Swift cover car insurance and changing address

wakefieldjam

I moved home and went to change the car insurance and they want to charge me £108. I have moved 1 mile. Yes 1 mile. Are they allowed to charge me this? I cant affored this either. what can i do?

lisyloo

Is it a different postcode?

You can ask for a breakdown.
Part of it will be for a change in postcode and part of it will be an admin fee.
If you put up the breakdown then people on here will tell you whether it's within guidelines, but yes they can charge extra for a different postcode area and charge you for an admin fee.

If you can't afford it then I would seriously consider other forms of transport.
I don't have a car and it saves me quite a bit of money, although you may have to be prepared to splash out on a taxi now and again when buses, trains, bicycle and legs will not work.

smjxm09

Bet if you moved the other way you would have not got a rebate

dunstonh

smjxm09 wrote: »

Bet if you moved the other way you would have not got a rebate

yes you would. It does go both ways.

Chances are that upto £50 of the charge is an admin charge and the rest is due to postcode.

Steve1981

smjxm09 wrote: »

Bet if you moved the other way you would have not got a rebate

Why would you make a stupid comment like that? I really dont understand why many people simply assume that insurance companies are there to just rip people off

Quentin

dunstonh wrote: »

Chances are that upto £50 of the charge is an admin charge and the rest is due to postcode.

You can avoid paying admin fees for policy changes at swift.

They don't charge admin fees for policy changes that are done online. (£30 fee if you do changes over the phone)

wakefieldjam

this is what they sent me.


Thank you for your e-mail.

As with all insurers, Swiftcover.com has their own underwriting in place which includes the risk assessment of postcode areas. This assessment is based on the amount and type of claims which have been made in these areas.

I hope this answers your query.

I cant beleve to move a mile and off a busy main road into a quiet road it has gone up. What are my options. BTW hanks for the help guys.

jamie

Quentin

You only have 3 options:

1) Pay up

2) Cancel and go elsewhere (factor in the loss of any NCD for the current year and the cancellation costs when seeing if this is a cost effective option).

3) Try and make other policy changes that will reduce the premium (add a mature driver with a spotless driving record/increase your excess/reduce mileage/etc)

Paulos77

Post codes make a huge difference. I moved house which is literally 2 streets away from my old house, (it takes 3 minutes to walk there) but the post code is 1 digit different. My car insurance shot up by about £40 and thats for every insurer. When I was looking for quotes I used my old address and new addres just to see the difference

wakefieldjam

That is terrable. I have moved off the main road into a culdesac and they wana charge me more. hmmm i am gona find how much to cancel and take out a new policy with some one else. What a joke the world we live in

dogbot

You can't afford £105 but you just moved house and run a car? Don't get me wong, maybe it is an unusualy high amount but you haven't given the previous annual cost for us to compare it against.

It isn't about what type of road it is. It is about what that postcode says about you - what is the accident history of the area, what is the Mosaic profile of the postcode, what the company's actuaries assess the risk to be based on the data they have about it.

You also often get a discount on new business rates for many insurers and this might be the case for your initial premium, or not. Usualy, no discount would apply to the adjustment premium.

Next, since you took out your policy - you don't say how far into the policy you are, but lets say a few months at least? - the insurer will have changed its rates. The rating for your vehicle or occupation might have gone up a little, so as well as the new postcode the two-way table used to calculate the rate might multipy that effect a bit. Also, if you look in the media and on this forum, motor market rates have increased substantialy in the last year and continue to do so.

You purchased an annual policy with a cheap as chips insurer who strips out costs from the standard annual price, markets heavily and does discount its new business. It then builds costs back in when they occur (for example making a change on the phone, not on the web).

Insurance policies, even swift-covers, are based on assessment of risk based on the (correct hopefully) information provided. They are not tins of beans on a shelf, they arn't bank accounts. This is an annual contract you are buying. You change the basis of that contract then that is up to you. If you sign up to a mobile phone contract, you can't get out of it unless you pay the full amount due - at least with retail insurance contracts you can get a partial refund and can make changes with out having to start a new contract!

If you want to try to save some dosh on this - get onto their website and do a new annual quote for your new address with all details correct - compare this to the origional annual cost plus the adjustment premium (if there is an admin charge in there, ignore that since it is still payable). If there is a significant difference - i.e. maybe its only £20 more at the new address, then go back to them with this evidence.

Good luck.