Car Insurance Job Picker Discussion

[MSE Wendy]

This thread is to discuss what you think of the

Car Insurance Job Picker.

And to check with other MoneySavers if they think your new job title is legit.

Please click reply to discuss.

[akhlaq768]

hey, just thought i start this off, got the newsletter this morning, i think this is a great tip...


had anyone found a good job description that is cheap!!!

[kijog]

That's definitely true, just recently insured myself with e-sure. Noticed a big difference on comparison sites when I typed in 'account executive' (my exact job title) and when I put in 'public relations'. I haven't checked the list but apparently we are one of the worst professions insurance-wise because we supposedly spend all day carting rich and famous clients around... Truth or myth? I'm sure plenty of people can describe themselves as an 'account executive' or 'administrator'. The example Confused.com offers above the field for occupation is 'Office Worker' - I'm sure you can't go wrong with that!

In the end I went with e-sure, who only have 12 broad categories, so ended up in the catch-all 'Other Service Industries'.

[lean&mean]

Very good tool, though it would be nice to see a tweak. I'll explain... I had previously found in discussions with my wife's insurer that clarifying her job could result in savings. She was a print journalist some years ago, but her insurer distinguished between reporters and journalists, on the basis that reporters were always rushing around like mad things. But my beloved was a features writer which scored lower.

Fast forward to 2008 and my wife is now a marriage counsellor and a business coach (nearest description - consultant?). But which scores lowest, as they aren't in the same category to compare in the tool?

The tweak that I'd like is either to be able to compare the loadings behind each description, or to be able to select two different descriptions and see the resulting premiums. As it stands you have to put a job title against a premium, which then limits you to one set of job categories, but I'd like to know if one title is higher or lower than another if it's not in the same category list. At least it would give us the knowledge to discuss this with our insurer.

I don't condone giving false descriptions - there's no point if it invalidates your insurance. But there's certainly no point in describing your job in a way that costs more than it should.

So well done, MSE, and would you consider releasing the full list with loading?

[koru]

Originally Posted by lean&mean

The tweak that I'd like is either to be able to compare the loadings behind each description, or to be able to select two different descriptions and see the resulting premiums. As it stands you have to put a job title against a premium, which then limits you to one set of job categories, but I'd like to know if one title is higher or lower than another if it's not in the same category list. At least it would give us the knowledge to discuss this with our insurer.

Just click on Try Another Sector then look in the blue box to the left and select each sector, one at a time, to see all the comparisons going.

One very clear lesson that comes out of this is that putting down Housewife, Househusband, Retired or Unemployed is usually going to be a bad idea, if there's another legitimate option. My wife, for instance, works as a "lunchtime supervisor" at the local school, for a couple of hours once a week. She really only does this to help out, as they struggle to find enough staff, but it looks like putting this down as her occupation would save 20% on the premium.

[koru]

I wonder if being a retired 50 year old accountant really entails 20% higher premiums than being an employed 50 year old accountant, as this tool would suggest? Or was the data gathered in a way that assumed retired = 65 years old, so this could be affecting the premium?

[Kaos]

This is very interesting for me as I have no idea what my official job title is!
On my payslip I am simply described as an "Outworker", meaning I work from home.
Maybe someone can advise me? I'll explain...

I work from home for a company who employ me on a casual basis i.e. I am not salaried, I simply get paid per set of what I produce and send in.
I produce components for hand made wedding tiaras and related items. I don't design them, I work from templates, and they make them into the final product in the office once I've sent them in.

Anyone any idea what my job is?

For car insurance purposes I am described as a jeweller, but am not convinced that is a very accurate description... but I can't find anything better!

Any advice gratefuly received!

[fkelanne]

do u have to tell them your proper job tital? i can get it £30 cheaper if i say im somethink else,

[Devallon]

[quote=koru;10054527]Just click on Try Another Sector then look in the blue box to the left and select each sector, one at a time, to see all the comparisons going.

Well that doesn't work, as it only compares the description against premium loading. I'm with leanandmean if you could compare description by description instead of description by premium, we would see the optimum description for ourselves.
I'm a trainer in IT, but in a vertical market. So I could be a Trainer, Teacher, Motor Trader, Consultant, and any number of sub headings under each of those.
Look forward to the mod Martin !

[Riq]

Originally Posted by fkelanne

do u have to tell them your proper job tital? i can get it £30 cheaper if i say im somethink else,

If you work in a bank and you put your job down as a tractor builder then no, you can't do that.

There has to be at least sometruth in it.

[IvorGlyn]

How does being on Incapacity Benefit and not being well enough to work affect car insurance please?:confused:

[Welshwoofs]

I always have problems with job titles for insurance quotes. I work in the Internet industry and that seems to be an area much under-represented by these job title lists. I've never found anything even close to what I do and usually end up having to call myself an 'IT Manager' purely on the basis that my job involves an Internet service and you need a computer to get to it! lol

No idea how that effects my insurance but I don't seem to have too many options!

[deanos]

Does housewife really add a premium ?

My wife does a bit of Avon so what could that be classed as ?

[lisyloo]

How does being on Incapacity Benefit and not being well enough to work affect car insurance please?

Well it's all based on statistics.

It's not possible to interview each person, give them a medical, analyse their driving patterns and asses their driving. It's simply too expensive, so people are grouped together statistically.

So for example females make less claims than males therefore it's lawful to charge males more on the basis of gender.

If statistics show working people have a different number of claims to non-working people them they are allowed to charge differently on that basis.

[dogbot]

Does housewife really add a premium ?

All of this depends on the insurer - each insurer has its own view.

My wife does a bit of Avon so what could that be classed as ?

Regards your second point - your wife is a housewife with a part time occupation (sales person or sales representative) and both 'occupations' need to be declared! If she uses the car for the part time job the vehicle needs to be insured for business use/commercial travel. Regard's home insurance - if she has clients come to your house this also needs to be declared to the insurer.

[deanos]

She walks so dont need buisness insurance

[PollyLL]

I just wanna warn you people of my story, where my claim has been rejected and the insurance company is using my job title as the reason, so you should be extremely careful of accepiting this advice. I have written in and I hope Martin will see my email, but want to tell you all as well and if I can, enclosed a scan of the letter which you should all agree is astounding. Here's my email to Martin, slightly adjusted for my privacy:

===============================
Edited in later:

This was resolved 3 days later by the insurance company reinstating my policy and the story goes all the way to page 4 where I've told the forum that it's resolved. However I'm dissapointed that my email to MSE went unanswered and I warn people to be extremely careful about accepting this advice to tweak your job title. In my case it was an innocent mistake rather than a deliberate tweaking, but tweak at your peril is my advice to you.
===============================

Any comments or advice you people might have are welcome.

-------------------------------
Header reads:

Serious problem (claim refused by Swinton/Highway) with my insurance now created because I followed Martin's advice to be willing to adjust my job title.

Body of the email:

Hi there,

I recently got a new insurance policy with Swinton for my moped. The story is that I had a moped for 8 years, never had any problems or claims, then I wanted to changed mopeds, so I bought a 6 month old 09 model of the same bike. It was stolen just 7 weeks later, but as I knew it was worth more that my old one, I chose when I bought it to get comprehensive insurance through go compare, so I changed to Swinton when I bought the bike because they were offering a cheaper deal. My insurance company decided in their blatant attempt to get out of assisting me, to decide my policy was invalid from the start, because of my job title, which I'm sure you'll agree is ridiculous when you read below. I'm wondering whether you will now assist me to fight them as I feel they'll quickly cave with a little pressure other than from me. Otherwise if you're not willing to stand up for the advice you offer in job selection, then I feel you should urgently consider changing the advice and advising your readers to do everything they can to urgently correct their job titles to ensure they're not driving uninsured.

I feel somewhat lucky, my bike was stolen, the claim was just £850. However what if I'd run over a child and was being held responsible by the police and therefore desperately needed the policy to cover me? What then if the insurer does have grounds to claim the policy was invalid. I will explain further now, but I also enclose a scan of their letter for you to read. Please don't publish my name or address on your website if you use this letter which I agree you can as long as my privacy is protected from the general public.

Better explanation:

- I don't have a real job title, I'm self employed. I own property that I let out and I actively manage myself (because I can't afford agents fees). I work more than full time managing these properties, it feels like I never get a break.

- The job tiltle I used on go compare that seemed right at the time: Property Lettings Manager

- When I phoned the insurer to inform them there may be a claim unless the bike is recovered, they asked me to confirm what I do for a living. I replied, I'm a landlord and rent properties out for a living.

If you're as sensible as anyone else that I've spoken to about this, you'll quickly realise that there is barely a wafer of difference in these two job titles and in fact, my active role is managing the properties I let out, whereas in my opinion, landlord sounds like an inactive role, so Property Lettings Manager is entirely appropriate as far as I'm concerned.

- I don't kow if this is a coincidence, but since receiving this rejection letter, my go compare quotes are about 30% higher than they were, has the insurance company somehow put a black mark on me too? I was searching for quotes as I need to buy another bike now, last week Swinton was offering £212, but this week they're offering me £448. There is something seriously wrong about the way they've treated me here and if they've also done something that affects my insurance quotes, I am seriously annoyed with their behaviour, all to avoid doing what I paid them to do, provide me with insurance.

A small fact for you: When I look at go compare and get a quote with Property Lettings Manager and then another quote with Landlord as the job titles, the quotes come out as exactly the same amount of money. That shows that it's not a materially different thing and simply a get-out excuse for Swinton.

I would really appreciate if I have some assitance here and can be contacted on 07*** 747 *** if you like. I hope that you, the person reading this, realises the significance this has in comparison the the advice you're giving out.

Hoping to here from you.

...........My name....

=============================================

Our Reference: I
Incident Date: 10th November 2009
18th November 2009
Dear Mr
I refer to the above policy you arranged with us via your agent, Swinton-Dyer and Holmes, commencing on 8th September 2009.
All motor insurers require information to enable them to make a proper assessment of the premium to charge and the terms and conditions to apply. Most of the information needed is only known to the person seeking insurance and for this reason; there is a legal obligation upon the proposer to answer the questions fully and honestly at the time of arranging insurance. Where an insurer enters into a contract based upon inaccurate or misleading information that the proposer has knowingly provided in response to clear questions, the insurer is entitled to treat the policy null and void from its inception date, and to act as if that contract of insurance never existed.
When arranging your insurance, you were asked a series of questions by Swinton-Dyer and Holmes regarding details about yourself including your occupation. Subsequently they wrote to you with details of the insurance including a copy of the information you had provided, asking you to check the information contained on the Statement of Insurance and to advise them of any inaccuracies. We note that you advised us you are a manager in the property letting industry.
However, following routine investigations by our claims department in respect of the claim for the theft of your vehicle, we discovered that you are a landlord and that you rent out properties that you own.
We have checked with Swinton-Dyer and Holmes, who have confirmed that at no time before or after inception of your policy were they informed of the fact you are a property landlord. Had we been aware of this, we would not have agreed to give cover. In the circumstances, we are invoking our right to null and void the policy, meaning that the policy is deemed never to have taken effect.
Your brokers will contact you in due course to advise of any refund of premium that you may be due.

As your policy is has been deemed null and void, I regret to inform you that we will be declining to deal with your current claim.
Should your vehicle be found at a later date, any charges associated with its collection and storage will be your sole responsibility.
You are now required by the Road traffic Act 1988 to return your current Certificate of Motor Insurance and/or Temporary cover note in your possession, to this office immediately, as not to do so would be an offence under the Act.
Furthermore, we must also inform you that it is an offence under the Road traffic Act 1988 to leave, drive or otherwise permit use of a vehicle on a public road without valid motor insurance cover for your vehicle or risk prosecution.
I trust that I have clearly explained the reason for our decision but please do not hesitate to contact me should you require any further information.



Yours sincerely,




Lois Anthony
Claims Indemnity Department
Highway Insurance is part of the Liverpool Victoria group of companies.
All correspondence you receive from us in relation to your claim will now come from Liverpool Victoria, also known as LV=.

[dacouch]

A Landlord is a completely different job to a Property Letting Manager who would normally be an employee of an estate agent or an employee of a Landlord.

To be able to get Highway to change their decision you need to be able to prove that you did not deliberately miss lead them eg it was an innocent mistake AND that they would have accepted you as a client if you had declared the correct occupation.

If you can obtain quotations from them for the same policy details with your occupation declared as a Landlord this may help win your case (Assuming you can convince them you did not intentionally miss lead them)

[raskazz]

What do you tell people when they ask your occupation? I'd wager a fairly large amount that you would say 'landlord' rather than 'property letting manager'. I would say that there is much more than a 'wafer of difference' between the two.

A landlord owns and rents properties. A property letting manager works for a landlord or a letting agent and doesn't own the property concerned. They often lead substantially different lifestyles, hence it is reasonable for an insurer to rate them differently.

You are a landlord hence if the true facts were known to the insurer they would not have offered you cover, so even if the misrepresentation was inadvertent they can reject your claim.

I've always thought that this job picker thing was highly dubious and a little irresponsible. If the insurer finds out that you misrepresented your job to lower your premium then that is an instant policy voidance.

[PollyLL]

Originally Posted by raskazz

What do you tell people when they ask your occupation? I'd wager a fairly large amount that you would say 'landlord' rather than 'property letting manager'. I would say that there is much more than a 'wafer of difference' between the two.

A landlord owns and rents properties. A property letting manager works for a landlord or a letting agent and doesn't own the property concerned. They often lead substantially different lifestyles, hence it is reasonable for an insurer to rate them differently.

You are a landlord hence if the true facts were known to the insurer they would not have offered you cover, so even if the misrepresentation was inadvertent they can reject your claim.

I've always thought that this job picker thing was highly dubious and a little irresponsible. If the insurer finds out that you misrepresented your job to lower your premium then that is an instant policy voidance.

Well as is affirmed here in these two replies, landlord isn't a particularly well regarded occupation, so I don't go around telling people that I'm a landlord. What I tell people is that I manage a bunch of houses for a living. It's the bare truth despite the stigma that's atached to the word landlord.

As I said earlier, the two job titles make no difference to the quotation and the insurer using it in saying they wouldn't have offered cover is just a load of garbage to try to get out of paying the claim.

If I were a politician I'd tackle their industry as they so quick to take the premium, but so crafty in their ways to try to get out of their obligations. And no, it was never a money saving attempt to change my job title, it was an attempt to use a job title that was most appropriate to the work I actually do, managing properties let out.

I can't imagine why these two posts are so negative, only that it's the stigma coming out.

Try using Martin's job description picker. Apparently he thinks boiler maker is a possible substitue for landlord and Lettngs Manager is in there too.