Few people outside (and many inside) the insurance industry understand how it works. I have been reading a post on here saying that an LGV driver might be charged £300 extra while others report no difference. Go to any comparison site and you will see huge variations between insurers for any given set of circumstances and you may wonder why this is so, when all of them are basically providing the same product.
An insurer takes premiums from a large number of people and uses the money to pay their own costs and the cost of any claims. What’s left is profit. If they charge too much they will lose business — too little and they will go bust. They are highly regulated to ensure that they have enough money to pay out their potential liabilities at all times.
Insurance is a sophisticated business. Insurers use people called actuaries, who make assessments of risks and probabilities based on an analysis of past events. This means that they look closely at all kinds of things that can affect their risk so that they can balance the premium against the potential liability. The list of things is long and explains why they want to know everything from your mother’s maiden name to your inside leg measurement before they will give you a quote. Your post code is crucial as is the car, your age and how you earn a living. This is because they know from past experience that some places have higher crime than others and some professions and young people have more accidents.
There is another factor though that they take into account and that is their own balance of risk. They want a good spread of different risks so; if they have too many 40-year-old truck drivers, they will put the premiums up for that group, and if they are short of 18-year-old students they may well have a special offer for them and this balance changes daily. This can mean that the quote you get today could well be different to the one you get from the same company tomorrow with the same details
For all of us the solution is to use the comparison sites (and the insurers who don’t use them) every year at renewal time. There is no advantage in being loyal as NCB’s can be transferred. If you can pay annually then do so as they charge extra for monthly premiums. When you do the comparison then try changing the parameters like the excess, adding the wife as a driver, taking off your teenage son, parking in the drive instead of the road, limiting the mileage — the list goes on but you may be surprised at the difference these things make. Also make sure that you aren’t paying for extras that you don’t need like breakdown insurance.
One point on the excess: I have mine set at £500 which is the highest allowed — If there is no 3rd party I am not going to claim for minor damage anyway since it would put my premium up (for a £500 claim they would probably write the car off anyway). If a 3rd party is involved I still won’t have to pay if I don’t claim for my own damage and I must have saved many times that over the years. It is fully comp’ though because that gives me the legal clout to recover my costs if I am the innocent victim.
Also, don’t assume that Third Party, Fire & Theft insurance is cheaper than Comprehensive. When I renewed my insurance this year, TPF&T was more expensive than Comprehensive. Go figure…
MrFlibble:
Also, don’t assume that Third Party, Fire & Theft insurance is cheaper than Comprehensive. When I renewed my insurance this year, TPF&T was more expensive than Comprehensive. Go figure…
Yeah i found that as well. Also if i add my missus (she has her own car) the premium goes down, take her off - price goes up. Strange.
the reason why the premiums go down when u add ur wife on is that they think that ur a responsible person!! im 24year old and my premium went down by nearly £300 for my evo just by adding my wife, shes still not allowed to drive it tho!!
Does anyone here use small brokers for their insurance?
I’m bored of driving round in a 1.1 hatchback just because I’m too “young” (Despite driving more each year than the average person will drive in 10 years)
Do brokers really have the know how to cut your premiums? do they charge a lot on top for their services?
For example my current policy is £900 a year for a 1.1 group 2, 3 year old Hatchback in a very good community, always garaged, thatcham approved and fitted alarm, 10,000 miles a year, me only driver - 23 yrs and single, no points and 6yrs with no claims.
Could a broker cut that down enough without his fee topping it back up again do you think?
Scarab:
Does anyone here use small brokers for their insurance?
I’m bored of driving round in a 1.1 hatchback just because I’m too “young” (Despite driving more each year than the average person will drive in 10 years)
Do brokers really have the know how to cut your premiums? do they charge a lot on top for their services?
For example my current policy is £900 a year for a 1.1 group 2, 3 year old Hatchback in a very good community, always garaged, thatcham approved and fitted alarm, 10,000 miles a year, me only driver - 23 yrs and single, no points and 6yrs with no claims.
Could a broker cut that down enough without his fee topping it back up again do you think?
Alex
i used to get insured for a mini that didn’t exist,but covered to drive any vehicle not in my name. So all the cars i had were in my brothers name, and all the cars he had were in my name…easy.
limeyphil that is illegal to do as the car that you own which is in your brothers name has to be insured too…and vice versa. In a nutshell any car that you drive that doesn’t belong to you has to be insured too by the owner of that vehicle.
Scarab:
For example my current policy is £900 a year for a 1.1 group 2, 3 year old Hatchback in a very good community, always garaged, thatcham approved and fitted alarm, 10,000 miles a year, me only driver - 23 yrs and single, no points and 6yrs with no claims.
That’s awful, get yourself a copy of Autotrader, or (and I know it sounds bad) Max Power, a car magazine of somesort and ring every company in the insurance section in the back. With those details I find it hard to believe you should be paying anything more than about £250 tpft.
Scarab:
Does anyone here use small brokers for their insurance?
I’m bored of driving round in a 1.1 hatchback just because I’m too “young” (Despite driving more each year than the average person will drive in 10 years)
Do brokers really have the know how to cut your premiums? do they charge a lot on top for their services?
For example my current policy is £900 a year for a 1.1 group 2, 3 year old Hatchback in a very good community, always garaged, thatcham approved and fitted alarm, 10,000 miles a year, me only driver - 23 yrs and single, no points and 6yrs with no claims.
Could a broker cut that down enough without his fee topping it back up again do you think?
Alex
soon as you hit 25 your insurance will half why i dont no
xjrv8:
limeyphil that is illegal to do as the car that you own which is in your brothers name has to be insured too…and vice versa. In a nutshell any car that you drive that doesn’t belong to you has to be insured too by the owner of that vehicle.
I take it he was talking about years ago, since you can’t insure a fictious car these days since they are all on a database and you wouldnt get insurance.
Years ago i don’t think the car needed to be insured to drive it, as long as you had fully comp insurance. These days they state the car must be insured.
When i was about 18 i had a VW Beetle 1971 model, was restoring it, fully comp insurance was dirt cheap for it because it was considered a classic vehicle.
But i also had a Capri 2.8 V6 which i put in my bosses name and used to drive.
Being 18 and driving a Capri got pulled by the police a few times and never any problems.
Scarab:
Does anyone here use small brokers for their insurance?
I’m bored of driving round in a 1.1 hatchback just because I’m too “young” (Despite driving more each year than the average person will drive in 10 years)
Do brokers really have the know how to cut your premiums? do they charge a lot on top for their services?
For example my current policy is £900 a year for a 1.1 group 2, 3 year old Hatchback in a very good community, always garaged, thatcham approved and fitted alarm, 10,000 miles a year, me only driver - 23 yrs and single, no points and 6yrs with no claims.
Could a broker cut that down enough without his fee topping it back up again do you think?
Alex
Thats really expensive, when i was about 24 was driving a VW Golf GTi was about £300 fully comp. What you need to do is get on to sites like confused.com and get the cheapest prices.
For my Clio RSi just now on confused.com prices vary from £180 fully comp to £1000 fully comp !
If you can’t get lower prices on confused.com gonna need to them spend some time on the phone. All these places are brokers and will ask you what your lowest quote so far was BS it a bit and can find you maybe knock a lot of the policy.
Failing that tell them your a shop worker, get a limited milegage policy and disconnect the speedo
Both of those are with an excess of £500!
I swear all industries and government hates males, unless they are over 30…
and to say I’m employed as a “professional driver” you’d think I might as well be a chav in a saxo who spends his evening running down old grannies who are feeding soup to tramps.
Sigh! only another two years to wait
Alex
P.S, on a good note, at least confused saved me £12 a year on my current quote, thanks guys!
xjrv8:
limeyphil that is illegal to do as the car that you own which is in your brothers name has to be insured too…and vice versa. In a nutshell any car that you drive that doesn’t belong to you has to be insured too by the owner of that vehicle.
not true.
i do this kind of stuff all the time.
i was pulled in a mates car 2 weeks ago,
he’s abroad, it was taxed and MOT’d before he left about 6 months ago, but the insurance ran out while he’s been away.
i showed my own insurance docs and was allowed on my way.
he was on his way home and i was moving it from storage to his drive ready for when he got there.
i also move cars around for a mate who deals in motors, ie taking them to and from MOT, auctions etc
always on my own insurance, never had a problem,
if you’re driving another car other than your own you’ve got third party cover, why would it need extra cover?
Scarab:
Does anyone here use small brokers for their insurance?
I’m bored of driving round in a 1.1 hatchback just because I’m too “young” (Despite driving more each year than the average person will drive in 10 years)
Do brokers really have the know how to cut your premiums? do they charge a lot on top for their services?
For example my current policy is £900 a year for a 1.1 group 2, 3 year old Hatchback in a very good community, always garaged, thatcham approved and fitted alarm, 10,000 miles a year, me only driver - 23 yrs and single, no points and 6yrs with no claims.
Could a broker cut that down enough without his fee topping it back up again do you think?
how much!! i only paid £380 fully comp for a 57 plate focus st with £2000 worth of go faster add ons {all declared btw}, i use adrian flux, specialists in perfomance car/ hot hatch motors but then i,m an old pensioner of 40yrs old
biggusdickusgb:
if you’re driving another car other than your own you’ve got third party cover
Nowadays it’s worth checking your policy to ensure this is included as some insurance companies have started to remove it.
I’ve taken advantage of Driving Other Vehicles cover on my insurance policies in the past. It’s certainly a rarer thing now.
Years ago you could get taxed up by producing some insurance. (I can say for certain it was possible in 1997). For quite a while now they like to see a registration number on the documents.
I blame the government… So much extra motoring paperwork to do (SORN, etc) and they still don’t get the folk they’re meant to catch.
Both of those are with an excess of £500!
I swear all industries and government hates males, unless they are over 30…
and to say I’m employed as a “professional driver” you’d think I might as well be a chav in a saxo who spends his evening running down old grannies who are feeding soup to tramps.
Sigh! only another two years to wait
Alex
P.S, on a good note, at least confused saved me £12 a year on my current
quote, thanks guys!
put in on the details that ur married, how are they to know!!!
So much extra motoring paperwork to do (SORN, etc) and they still don’t get the folk they’re meant to catch.