I detest motor insurance with a vengeance. It is a licence to print money and backed by the weight of law, we, the so-called customers are stuck with whatever we are faced with.
Using the comparison sites, I managed to get my bike insurance down to a reasonable £64 last January. Since then, however, I have re-qualified as a motorcycle instructor. As I will be using the bike for business purposes – albeit for one or two days a week – I have no option but to inform the broker and take the hit.
The current underwriter won’t insure me. This, despite the risk difference being negligible. Bear in mind that a riding instructor has demonstrated a higher level than average of riding ability so is a lower risk. I am told by the broker that the best they can do is £148 – double my original premium. Because, I am told the risk has increased.
No it has not! I live in the real world, I am aware that the risk involves following learner riders at a distance while giving instruction over the radio. The risk is negligible. It is still me, still the same bike and much of the riding is on urban roads at relatively low speeds – given that most of my training is CBT – the first half of which is carried out with my bike parked up.
If I cancel and stay with the same broker, the cancellation fee is £16. if I cancel and try my luck elsewhere, I have to pay a cancellation fee of £66. Yes, more than the original premium.
A quick GoCompare gives me a premium elsewhere of £71. Cancelling and moving saves me a few quid, so I stuck with it for this year, not least because I abhor the thought of paying for a service I won’t be receiving. Next year, I will do as I did last January following being ripped off over the foreign plates debacle. I’ll take my business to the lowest bidder. My broker was left in no doubt about my opinion regarding the insurer’s view of risk and that the whole thing was a rip-off.
I guess my displeasure had one positive effect – they threw in the legal insurance for nowt. They asked if I wanted it, I said “no” and they said “that’s okay, we’ll give it to you as a goodwill gesture”. If I’d said “yes” it would have cost me £30.
It’s not just car insurance – it’s all insurance.
A couple of years ago (after 4 years of nagging) my house insurer agreed we had a case of subsidence and coughed up a lot to deal with it. The following year my buildings insurance premium and the excess were doubled. When I questioned this on the basis that having fixed the problem it was very unlikely to recur (at least in the next 20 years) and thus the risk was significantly reduced (unlike the premium), the underwriter said that statistics “proved” that fixing subsidence made future subsidence more not less likely (in the same way – I replied – that fixing a leaking roof means it’s more likely to leak in future). He was not amused and basically said “like it or lump it – now go away I’ve got better things to do than argue with a punter”.
Of course “special” conditions (= doubling of normal excess) attaching to a policy means that no other insurer will contemplate taking my buildings insurance on. So I’m stuck with my present insurer at any future premium it cares to charge. In a fine example of “producer capture” my complaint to the FS ombudsman resulted finally in a “f*** off muggins – that’s the way the insurance market works – get used to it!” response.
At least I can take my business elsewhere next year and bring the premium back down to what it should be. It does seem to be that any mid-term changes are an opportunity to profiteer, knowing that you are stuck unlike at the end of the term when everyone is vying for your business.
All I can say is be thankful that you are no longer a spring chicken – at least in the eyes of the insurers.
I am absolutely dreading young Saddam starting to drive in another 16 years or so – he’ll need a mortgage to get third party only on a Morris Minor with a tracker and 25mph speed limiter fitted.
As I have said before, they are thieves, especially with regard to younger drivers and deserve to go to jail for the prices they are charging.
Quite so. What really pisses me off is the standard excuse that every change is an increased risk when this is patently absurd. if I’d contacted them to advise that I had taken and passed an advanced training course, they would have trotted out the same line.
What I’d like to see is the accident statistics that tell us categorically that motorcycle instructors are falling off their bikes more than the average punter – then I’d take the excuse with more than a pinch of salt.
The same applies to younger drivers. If Saddam was a girl, you could reckon on halving his premium – although that will be well gone by the time he is ready. But at the moment, an unknown risk is based purely on such subjective assessment. Doesn’t matter how well you performed during your driving lessons and test, you are a higher risk because the insurers say so and the money they charge is outrageous, frankly.
Yup, black boxes here we come.
All part of the drip drip drip LR. Get them used to it young so that they don’t no anything different than constant surveillence.
Apologies for the crap spelling. 5:30am is my pitiful excuse.
Apropos of young Saddam our rulers in Brussels (or Strasbourg) have ruled that insurers – despite the statistics – can no longer differentiate between men and women in calculating motor insurance premiums. Accordingly, Saddam might need a mortgage but so will young Aminah.
I don’t have a big problem with the essence of the rule Umbongo. What I do have a problem with is the fact (that should have been glaringly bloody obvious to those that made the rule) that the insurance thieves would not simply lower male premiums a bit and increase female premiums a bit, but use it as an excuse to steal even more by just increasing female premiums in line with those of males.
The thieving bastards must have been rolling around on the floor pissing in the air with joy when that one came out.
Although I’ve little time for the insurance companies, I suspect this is an aspect of arithmetic and statistics. If you take the variation in risk due to gender out of the statistics it’s possible that the overall risk actually increases or, rather, the statistics on which the insurance companies calculate their premiums wrongly indicate that. Why? Because the statistics themselves are skewed by the removal of a pertinent factor and thus the risk profiles in the artificial non-gender world are different from those in the real world.
This is not to say that Saddam and Aminah are not both being screwed by the insurance companies. However, it’s quite ludicrous that a pertinent aspect of risk has been removed from consideration because some jobsworth considers that recognising the reality of different behaviour due to gender is, in some way, discriminatory.
I am told the risk has increased.
No it has not!
So glad I’m on a pushbike. The nazis were in uniform in the carpark today, watching me, wondering how they could charge me for something.
I just paid £68 for two days insurance for my motorcycle, I had the temerity to assume that the two years no claims bonus I’d built up on my old BMW could be used on another policy.
Turns out you can’t, since I still had an active policy on the BMW, I couldn’t then use the same 2 years NCB on my TDM. Its funny though because it didn’t occur to me that because all the experience I’d built up over the last couple of years and the resultant safety I could deploy would be rendered useless as soon as I sat on a bike that wasn’t that specific BMW.
Cunningly, the claim I made for my stolen KTM four years ago is fully transferable between policies.
For what its worth, the insurers were Swinton Bikes, I’ve used them before and they were shite, I should have know better. They quoted £98 with the NCB, without it, the premium went up to £530. They asked if ‘I wanted to continue?’
Mmm, let me think…
I posted a rant on facebook (its what its for, some people think its about social networking, it isn’t.) I deployed the C word such was my unhappyness. Insurance is basically demanding money with menaces, people who designed and profited from the current system should be shot in the face.
😉
Swinton Bikes here, too. Not next year, though.