Insurance Rant

[matt]

Yes we all hate insurance but here is a ludicrus story. It could be a long one so grab a brew first.

4 years ago my lad turned 17 and you guessed it he wants to drive. So i get him a seat ibiza to learn in,.

Insurance 400 quid on a provisional with a tracker and they will insure him all year even after he passes, Whoooooo Hooooooo. So he passes and yep 7 days later writes it off. What a tit but we have all been there. Not to be biased but it wasnt 100% his fault just 99%.

So no car for a few months as punishment but eventually I give in and get him a pug 306 with the payout from fully comp. They cover it for the remaining time for £35. No injuries luckily

Second year. No NCD thats fair enough. Same company £12k . Not a chance. So I have a really good hunt around. The lad has a job now and needs the car. After days on the phone the cheapest on a tracker I can found is £5k. So I have no choice (well i do but im a dad lol)

Still not at the rant yet btw

So no problems now for the next year 1 years NCD and the new premuim without the tracker and the constant warning emails £1.5k

Alas 2 months later some scum prick decides to jump a set of lights and plow into his front wing. Admits liabilty on the spot, swaps details and informs insurance. rant on, they then straight away say that they will bring him a car and take his away to be fixed. I stopped everything in its tracks as that would have been a cliam on his NCD through his insurance.

I tell them NO as it was not his fault so I dont want it going against him. they tell me I have no other way. yes i do, If they had proceeded and then did not recover all the money they would have classed that as a claim although it wasnt his fault. So I told them to go through the 3rd party insurance. this went on for a while but eventualy they agreed and everything eventually was sorted. oh I had to pay a £700 excess and claim it back. I did get it back eventually. So be very carefull on that if you are ever unfortunate enough to be in that postion. It was not the last time i would have tp do that. More on that coming.

Being aware of the fact that a non fault accident would increase the next years premiuim , well in fact the next five years premium, I asked the solictitor to claim against the 3rd party for an increase of premium. He laughed basicly and said he cant do that. Rant time. WHY for gods sake, The purpose is to claim back anything you are out of pocket for due to no fault of your own. This to me falls into this category but NO. read up on google about increases in premiums due to non fault accidents. How they get awasy with it is beyond me, If you ask me that could be the next PPI thing. "have you paid extra premiums through no fault of your own" Oh I wish I was in law lol.

So last year he now has a fault and a non fault claim but to be honest the pug is still going and his insurance is around the same. Decreased a little after me ranting at them trying to auto renew at 6k when on go compare the same company is 1k

So lets skip to last week, In the meantime some other tit ran lights but this time on the wife in our rangie. that was funny range rover vs Ford Focus. Ouch. I have pics somewhere so Wife now has a non fault claim.

last week we decided when his car runs out of insurance he will have 3 years NCD so we will treat him to a new motor, Asking him what do you want he says RX8 pmsl. But we have a look around and they are as cheap as chips. Phones his current insurance. Cheapest is 12K . Not being detered as I know they are **** i did a go compare and was suprised as it was just under 2k with his 2 claims and all legit, i wont chance anything on insurance these days, you cant push the truth like you used to be able to.

So nearly rant time again.

After reading up on the rotarys and all their faults I was still going to risk it if I could find the right one.

Then I had a brain wave. The 1995 4.6 p38 that i got as a result of losing my 96 p38 in the wifes crash is on ebay and im using that to get the rx8.

So lets do a go compare on the now 21 year old with 2 claims on the p38. In the background i can see blurry 4k 5k 3k and then it finishes and pops up Zenith 1400 quid, WOW thats bloody good. Its 1004 quid on his pug this year 1.4 POS

Proceed to insurers website ..... Ok here we go this is where its gonna go **** up....... but no, everything seems good. the wifes on as a second driver as she is only named on mine so cant drive it otherwise, Not that she ever has. This is looking way to good to be true so i read and check again and again. his claims are on there the wifes claim is on there everything is correct.

Then i remeber something the rangie is on gas. lpg convert so i see a chat box. i better check with them so i hit online chat. I explain everything and evemn tell them that the next quote was over double. Let me check he says. Oh sorry we cannot insure him with lpg convert....... WHOOOOOOOAAAAATTTT. i go off on one. LPG more eco in every way possible and you wont insure him. I get the standard "its not me its the underwriter" ..... "have you spoke to them ?"......"I cant do that" ...... ********.

So he tells me to start again and use go compare with the option ticked for a real quote "real quote" what does he think im doing. "its under the mods section" he tells me. So its under the same section as alloy wheels, uprated manifolds, nox , spoilers and every other perfomance enhancing mod.

i still have him on chat and quickly start again. WHAT....... Its gone up £100 but still listed Zenith. I have great pleasure in telling him hes still top and they will insure. "let me take a look" he says. "Ah you dont have your wife on your sons policy" yup, the same wife who has been driving 22 years and has her first non fault claim in 22 years.

So in summary of this rant (at long last) this is how stupid the insurance points system is on rating car insurance .

Son and wife on policy fine
Son and LPG on policy fine
Son and wife with LPG "Sorry we cant insure you"

How pathetic. If each was given 1 point and the accepable level is 2 you are screwed despite what the level of addtion is.

To be honest the fact that they even insured my 21 year old lad on a p38 I thought was astounding. So astounding that I dropped the wife off the policy and took it out. Gave him the keys today. hes like a pig in ****, Never seen him so happy (apart from taking him to Thailand and the strippers grabbing him to take him to the whorehouse lol..... he was about 10 hahahaha)

So theres my rant. The way that they calculate the premium is a joke.

The days of the comparison sites are soon to be a thing of the past if they carry on. More and more insurers are dropping out of comparison and even online quotes.

i was very tempted to phone the likes of Adrian Flux but im 100% that they would have just laughed.

For some reason there must have been a glitch or he fell into a really strange category and they under insured. They were the only ones in that range. The closest was over 3k.

Ok thats all just thought I would share the laugh. So if you are driving around Wigan or Rivington and see a Rangie with a smile brighter than the headlights you know why, Who knows maybe next year he will be driving the 8 or my old mans L322 rangie, NOT A BLOODY CHANCE lol

matt

[tc4332]

Hey Matt,
Insurance in all it's forms is a minefield. No matter how careful you are some scroat always finds an out when it comes to paying out on claims.
I've just renewed ours on Zurich, had it a couple of years now and a reasonable quote for us, under £400 fully comp, NCD protection, Surcharge at £500 but with surcharge protection.
Sad thing they wont insure me in four years time 'cos I will be 80!!!! What's with that then?
Strange thing is they were the first car insurance I had when I was 18 in Germany, back in 1958. I keep telling them that but they do not ever come up with a special bonus for me.
Money grabbing shysters, they have us over a legal barrel.

[ainarssems]

My biggest disappointment with insurance is that there is very little third party only insurance providers and it always works out cheaper to get TP,F&T or fully comp then third party only. For example if I put my data in comparison site it comes back something like TP, F&T - £400, fully comp - £450 and third party only - £800; for the least cover you get the highest price. I could not be bothered to insure the car itself, just third party liability as I do not buy cars that are too expensive to replace, if it gets stolen, I smash it or it burns down I will just go and buy another one for cash same or next day. But because of the pricing I am forced to buy third party, fire and theft (or sometimes fully comp if the difference is like £20-30 between 2) which I don't want or need. I say it's conspiracy, they artificially make lesser cover too expensive to make you buy extra cover not needed.

Long time ago when I was in Latvia it was like £50 third party only and £200 fully comp for 8 year old A6, there was no such thing as TP, F&T and fully comp was only offered to cars up to 10 years old. Probably like 80-90% cars were insured as third party only with fully comp insurance mostly only for leased cars or on the payment plan. Now that suited much better to my logic.

[Goran]

Yup the way car insurance works makes no sense to me either.
I know people hate things to be nationalised, but I think car insurance is a prime candidate.
Road tax is compulsory by law and set and collected by the government.
Insurance should be the same, should be capped and the same formula applied to everyone.
The amount of time wasted phoning round to find the cheapest one, and the ridiculous quotes, just shows what a mess it is. Some companies are so dumb, if your car doesn't appear on their database they cant insure you. Well maybe someone just needs to update the damn database?

[matt]

Insurance definatley is a minefield and they have a licence to print money.

Apparentley it all falls back eventually no matter who you are insured with to 3 main companies. Its just pyramid selling. Everybody just getting a piece of the pie.

I do agree with buying cars that you can afford to throw away. I was in the beer trade for a long time and had my cars jumped on, set on fire, paint stripped, Yep Roadhouse springs to mind but I had to get between Manchester, Sale, Warrington pretty fast at early hours of the morning so I had nissan 200,s Supras etc that at most cost 1500 quid and just scrapped them or fixed them. Never said a thing to insurance. I have some funny stories about my 300zx and police at 3am in the morining on the M60 lol.

I always go fully comp myself but no idea why up till now, My 8 is the first car I have ever spent 4k on and the only thing I am ever likeley to use fully comp on but you are correct, When you get out of the kids age group fully comp is cheaper in most cases than TPFT.

I bet you have fell foul to the latest scam on NCD. A lot of companies cap the bonus at 9 years and dont bother giving you 10 11 etc . The problem is if you do have a claim or too many on a protected ncd. Read the small print . in the event of a claim they will deduct a certain number of years. So 20 years in theory NCD you may loose 4 so still got loads but if they stop at 9 and you loose 4 your in **** street as they can increase the premiums again.

Swinton is one that do this but if you moan and tell them you want it adding on they will do it, Its not just them they are all slowly adopting this policy and tell you "well no one gives you any discount above 9 years so there is no point" mmmmmmm

[mannyo]

insurance is indeed an art.

I pay £200 PA Fully comp for my 3.7 A8 with Max NCD and low risk area, this includes business use and 8K miles PA.

I just insured a temporary car in addition to the A8 with the same company, so zero NCD. Cost to insure the X Reg A6 2.4 V6 Auto, £300 with zero NCD and 8K miles PA.

[matt]

Originally Posted by mannyo

insurance is indeed an art.

I pay £200 PA Fully comp for my 3.7 A8 with Max NCD and low risk area, this includes business use and 8K miles PA.

I just insured a temporary car in addition to the A8 with the same company, so zero NCD. Cost to insure the X Reg A6 2.4 V6 Auto, £300 with zero NCD and 8K miles PA.

Can I park at your house lol

[tc4332]

Careful Lads, we might end up with three hundred 8s all parked there

It would at least make the annual meet a bit easier.

[kele]

With Tesco insurance I am paying just shy of £300 for mine. Fully comp with business use, second driver and 25k miles per year. Not bad I think...

At the end of 2012, I did manage to hydro-lock the engine on my last A8. The air suspension did not raise quite enough
Still, that has been recorded as storm damage. Since it was a flooded road. It seems storm damage does not effect the premium too much...

With any non fault accident, I will never put a claim via my own insurance company. I just inform them for information only and state that I do not wish to enter a claim. (I can always change my mind at a later date). Your own insurance Company do not always act in your interest and the policy authorises them to admit liability on your behalf. Hence you get these so called 'knock for knock' settlements. On the other hand, an accident management company will always act in your sole interests and will never admit liability on your behalf. Plus I choose where to have the repair done and I am given a like for like car (or better) whilst mine in being repaired.