General insurance grief

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General insurance grief

jerry2

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May 30, 2013
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Cannot find anyone to insure my son on my Terra. He's either too young needs to be over 21 or they don't insure camper vans, or it's too low a value £1k.
He already has his own insurance on a much more powerful sporty car but cannot get insured on this either as a named driver or with his own policy.
Have tried many specialist insurers and comparison sites but comes back as a £2k policy in our name with him as a named driver
 
if its his first year if driving, it sounds about right.. my brother had a Seat Marbella as his first car back in 2013-14, but the insurance cost him well over £3000. he was at the time 17.

my first on the road car was a bright pink fiat cinquecento SX 899cc
i took my test in april 2011.. i was 23 at the time and my insurance was £1645.

insurance is just insanely high for early/new drivers.

an elderly driver i know had a string of bad luck, his car was rear ended at traffic lights because of a driver texting.. then in the same year had 3 hit and run car park dings (where he parked his car in a disabled spot, went into the shop only to come back to find the bumper or wing hanging off)

his insurance quote went up to a whopping £5000.. literately driving him off the road.. none of it his fault but he was penalised for it.

take it from me who has just been stung by the cost of insurance.. its nothing but a money making game.
 
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if its his first year if driving, it sounds about right.. my brother had a Seat Marbella as his first car back in 2013-14, but the insurance cost him well over £3000. he was at the time 17.

my first on the road car was a bright pink fiat cinquecento SX 899cc
i took my test in april 2011.. i was 23 at the time and my insurance was £1645.

insurance is just insanely high for early/new drivers.

an elderly driver i know had a string of bad luck, his car was rear ended at traffic lights because of a driver texting.. then in the same year had 3 hit and run car park dings (where he parked his car in a disabled spot, went into the shop only to come back to find the bumper or wing hanging off)

his insurance quote went up to a whopping £5000.. literately driving him off the road.. none of it his fault but he was penalised for it.

take it from me who has just been stung by the cost of insurance.. its nothing but a money making game.

That is a great advert for protecting your NCD John! Of course your insurance still goes up as you're a "higher risk" following the accident which wasn't your fault - you get the same NCD but off of a higher figure - as someone who had that (uninsured cyclist did £1800 damage to my Coupe a few years ago! Everyone agreed it wasn't my fault, but a fault claim as there was no one to claim from - the little ******* was 16), I tend to agree with that last statement.... :mad:
 
i cant protect my NCD :( you need 4 years or more.
my mum (who was helping me find a cheap quote) filled in my details on a website, but forgot to add the 3 years NCD. the quote she got back was just shy of £2000. for me, as i am now with 3 years of driving if i had 0 no claims.

to me that is wrong in so many ways. i wonder if there will ever be laws passed making it so insurance companies cant charge totally unrealistic prices.

for new drivers i think what should be put forward is a car that say is completely limited with something like a 1000cc engine and under..say 60hp that is insurable for dead on £1000 for the first year. just to give young drivers the little help they need to get on the road.


my brother had a real hard time trying to get insurance for the car my dad left us. a 13 plate 1.3 Mjet (diesel) Suzuki swift. he was getting insurance quotes for over £12,000.
how the hell can they justify that?!
we have managed to get it down to £7000, pretty much my brothers whole life savings, a helping hand from our grandparents, and some lucky finds at scrap yards made it so we could afford it.

i find it sickening how it costs that much. such prices only encourage driving uninsured.
i would love to know what would happen if a large percentage of people just decided enough was enough and just started to drive uninsured. maybe then things would be put in place and insurers would be bared from over charging for insurance.
 
John
On the insurance front Saga paid out £550-£150 excess for the Cinq.
I only paid £400 for it 5 years ago.
Insurance premium was £97pa + £11 to drive to work. this was because I wasn,t insured to drive to work originally as a named driver on the wife's policy when I wrote the car off.
Got £44.33 back on tax as well.
Result, but not enough to buy a new car!
Now going up market to xtrail so panda 4x4 may have to go.
Dave
 
Sorry to just add to the rant but first year insurance is literally a total rip of now and impossible to do anything about it :bang:

On my 2006 Grande Punto 1.4, the absolute cheapest I could manage despite ringing around and trying as many comparison sites as I could was £3200, just because I was 17 and has no NCB. Just ridiculous, this was with minimal miles and my Mum was the policy holder (so I didn't even get my first years NCB, although I was the 'main driver') This was from Asda motor insurance too :rolleyes:

After a year of driving but with still 0 NCB I was quoted £1200...
This was when I bought little Charmanda and got her insured for £800 (with mods declared).
Now its £540 with 2 years NCB, I've paid way more in insurance than I've probably spent on cars themselves (considering I've technically owned 3).

Insurance companies are crazy. :bang:
 
When i've boght the panda first thing i've done was getting my wife provinsional driving licence - she was not driving for some time, by doing that I could add her to panda policy so her NCB has started.
Now after passing the test she got 3 years NCB by now, and she is insured to drive over 300hp estate as well.

Provinsional driving licence isn't great solution but definately can help you getting few years of NCB before you'll be allowed to drive on your own.
 
On my 2006 Grande Punto 1.4, the absolute cheapest I could manage despite ringing around and trying as many comparison sites as I could was £3200, just because I was 17 and has no NCB. Just ridiculous, this was with minimal miles and my Mum was the policy holder (so I didn't even get my first years NCB, although I was the 'main driver')

Thats called fronting and is illigal. They have caught onto this and you'll probs find it would have been the same price if you were the main driver.

My first car was a 1.2 8v Mk2 Punto, paid 1700 for it. After 4 years I forgot to protect my no claims and had an accident which (to date is still unresolved over 2 years later) wasnt my fault but they want to go 50/50 so had gone back down to 2.

Im back up to 4 and will be protecting it as soon as it comes up for renewal! Not making that mistake again..
 
Thats called fronting and is illigal. They have caught onto this and you'll probs find it would have been the same price if you were the main driver
No it wasn't, I phoned them when I started the policy to check it was correct. I was insured as the main driver, my mother was on the policy as a named driver but because they wouldn't offer monthly payments to those under 21 she had to be the policy holder, still leaving me as the main driver. They assured us that it was perfectly legal and they were informed that I was going to be driving the car most of the time.

I had many friends at the time who were named drivers on their own cars with their parents as the main driver, resulting in their insurance being around £1500-£2000, I didn't want to go this way however because as you said, its fronting.
 
No it wasn't, I phoned them when I started the policy to check it was correct. I was insured as the main driver, my mother was on the policy as a named driver but because they wouldn't offer monthly payments to those under 21 she had to be the policy holder, still leaving me as the main driver. They assured us that it was perfectly legal and they were informed that I was going to be driving the car most of the time.



I had many friends at the time who were named drivers on their own cars with their parents as the main driver, resulting in their insurance being around £1500-£2000, I didn't want to go this way however because as you said, its fronting.


Never heard that one before. As far as I was aware of you were the The main driver should always be the main policy holder.
Most Easterly Pandas can you shed any light on this?
 
Never heard that one before. As far as I was aware of you were the The main driver should always be the main policy holder.
Most Easterly Pandas can you shed any light on this?

Taken from, http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=2742690

Not true. Policy holder, registered keeper and main driver can all be different people, but most insurers do at least need keeper and policy holder to be the same.

Obviously this is just another forum and who knows how valid this information can be but Asda motor insurance assured me the policy holder and main driver do not need to be the same person.
 
That sounds pretty good. My first insurance policy cost £278 TPF&T on a £600 Fiat 127 back in 1988 - it was a lot of money at the time! Was yours pre decimal Bob?! :p

Not quite, cheeky bugger.
My first insurance (1983) was a Fiat 126 at £120 TPF &T, three months later I changed to a new Vaux Nova and it went up to £200 fully comprehensive and I could drive any car that wasn't mine :D
 
i cant protect my NCD :( you need 4 years or more.

Depends upon the insurer, I protected mine at 3yrs (y)

to me that is wrong in so many ways. i wonder if there will ever be laws passed making it so insurance companies cant charge totally unrealistic prices.

It won't happen, laws and regulations are already in place meaning that insurers can't just charge what they want. Any premium why quote will be justifiable, but most of the time is commercially sensitive information.

You, and most others, seem to fail to look at it from outside of the box, and from only one perspective. Insurance companies pay out millions of pounds a day in claims, they need to have adequate premiums coming in to cover this, and will price groups of people based upon their age, location, vehicle type etc. In fact, most insurers will have the best part of a few hundred rating factors that any policy and its pricing will be rated on.

At the end of the day, as harsh as it may be to some, insurance, and driving for that fact, is a luxury, and not a god given right. An insurance company doesn't even have to insurer you. At the end of the day with some drivers they can be taking a hell of a risk.

Yes your car may be worth only £500, but its still capable of coming off of the road and going through someones house and causing £200k worth of damage to property, just like a £20k car would.

Then there is personal injury, mame someone and the average end to end bill can be up to £5million! You could pay £7k a year in premiums for life and never pay that back.

Insurance is a calculated gamble, and with big figures involved, and as such premiums will reflect this for certain groups.

Hell I paid £1280 for my first years insurance on a Panda Selecta back in 2008, now I'm paying £300 on a £20k+ car, insurance does get cheaper eventually. I'm looking forward to it dropping further in May when I've then (all being well) got max NCD. You just have to weigh up the costs against your need of a car.

Insurance companies are crazy. :bang:

No, just wise to the claims statistics of certain groups of drivers!

Never heard that one before. As far as I was aware of you were the The main driver should always be the main policy holder.
Most Easterly Pandas can you shed any light on this?

What Didge has mentioned is possible, only with a few insurers though, and will be done if they have to insurer in the registered keepers name (will vary from company to company depending upon their under writing criteria) apposed to the main drivers name.
 
Good God:eek: the insurance quotes you are talking about are a bit shocking, I pay 48GBP per year for a panda 4x4 , and 33-45GBP for every other car registered as a "historic vehicle". My first insurance in 1997 when I was 17 for a 903ccm fiat 127mk1 was 145GBP. Now, the complete rookie green driver with 0 experience behind the wheel in Poland in a big city will pay arround 300-400GBP.
 
Fortunate you could drive other cars - anything rather than the "No Go".... ;)

I refuse to accept that the Nova was a crap car (as Clarkson and the rest of the motoring press would have people believe). Back in 1983 when it was released it was the smallest engine(1.2L) with electronic contactless ignition, it had the brakes off a Mk1 2.0l Cavalier/Ascona so stopped well and a 71/2" clutch when the 2.0l Cortina had a 6" one. It was massively over engineered and so very reliable. I owned three Novas and the 1.2 saloon I got new in 1984 (£4024) ran it for 7 years and accumulated over 97K miles with never an issue (except when a garage fitted a, much smaller, air filter from an escort which moved and blocked the air intake under hard acceleration, so not really the cars fault) and it still returned over 45 to the gallon when we traded it in for a new Nova 1.4SR
 
I refuse to accept that the Nova was a crap car (as Clarkson and the rest of the motoring press would have people believe). Back in 1983 when it was released it was the smallest engine(1.2L) with electronic contactless ignition, it had the brakes off a Mk1 2.0l Cavalier/Ascona so stopped well and a 71/2" clutch when the 2.0l Cortina had a 6" one. It was massively over engineered and so very reliable. I owned three Novas and the 1.2 saloon I got new in 1984 (£4024) ran it for 7 years and accumulated over 97K miles with never an issue (except when a garage fitted a, much smaller, air filter from an escort which moved and blocked the air intake under hard acceleration, so not really the cars fault) and it still returned over 45 to the gallon when we traded it in for a new Nova 1.4SR

I wouldn't say it was crap either (it wasn't) - I'd still rather be pushing a Fiat though...... (y)
 
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