'd expected the price to rise but it actually went the other way. It doesn't always work though because it seems insurers don't want a learner to drive my huge great Volvo tank, they expressed their concerns by quoting a much higher price.

 

Just having 2 potential drivers can make a positive difference. My daughter's insurance is much higher than mine BUT for some reason adding her to my policy (I am also female) brought my price down. She doesn't even live in the same place!

 

Being insured for more than one vehicle can help. I am a named driver on the car, plus an off road motorbike, then have my on insurance for the motorbike. The insurers reason that as I could potentially be drivng/riding anyone of them, then there is only a 33% chance that I will have an accident on one of them!

 

Err...

But that means there's a 66% chance of you being on one of the other two.
But that's insurance companies for you.

 

I think one of the benefits of on-line quotes is that you can experiment with getting many quotes for the same car just changing one condition at a time. That way you can understand how much difference the mileage makes, where you keep it, having other named drivers, your voluntary excess etc.

 

I agree, it also helps you to understand the concept of risk assessment much better.

You begin to understand that you are dealing with lots of companies that each have a myriad of policies all geared to insure different sets of criteria, some want women dfrivers only, some want high powered vehicles only, some want administrators and clerical staff, some want nurses, some want specific makes of cars, some want three of those but not the fourth etc etc the list goes on, and they are all statistically measured. For each tick you get a discount determined mathematically, for each cross you get a loading-again determined mathematically. When you factor in the concept of a target market you begin to understand why odd things happen to premiums, it isn't because you are an increased risk, it is because they don't want to insure your individual set of circumstances. It also reveals the reason behind different prices from what you believe to be the same company-they are the same company, it is that that particular broker does not cater to your circumstances. It is like BM says, insurance premiums are driven by a great deal of variables.

I am just glad it isn't a nationalised insurance scheme............the government (or a fate worse than death-your local council God forbid!)wouldn't enter into a lengthy discussion about why your premium has gone up by £300 this year as opposed to last year, that's your price, if you don't like it....tough!. Look at council tax. No, bad as it may be, better this way than the alternative.

 

No, they look at it as you are only driving one vehicle at a time!