motor insurance rant

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

Last year my aged 200sx was quoted at £98. I'm offered an automatic renewal this year £110 Plus £50 set-up fee!

A whole new meercat quote comes out cheapest at £90 which I'll obviously take up. But £50 for pressing a renewal button and calling it a setup fee??? Yes it would share the nuisance of chasing NCD docs etc.

It's evidently a ploy round new law preventing existing customers being soaked with higher quotes.

Pgk

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

company con merchants

[SteambuffParticipant @steambuff]

Just renewed my wifes policy … no renewal fee … £117 .. was £115 last year!

Dave

[Peter Cook 6Participant @petercook6]

My quote went up this year – a bit! But this is the first year in living memory that the cheapest quotes on the meerkat were more expensive than the renewal quote.

Every year in the past I have used the meerkat quotes to either negotiate the renewal offer down to something sensible, or swapped to a new policy.

[mark costello 1Participant @markcostello1]

Bought a piece of steel tubing $600's worth and merchant charged $24 Credit card acceptance fee. Would have bought cash if I would have known that.

[Peter Cook 6Participant @petercook6]

Credit card acceptance fees are not allowed in the UK. However over here you would have been hit with $120 worth of the dreaded VAT.

[Chris CrewParticipant @chriscrew66644]

Last year I renewed the car insurance with a broker on the Meercats for £201 having made what I thought was an honest declaration on the proposal form. Three weeks later I received an email informing me that the policy was being annulled because I had made a dishonest application. After about three hours' worth of phone calls it turned out that this was because I had informed the previous insurance company that the car had been scraped on a car park hit and run. I had not pursued a claim as I paid for the damage myself at an independent repair shop. This incident, which was no fault of mine or cost any insurance company a penny was being held against me and that if I wanted the policy to continue it would cost an additional £120. After further negotiation this was reduced to £45 which I paid because I needed insurance and could do without the hassle. This year I received the renewal price of £268. I queried this with the broker again who agreed to reduce this to last year's price which I have paid.

If the wife hadn't phoned me distressed and in tears saying that 'someone had gone into the side of the car' which had made me immediately assume she had been had been side-swiped in an accident I would not have informed the insurance company until I had seen the damage for myself. It was only when I called her back and she had calmed down that I got out out of her exactly what had happened and I realised my error and immediately called the insurance company back to withdraw the 'claim'. It cost me £500 for the repair as against a £400 insurance excess and an expected rise in premium which I am obviously still paying for.

Edited By Chris Crew on 14/06/2022 21:20:13

[larry phelan 1Participant @larryphelan1]

You should try insuring a car over here !

[Martin King 2Participant @martinking2]

Chris, " scraped on a car park hit and run "

I wonder if the insurance company misread this as "Scrapped" in error? That would explain their action?

Martin

[Kiwi BlokeParticipant @kiwibloke62605]

Relatively expensive insurance has some benefits (but not to you careful and blameless drivers). Here in primitive NZ, insurance is not compulsory, so young lads career around in high-performance cars, which may – or may not – have scraped through the MOT-equivalent examination, which is feeble in comparison to the MOT. Darwinism removes a few, but the remainder are a danger to all, and a noisy annoyance. Driving standards here are dire.

[Michael CallaghanParticipant @michaelcallaghan68621]

I lived in France for a number of years. They had two types of insurance. Within France and outside France. At the time my English insurance was £300 pa fully com. The French insurance with AXA was £80 and that was fully com full European cover. At the time motoring was a whole lot cheaper then in the U.K.

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

Just renewed my car insurance with as quoted by the insurer “a five star defaqto expert rated” insurer. Last year the premium was £244, this year £257, I have no complaints and am perfectly happy with cost which includes a discount for 13 years no claim discount, the prices are very much dependent on the area in which you live, the nearer to large city conurbations the higher premiums generally become. A strange anomaly that I have come across with some insurers, my own included, is that as a 75 year old if I insure for myself as the sole driver then the premium is higher than if my wife is also on the policy as another named driver, she is also the same age as myself. My wife still has a current driving licence but prefers to be a passenger nowadays which suits me, can anyone explain why insurance companies reduce the premium if there are two named drivers on a policy as opposed to a single driver, it doesn’t seem logical to me.

In respect of Chris and his penalty for a non claim it appears that most insurers follow the same process so it appears that if you have the misfortune to scrape your car and fund the repairs out of your own pocket telling your insurer will cost you dearly even though they are not required to fund any repairs. If not telling them then that contravenes the contract that you have taken out with your insurer depends in all probability how you interpret the complex insurance document they have given you. It is so easy with the way insurance terms are written to find yourself being accused of insurance fraud. Dave W

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

The reduced policy cost for a second driver is common but also counter intuitive to me as to how that reduces risk. I dug further on other comparison sites and chose a quote from a Co. offering 2 choices; 1st choice was £85 plus optional £39 extra for legal protection. Option 2 was £95 including legal protection!!.

I then rang current provider to cancel auto-renewal and their rep started a discussion re reducing their price. But that reduced price was still plus a setup fee. He tried giving me some flannel about comparison sites selling his insurance at a loss… I pointed out that wasn't my problem and we parted ways.

Sigh.. I have to go through all this again in 3 months for my Tesla. Getting sane quotes on that can be a challenge.

pgk

[Harry WilkesParticipant @harrywilkes58467]

My Daughter just been telling me the quote for our caravan insurance went up by £70 she phoned them and ended up paying £5 less than last year if insurance companies didn't play this silly game with renewals they could keep their own cost's down

H

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by pgk pgk on 15/06/2022 16:32:26:

The reduced policy cost for a second driver is common but also counter intuitive to me as to how that reduces risk.

pgk

When you have an accident, the second drivers premiums go up as well!

Quite a lot of the cost of insurance is due to payouts, £13.4 billion in 2017. Insurance companies don't pay for repairs, write-offs and life changing injuries: motorists do. The highest UK payout I found on the web for a motor accident is £28,000,000. To pay that, 110,000 motorists like me and Samsaranda have to drive for a year without making a claim.

Dave

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

How come second driver premium goes up…they're just a named driver. If my wife bent her car I wouldn't have seen a need for me to add that as an incident on my next renewal on one of my cars. I don't recall anything on the proposals I've just been filling in asking whether a car I'm named driver on has made a claim.

[Harry WilkesParticipant @harrywilkes58467]

Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 15/06/2022 17:00:28:

Posted by pgk pgk on 15/06/2022 16:32:26:

The reduced policy cost for a second driver is common but also counter intuitive to me as to how that reduces risk.

pgk

When you have an accident, the second drivers premiums go up as well!

Quite a lot of the cost of insurance is due to payouts, £13.4 billion in 2017. Insurance companies don't pay for repairs, write-offs and life changing injuries: motorists do. The highest UK payout I found on the web for a motor accident is £28,000,000. To pay that, 110,000 motorists like me and Samsaranda have to drive for a year without making a claim.

Dave

£13.4 billion in 2017 how much in 2019 ?

H

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by pgk pgk on 15/06/2022 17:21:36:

How come second driver premium goes up…they're just a named driver. If my wife bent her car I wouldn't have seen a need for me to add that as an incident on my next renewal on one of my cars. I don't recall anything on the proposals I've just been filling in asking whether a car I'm named driver on has made a claim.

You don't need to. Insurance companies share information and know who is covered, policy holders and named drivers. Not difficult or expensive to do, connected computers, not the ledgers and letters that made insurance fraud worth a punt when I was a sprog!

Anyone who has a named driver on their policy and fancies the experiment is welcome to make a claim and see what happens when everyone's premiums are renewed.

Harry: sorry, don't know about 2019. 2017 figures are the most recent I could find.

Dave

Dave

[SteambuffParticipant @steambuff]

Posted by pgk pgk on 15/06/2022 17:21:36:

How come second driver premium goes up…they're just a named driver. If my wife bent her car I wouldn't have seen a need for me to add that as an incident on my next renewal on one of my cars. I don't recall anything on the proposals I've just been filling in asking whether a car I'm named driver on has made a claim.

If your wife had an accident or claim on her car, you would have to declare that on your policy if she is a named driver … under the second driver details it asks if the 2nd driver had had any accidents or claims (It has on every policy I have had)… so your policy quote would go up!

[AJAXParticipant @ajax]

Received a renewal reminder from RAC Car Insurance this week.

Last year's total = £115.25

Renewal price = £213.39 !!!!!!!!!

I tried to cancel online but was unable to do so. You can renew online (with no interaction) but to cancel you have to contact a customer representative.

I've changed insurer.

Zenith Insurance. Fully comprehensive. £0 voluntary excess. £109.54

[AJAXParticipant @ajax]

This might be of interest

https://www.freemotorlegal.co.uk/

 

Edited By AJAX on 15/06/2022 22:10:58

[CalumParticipant @calumgalleitch87969]

> if insurance companies didn't play this silly game with renewals they could keep their own cost's down

Insurance is an odd business where the normal rules of competition don't quite apply in the same way. Renewals are a good illustration of this dynamic.

Year 1: insurers A, B, and C all charge about the same and all have about a third of the market.

Year 2: insurer A increases renewal prices. Some customers stay and some leave. Because A's old customers are paying more, new customers can be charged less.

Year 3: B and C have a problem. If they stick to their old method, they are now more expensive than A for new customers. In addition, their old customers are eyeing up A and thinking about switching.

Year 4: all three insurers are now charging low prices to new customers and high prices to old customers. No one company can stop doing this alone or they will get no new business.

In fact this dynamic applies to almost every feature of an insurance policy. I am sure a few readers here remember when insurers started introducing smoking and non-smoking rates and how quickly the whole industry adopted them: they had to, otherwise they were too expensive for non-smokers, and therefore ended up with only smokers – who of course claim more.

The only solution to these dynamics is mutual agreement, which isn't permitted under competition law, or government or regulatory diktat, as with the abolition of gendered pricing or last year's imposition of renewal pricing rules.

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

I thought this had been banned, they have to offer same price to ne and existing. How you'd police this is interesting, but I suppose some 'secret shopper' scheme could by set up.

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

If you lot are griping about a few hundred quid you should try living inside the M25. I thought this thread was going to be about the rip off of nobody driving anywhere during lockdown and yet paying more.

And on the subject of insurance in general all the ME clubs that didn't do any public running or other insured activity yet still didn't get a rebate. My men's shed got a whole 2 months free after not meeting or doing anything for six months.

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

My Tesla's insurance renewal is coming up. Last year it was £401 with LV. Their quote through the post was £502. An online comparison site gave me assorted cheaper quotes including one from LV for £398. Second cheapest was from the RAC @ £319 – underwritten by LV. Fiddling with figures for 'extras' ended up with £337 but also a reduction in voluntary excess from £500 to £250 with a promise from the comparison site to give me £250 towrads that if i had to claim.

The combinations of continually having to check comparison sites and those Co's not on them for every utility and insurance as well as the time wasted listening to phone calls listening all the disclaimers and options for button pressing and then being held in interminable queues if you need to speak to utilities, banks, insurers, doctors and others probably explains why this country is low on productivity scales.

My wife has been trying to register some trusts via the gov website. So far 5 days of sessions of over an hour each have failed. She starts through Gov gateway then onto the second gateway entering data to get automatic call-back phone confirmations that it’s her. Then finally starts to make the appropriate trust entries to find either the site times out while she’s still entering stuff or puts itself into a continuous loop of 'processing'..

Emails to the help desk came back with 'site is busy' then next time 'we have a problem' followed by the problem is resolved, followed by other error messages but no-one to actually talk to to resolve the thing. A complete waste of time. Currently, we get data mismatch errors probably due to the site's previous corruptions of attempted entries.

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