Insurance Time Again
 

Afternoon all,

I hate this time of year, when the dreaded car insurance comes up for renewal. Cutting a long story short, I've had a bit of a nightmare trying to get a decent quote for my 2016 STi. Maybe I was lucky last year, I managed to get the car insured with Elephant for £420 with 13 years no claims, no accidents/convictions, 10k miles per year, legal cover/personal accident/courtesy car etc etc and a £350 total excess.

My renewal landed in my email inbox last week, for which they wanted £589 to renew. After a phone call they offered me a discount which reduced the premium to £490, but I still wasn't happy. Aviva came in competitive at £450 with similar cover, although because of the the type of the car (according to them!), they enforced a £500 "additional excess" on top of the voluntary excess of £150, so the excess came in at £650. So be careful if you insure with Aviva, and check the small print for this, because it isn't immediately obvious.

I've read the threads on here regarding Keith Michaels Insurance, and after a phone call to them, they quoted between £700 and £800 to insure the car! In the end I opted for a broker AIB Insurance, who came in at £448 with a £500 total excess, which was a bit higher than I wanted, but I admitted defeat there and bought the policy.

So if you're looking for an insurance policy this year it's worth giving them a call!

Unfortunately car insurance is on the rise and quite steep one at that.

I agree, however I was amazed that my existing insurance company sent my renewal through at £168 higher, then offered to take almost £100 off when I threatened to leave! Standard practice I know, but never had a renewal come through that high before!

Is it? I thought they were capping whiplash claims, and that would lead to a decline in premiums....

Sure Moley will be along soon to offer his wisdom ;)

I think that the insurance premium tax has increased

Who did you speak to at Keith Michaels?

You need to speak to Gary Moulson. :ok:

Mine went down

Prob know I never drive it

Yep that's the fella.

PI claims are as high as ever unfortunately. Hire car changes are through the roof, repair costs higher, insurance tax increased, and more thefts.

Specialist schemes (i.e. most of our Subaru stuff) is pretty much unaffected as we use a completely different way of underwriting them, but 'normal' polices are increasingly quite a bit.

We have noticed a high frequency in claims around the North West of England, so we are monitoring that closely.

And if you have a Range Rover in London brace yourself!

I'm 29 all mods declared 600 fully comp for the year with green light

What a ballache. Too many people in this country intent on ripping off the system instead of being decent human beings. Guess the most annoying part is that the system appears to let them do it easily enough! :angst:

Very frustrating, needs the law to change properly.

In France (for example) 3% of people involved in accidents claim PI, in the UK it's over 80% (86% I think).

Should be fun in two month when I have three motors to insure :-(

That's just nuts... I guess France doesn't have an entire industry based on ambulance chasing solicitors like the UK?

It's worse than that, it's encouraged!

I had an accident that wasn't my fault eight years ago. It wrote off my car, I spent an evening getting checked in A&E as a precaution and took the next day off work to check my back was okay. The way I was hit jarred my back, so I was advised to be cautious.

Anyway, that was it and after that day's rest it was clear I was fine, so I went to work the next day, my insurance paid out on the car and recovered from the party at fault. All done and dusted.

Only it wasn't done and dusted as I was then harassed, and still am, by utter gutter snipes trying to get me to claim for personal injury.

As you'll recall from the above, I suffered none and had a day off work (paid) as a precaution.

One of them really got on my nerves, so I thought '**** it, I'll go into the full facts'. I explained that I suffered no loss whatsoever, so there was absolutely nothing I could be compensated for.

The woman said, "that's not how compensation works". And that, in a nutshell, is the problem. People are really convinced that they're entitled to some cash even though they've lost nothing.

I went on to explain to the woman that people claiming in this way pushed up premiums, to which she assured me my premium would be unaffected... truly idiotic and with no understanding of how the industry works and what a parasitic practice she was engaged in.

I'm a very honest and strong willed person. However, I can understand why people become convinced they're entitled, even if they didn't initially pursue a claim, when constantly called and told that they are. Then there's those who are on the make at the outset.

A guy I work with was perplexed at why I didn't make a claim. He explained it could fund a holiday and that everyone does it... he'd made several claims. Think he regretted that when I humiliated him in front of our colleagues for being a fraudulent twat!

Sorry... got a bit carried away there...!

A colleague had a rear end shunt and was fine but he and his wife claimed and had a very nice holiday with the proceeds. When I said don't you realise we all pay for this,he just shrugged his shoulders and said "It had to be done ". :splat:

I didn't claim for any injuries when I was rear ended a couple of years ago, it was bad enough that despite the 3rd party accepting liability and their insurance paying out immediately my premium still went up the following year.

I can side with you on that. A few years back I was hit on a roundabout, third party admitted liability and their insurance paid out. The following year when it came to reinsure, I obviously had to declare the accident where the third party was at fault. My premium went up. Then I done a quote without declaring the accident, and it came down!