Oddities of car insurance

[Conor]

Can't sleep, so here we go..

I'll start..

* Some cars tend to be unexplainably high to ensure, versus something more exotic. For example, a BMW M2 cheaper than a Lotus and an "80k Porsche GT4" (According to Driving Bex). Probably due to the fact that there is a demand for broken down M2s (for parts) as there are more on the roads than the "exotics".

* It's sometimes cheaper to insure your car that is stored outside than in an a garage. Supposedly there are a significant amount of claims from people who can't drive damaging the car while driving into garage.

* Some people might not realise, but postcodes make a huge difference, there are ratings for each Postcode, which will directly affect your premium.

Interested to hear what other people have discovered..

 

[Blobcat]

Don’t be young
Don’t be too old
Be married or cohabiting
Have kids
Own a house

All of the above will reduce your premium

Having a advanced qualification and not living on schibber strass will also help

 

[Conor]

Don’t be young
Don’t be too old
Be married or cohabiting
Have kids
Own a house

All of the above will reduce your premium

Having a advanced qualification and not living on schibber strass will also help

I just about fall inside 1 and 2 .. the rest is a bust.. All in though my premiums aren't brutal for an SW Postcode..

 

[M80]

Don't have any short curlies they can grab you by.

 

[peterws1957]

I just about fall inside 1 and 2 .. the rest is a bust.. All in though my premiums aren't brutal for an SW Postcode..

There's not much clarity in car insurance and how premiums are calculated. Every underwriter will have different criteria and there are so many involved in the market, so anomalies are inevitable. Even if you speak to a call centre (usually always an intermediary) , they will have no idea how the premium has been arrived at (computer says). Going back decades only a few criteria were used and rates were set by the Motor Insurers Bureau so that largely the premium would be the same between Insurers. Couldn't happen now of course and most are left wondering how the hell a silly price has been arrived at.

 

[LostKiwi]

Don't wait till last minute to buy. Buying a month ahead will see lower premiums.

 

[grahamcol]

I've never been able to understand why my premium rocketed after changing from a W202 C280 to my current W209 CLK220 CDI coupe. There isn't a vast difference in insurance groups between the cars and the CLK is actually slower in performance terms. Maybe the repair costs of the CLK are higher ? Mind you the actual value of the CLK is around the same as the C280 was when l first insured it and l don't think the value has that much effect in the greater scheme of things, if it did the premium would surely become lower as the car depreciates. Some hope of that !

 

[malcolm E53 AMG]

Even going direct to an insurers own website for a quote doesn’t mean you will get it cheaper. My insurance on the MB ends next week as as Alistair above I sorted out 3 weeks ago, renewal from DL was £345, online quote using Aviva’s own website was £340 and surprise surprise Aviva’s quote through Compared.com was £240 - go figure!!!
So be proactive it’s a bit of a ritual but you’ll never be on better pay per hour

 

[A.J.]

I have just done a Moneysupermarket scan on a 2018 SLC200 I am wanting to buy. The lowest quote has turned out £73 cheaper than my current 2017 C200 AMG Line Premium, plus we are moving to central Norwich rather than rural Suffolk How on earth does that demonstrate any logic ?

 

[Ron240]

I am in a B rated postcode area, so pretty good.

 

[sausage]

Yep, I am becoming more convinced it is increasingly used to besmurge a load of cobblers behind smoke and mirrors, to obfuscate any ability to fathom what metric causes such insane variances. I have seen many non-sensical examples that almost nothing I see from insurers stands up to scrutiny anymore.

In the age of transparency we ought to be allowed to see the metrics and multipliers used each year so we could see which metric suddenly resulted in a doubling of a premium despite a year more NCB. Now, before someone jumps down my throat, I accept the equations used are IP and therefore should be kept secret, but the metrics are almost certainly used across most insurers so they would be giving away no trade secrets by just lising something like this:

2020
Criteria || Weighting || Cost factor
Age || 3 || £20
Location || 4 || £80

2021
Criteria || Weighting || Cost factor
Age || 3 || £20
Location || 99999999 || £999999999999999999999999999999999

This way transparency would be enabled without giving away trade secrets. However it would shine a light on to the utter bollocks these crooks levy at us every single year.
In reality we would probably see something like this:

2022
Criteria || Weighting || Cost factor
Age || 3 || £20
Location || 4 || £80
Home working || 999 || £500


And....
Whoever it was that was responsible for the govt initiated investigation into the UK motor insurance industry made some extremely damning conclusions about the 'suspect but barely legal' practices. The report was astonishing, but through post sub-prime cost cutting the govt department responsible was shut down, and the CMA took over and as a result the report just gathers dust rather than being used to address some wildly unfair practices that the report highlighted and concluded needed to be addressed.

Depatches on Channel 4 concluded that a similar finding, my favorite quote: "Borderline criminal activity widespread throughout the the entire industry ripping the public off to the tune of £200m a year in unnecessary costs"

A thoroughly disgusting industry that needs to be destroyed and replaced by something fair.

My cleaner used to live in Portugal and she said that for 200 euros absolutely everyone she gave permission to could driver her Focus ST regardless of whether they were a new young driver or her neighbors gran. The thing that is relevant here is that most euro insurance is done by the same multi nationals, so we are all paying the same companies for similar services but some pay many multiples more and some countries administrations allow for a much more exploitative basis for car insurance.

They are all doing material damage to the people they are supposed to help, along with journalists, bankers and politicians. Why have we created a world in which almost everything we "have" to do is now so appallingly painful for humans?

 

[Paul Garrett]

It is amazing how much drivers get ripped off in this country!
My Polish wife's cousins daughter in law in Poland is 23 and her first car was a 2.0ltr diesel ....i think? Only a few years old and she a first time driver.....cost of a full policy??.....£200!!! Yes thats right not thousands that would be paid here, and her husband pays even less as been driving longer.....just a licence to print money over here and make up all kinds of silly pathetic dictat rules to hammer drivers with so have an excuse to charge more! Welcome to rip off britain...

 

[s5tuart]

My friend moved 150 metres up the road recently. Her insurance wanted an extra £200!!!!!

 

[Paul Garrett]

My friend moved 150 metres up the road recently. Her insurance wanted an extra £200!!!!!

How come im not surprised!!

 

[monty1]

also other oddities, i never put a voluntary excess into our policys and it makes very little difference to the cost, usually around £20 more on the policy, were also guilty of not claiming on the policy for fear of the premiums going up, ive never had a claim but would do so no matter what, its what we pay it for, theres thousands of cars on the roads with significant damage due to accidents that should of been repaired by the insurance but havent been because of the FEAR of increased premiums

 

[Srdl]

Rather than start yet another insurance thread, I thought I would give an update on my renewal with LV here. From a last year's equivalent of £431, the renewal quote had increased to £516. I phoned today to make a couple of small detail changes, which didn’t affect the premium, and he asked whether I wanted to renew, there and then. I said no and that I was going to shop around because it had increased a lot. Surprise, surprise, he was suddenly able to add a discount and the premium dropped to £484. So I accepted that and renewed. Last time I looked around, nothing much beat LV, other than some names I hadn’t heard of, and I haven’t really got the time at the moment to do a lot of research.

However, it is really annoying that they can offer a discount, without being asked, just like that rather than giving me their best figure on the renewal offer and I told him so.

 

[EmilysDad]

...... Last time I looked around, nothing much beat LV, other than some names I hadn’t heard of, and I haven’t really got the time at the moment to do a lot of research.

.....

Our cars had been insured with LV for a few years but I went with Direct Line last years as LV had slowly but surely increased their premium.

 

[turbopete]

I am in a B rated postcode area, so pretty good.

i moved from an A postcode to a C postcode. the cost difference? £0. not a single pound. also changed from higher insurance group to lower insurance group, then later back to higher insurance group and the cost difference? sod all. if there was a difference it was a couple of quid at best. oddly once my car got to 10 years old (or id had it over 5 years, one or the other) my premiums DROPPED from around £350 to £220/230!

 

[turbopete]

also other oddities, i never put a voluntary excess into our policys and it makes very little difference to the cost, usually around £20 more on the policy, were also guilty of not claiming on the policy for fear of the premiums going up, ive never had a claim but would do so no matter what, its what we pay it for, theres thousands of cars on the roads with significant damage due to accidents that should of been repaired by the insurance but havent been because of the FEAR of increased premiums

increased premiums ARE a thing. my childrens mother had a non fault claim on her policy which was old enough to come off the policy at its last renewal. her premium DROPPED by £70 JUST because of that. i know because when i got the original quote i got the date of the non fault claim wrong by a year, so got the quote amended before going ahead!

 

[Paul Garrett]

I paid £200 for my insurance for the beast through Hastings Direct premium, should be interesting what figure they come up with this year? If cheaper than result! If higher then a phone call and a good haggle will get me what i want