Should bankrupts complain to GoCompare.com?

Youthiswastedontheyoung

Hi all,

I've recently gone BR and called my house and car insurance companies today and neither seemed in the slightest bit interested, they said as long as I make my payments on time etc there is no problem....

Is this whole thing about insurance and BR to do with new customers not existing policies?

Just wondered

Thanks

MarkyMarkD

RichesToRags wrote: »

Insurers and the like use this kind of misinformed and misguided opinion regarding bankrupts to excuse their discrimination. It's not based on logic and fact, not even on manipulated statistics but speculation, fabrication and the fact that BRs are an easy target.

This simply is not true. Insurers do not set premiums capriciously in the way you describe. I have already explained why they would be ridiculous to do so - they set premiums based on their assessment of risk, which is based on historical data.

Simply because there are people who are BR who never make an insurance claim, does not affect the insurers' calculations which are based on average performance.

And it may be possible that individual insurers DO find that their BR customers are great risks, and they do not claim more than average. That doesn't make another insurer's experience invalid, or their charging a higher premium unfair.

And complaining about it to Gocompare, or the Ombudsman, or the FSA won't get you anywhere because insurers are totally entitled to set premiums exactly how they like.

out_of_cash

i think its all a big cockup, just like our big fat banker friends risk assesment my A when they highly profesionaly lent out billions to us all without checking peoples circumstances although someone told me they did use to check how much equity you had in your house even when what you were borrowing was to be unsecred"ie" how many times did fred blogs claim before BR or did he/she claim frauduently:eek: its not rocket science but seems as the banks are now queing to own insurers i dont think we have a chance against that mentality.They have us all down as reckless scum bags. Thats just my opinion.:D

I am still going to be sending another letter off to my mp as i think its all a load of crap what he sent me"i should shop around there are plenty of good deals"yeah right:rolleyes:

out_of_cash

And complaining about it to Gocompare, or the Ombudsman, or the FSA won't get you anywhere because insurers are totally entitled to set premiums exactly how they like.

bit like the banks then"do what they like make a B up and get paid shed loads for it:rotfl::rotfl::T

property.advert

If insurers asked you for your racial background or the colour of your skin, and then refused to quote for insurance or quoted at a much higher premium, then that would be against the law. If you were charged more because you were a homosexual then that would be against the law. Yet insurers may well have data which shows that homosexual policy holders make more claims or that non white people have a higher incidence to defraud when making a claim. these protections are not available within insurance or contract law but under race discrimination and sex discrimination legislation.

What I have tried to show is that attacking the issue at the point of the problem is not going to win any battle. There needs to be a focus on the discrimination, the permanent discrimination faced by bankrupts in the UK. What about in other EU states ? What about in other countries ? Any attempt to remove this discrimination must, I feel, be directed at the issue of discrimination and not at the insurance industry. It may well be that certain non white people are higher risks but the insurers are not allowed to profile on that criterion. They should not be able to profile outside of the period of the bankruptcy or any order made therein.

I do not believe that there exists data which proves for example that someone whose partner was bankrupt 30 years ago is a greater risk of either claiming on their insurance policy or has a higher propensity to make a fraudulent claim. I simply refuse to believe that such data exists in sufficient quantities to make it a relevant point in underwriting decisions. Bankrupts are not usually criminals or thieves and whilst many are guilty of stupid or sometimes reckless decisions, few are actually out to steal or gain money by deception.

Let us bring what the insurers are "saying" into the open. They are saying that people who are either BR or connected with people who were BR are so poor risks that they will what ??? that they will accidentally break a coffee table ? No, I do not think so. That they will have someone throw a brick through their window ??? No. That they will be less careful when painting the living room ??? No. What they are saying is that they believe people connected with BR are likely to make a fraudulent claim.

What the insurers are doing is to single out people who are BR as fraudsters. Yet these people may have no record of fraud at all. BR is not dependent upon fraud nor theft.

It is from this angle which we may generate some interest, in forcing them to come out and state their criteria and then being able to refute it. The insurers have to be offered something, as there must be some risk, but the risk cannot be allowed to follow the discharged BR forever.

Blackpool_Saver

once again I am astounded that people are prepared to leave themselves open to their insurance beung null and void to save a few quid, it's nearly as barmy as the folk who don't report accidents to their insurance companies. There is a difference between money saving and foolishness, some cannot tell the difference.

Kerry12345

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

This simply is not true. Insurers do not set premiums capriciously in the way you describe. I have already explained why they would be ridiculous to do so - they set premiums based on their assessment of risk, which is based on historical data.

Mark is correct. Insurers work on risk and we all fall into groups when we have insurance. Insurers base their quotes on things like gender, age, whether you have claimed before (even if it was a no fault claim in the case of a vehicle), how many times you have claimed, where you live, what your marital status is, what job you do, bankruptcy, flat roof % (house insurance).

ie An under 25 year old male will be given a very high quote for car insurance because statistics show that people in this range claim more. Unfair to those in this bracket that never claim, but insurers don't know who the good guys are and can only base their risks on statistics or they will go bust.

I knew a bookie who had to pay a really high premium on his car insurance, yet had never claimed on on his insurance. He was in a high risk group and paid the price for others in that profession that had claimed a lot.

Kerry12345

property.advert wrote: »

There needs to be a focus on the discrimination, the permanent discrimination faced by bankrupts in the UK. What about in other EU states ? What about in other countries ? Any attempt to remove this discrimination must, I feel, be directed at the issue of discrimination and not at the insurance industry.

It's not discrimination against bunkrupts, it's risk catagories. Certain groups tend to make more claims and if you fall into one or more of these groups, then your quote will be higher. They are not picking on bankrupts. S&it happens.

I know someone who was credit checked before he was officially offered a job. Business have to reduce their risks to be viable.

If you fail to declare something, the insurers are well within their rights to refuse to pay out.

fatou256

property.advert wrote: »

What the insurers are doing is to single out people who are BR as fraudsters. Yet these people may have no record of fraud at all. BR is not dependent upon fraud nor theft.

It is from this angle which we may generate some interest, in forcing them to come out and state their criteria and then being able to refute it. The insurers have to be offered something, as there must be some risk, but the risk cannot be allowed to follow the discharged BR forever.

i was lead to beleive that debt arising from fraud are not release by bankruptcy and you will find that if you have committed fraud the OR may well take action againt the BR for fraud. but many will have already a BRO/BRU in place on top of any other legal actions .

I think the issue here that is that legislation is biased towards the insure rather than the customer . there is no balance.

Tinytim

Insurance companies can, and have been, forced to change the way they ask questions, and whether or not they are allowed to account for this in their underwriting.

Many years ago, life insurance companies started to ask "Have you every been tested for HIV/Aids" Those answering "yes" were then subject to increased premiums or refusal on the (probably correct) basis that if they had been yesyed, they believed themselves to be somehow at greater risk. It was deemed that this was unacceptable, and the question was changed to "Have you ever tested positive for HIV/Aids?"

This shows that the insurance industry are not free to act totally as they see fit, and can be forced to change the way they do things. However, whether change is likely in this instance is another point entirely