Son's car insurance problem

Rob_192

I would appreciate some advice regarding my son's car insurance.

He is 18YO and insures his own car. He renewed his insurance in June, but has recently started University. He was hoping to take his car with him, but then found out he couldn't have one at the university he choose. Just as he was about to cancel the insurance he found out that due to the nature of his course he can take his car after all.

Now here's the problem. The address on the insurance is the home address. My wife has just phoned the insurance company for clarrification and has been told that he needs to change the address, which will cost an extra £77/pa premium + £15 admin fee. Now he lives in halls and doesn't even have a post box - they have to collect their mail from the student union office, so we don't want this to become the correspondense address (too unreliable). Furthermore, the insurance company seemed to indicate he should change the address when he comes back home. He is at University for 30 weeks, the remaining 22 weeks he lives at home. Surely he's not expected to change the address for each holiday, presumably incurring a £15 admin fee each time.

What would be the implications of leaving things as they are, ie. home address and not tell them he takes it to Uni during term time? Something tell me that this may cause problems, but this can't be an unusual situation - what do others do?

iamana1ias

Rob_192 wrote: »

I would appreciate some advice regarding my son's car insurance.

He is 18YO and insures his own car. He renewed his insurance in June, but has recently started University. He was hoping to take his car with him, but then found out he couldn't have one at the university he choose. Just as he was about to cancel the insurance he found out that due to the nature of his course he can take his car after all.

Now here's the problem. The address on the insurance is the home address. My wife has just phoned the insurance company for clarrification and has been told that he needs to change the address, which will cost an extra £77/pa premium + £15 admin fee. Now he lives in halls and doesn't even have a post box - they have to collect their mail from the student union office, so we don't want this to become the correspondense address (too unreliable). Furthermore, the insurance company seemed to indicate he should change the address when he comes back home. He is at University for 30 weeks, the remaining 22 weeks he lives at home. Surely he's not expected to change the address for each holiday, presumably incurring a £15 admin fee each time.

What would be the implications of leaving things as they are, ie. home address and not tell them he takes it to Uni during term time? Something tell me that this may cause problems, but this can't be an unusual situation - what do others do?

He won't be covered if he has an accident while at uni.

Sounds like you've gone for cheap insurance that charges quite heavily for changes. You pay peanuts.............

Rob_192

iamana1ias wrote: »

He won't be covered if he has an accident while at uni

Forgive my ignorance but why?

Sounds like you've gone for cheap insurance that charges quite heavily for changes. You pay peanuts.............

Actually it's not, it's from a very reputable household name.

lisyloo

Forgive my ignorance but why?

The insurer bases the premium on the risks as they are presented.
There are a huge number of factors e.g. postcode, age, gender, occupation, mileage etc.
Postcode is a biggy.
The risks of an accident or theft vary greatly across the country.

If your son kep the car at uni but you told the insurers that the car was kept at home, then they have based the premium on the wrong information.

If you lie or inadvertatly give them wrong inforamtion then they can either
1) if they would have insured the car, they can ask for the increased premium
2) if they would not have have insured the car they can refuse a claim
3) They can cancel the insurance and the policyholder has to declare for ever that they've had insurance cancelled. This makes quotes more expensive and makes it difficult to use on-line sites so more hasssle ringing round. Effectively you are branded a liar for life even if you made a mistake, forgot or didn't understand something.

but this can't be an unusual situation - what do others do?

Have you asked the insurers what's the best way to deal with this?

Although you may feel you've gone for a good company, they may not be the best for this situation.
There may be companies who are more student friendly and able to cope with this better.

huckster

They can have the risk address as the halls of residence address and the home address for correspondence.

I can't see the point of changing the address back, when he come home out of term time. I presume that over the 12 months, he will be at the university address for most of the time, so the Insurers should just accept the rating at that address.

Suggest that he speaks to the Insurers on this basis.

Rob_192

Thanks folks

I can see the increased risk arguement based on post code and we've decided to pay the increased premium. My wife is going to phone them - however, we are not going to accept them using his Uni address as the correspondense address as he will obviously be moving around and this is just asking for trouble in terms of things going missing etc.

R

iamana1ias

Rob_192 wrote: »

Thanks folks

I can see the increased risk arguement based on post code and we've decided to pay the increased premium. My wife is going to phone them - however, we are not going to accept them using his Uni address as the correspondense address as he will obviously be moving around and this is just asking for trouble in terms of things going missing etc.

R

Any reason your adult son can't sort this out for himself?

vaio

kids don't become adults until 25 or 30 these days

Torby

Rob_192 wrote: »

Thanks folks

I can see the increased risk arguement based on post code and we've decided to pay the increased premium. My wife is going to phone them - however, we are not going to accept them using his Uni address as the correspondense address as he will obviously be moving around and this is just asking for trouble in terms of things going missing etc.

R

just how many pieces of correspondence are you expecting him to get from them over the next 12 months, in my experience unless he makes another change there'll be nothing until renewal time...IMO mountains out of molehills.

Rob_192

iamana1ias wrote: »

Any reason your adult son can't sort this out for himself?

None whatsoever, just trying to do the lad a favour.

He's on a very intesive course (Medicine) and has little spare time, also we want to make sure he's covered and left to his own devices he may not be inclined to pay the extra premium! At least by doing it for him we have the reasurance that he's fully covered.

iamana1ias

Rob_192 wrote: »

None whatsoever, just trying to do the lad a favour.

He's on a very intesive course (Medicine) and has little spare time, also we want to make sure he's covered and left to his own devices he may not be inclined to pay the extra premium! At least by doing it for him we have the reasurance that he's fully covered.

Let's hope the course has modules on personal responsibility then