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Commercialism rant! (long but worth a read)
Comments
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Procrastinator333 wrote: »I felt hard done by too. I knew I was a significantly safer driver than some of the idiots. I knew one chap who treated the local roads literally like a racetrack. Would be doing 70 or 80mph round blind bends on the wrong side of the road. But how can you prove that to an insurance company? They did try that black box scheme where they track your useage. And maybe in future they will extend that to track speed and driving style too. At that point there may be some differentiation.
At the moment, younger male drivers cause the majority of costs for insurance companies. At the moment, they charge that age group the most. I would argue that is fair. I paid through the nose while I was younger, like you. And in a few years when they get to 25 they will see the premiums start to fall away. It really won't seem fair when you are 30 and being asked to subsidise the young male driver category.
You have just picked that £800 number out of the air. My guess is that when averaged, insurance companies actually spend more than £800 per young male driver. You may find nobody actually offers insurance.
A further problem is tha unless every insurance company applies that 5%, price differentials will kick in. Insurer A who does this may find that they can't actually get any older male drivers becasue insurer B doesn't apply this 5%.
The insurer can't wait for someone to prove they are a bad driver, that is usually proven via very costly insurance claims. By then it is too late!
The only realistic way I see for insurance for young males to come down would be if they had a speed / tracking device fitted to their car - E.g. If they proved to the insurance company they stuck to the speed limit, sensible roads and drove carefully. Until that happens it will always be a function of statistics. No doubt it hurts like hell when you are on the wrong end of those statistics, but in my opinion that is actually quite a fair system. We all suffer as younger drivers and all enjoy lower premiums later in life.
But what I'm saying is that the insurance is no where near the amount I am willing to pay. It's wasted money in my eyes. I'd just about be willing to pay £500 let alone £1,500!
This stuff about cheaper premiums for older drivers is rubbish. My parents insurance has gone up from £550 to £685 in two years! No claims either. You'd think it would get cheaper.
So really their ripping everyone off and ripping the younger drivers off even more.
If your insurance is way over £5k a year you might as well be uninsured because the fine is only £5k.
Reply to another poster = Yes communism is better than capitalism in my opinion!0 -
A few home truths, Chippy.
1. Car Insurance is nothing like Home Insurance. Home insurance is not compulsory and if you are burgled without it, then tough luck. With Motor Insurance, a huge amount of the cost is 'legal liability'. You can maim someone for life and the court will award £2 million. Are you saying you could afford to pay that? Are you saying their motor insurance should cover it? Sadly, some two-year-old children don't have any! The equivalent of home insurance is damage to your own car. This is not compulsory.
2. Mortgages. Banks don't even lend to each other at 0.5%. Please try to understand that a mortgage comes with costs. The bank needs to supply staff to talk to you when you are applying. They need to reconcile your payments. They need to redeem the mortgage when you move. People do not work for nothing. More importantly, a proportion of people lose their jobs and don't pay their mortgage. This has to be paid for. In any case, you should sit down quietly for an hour and try to work out how "mortgages" and "communism" go together. You are advocating one economic system, and recommending extremely generous terms for 'loans' that simply have no place whatsoever in that economic system.
3. There IS an incentive to save. If you don't save then you will be poor, especially when you retire. Just as there is an incentive not to commit murder (the incentive being you stay out of jail). But just as the government doesn't pay you not to commit murder, they don't pay you to save. Those people who lend, must obtain that money to lend out. They borrow it from you and pay you market interest. None of us likes today's low savings rates, but many would not like the record low mortgage rates to go up either. Presumably you want 'incentives' to eat properly, to be educated, or to look after your mother if she is ill? 99% of things we do in life don't need incentives, we just go and do them, and if cost is involved, we pay it.
4. Communism. You are clearly too young to remember when 50% of the world's population suffered under communism, which eventually collapsed. About the only country that operates true communism today is North Korea. Perhaps you could study their economy, the lifestyle of their people, and how much you are likely to enjoy living there.0 -
I experienced the communist system first hand it was great the checkout girl earn't the same as the doctor you paid into a car scheme and where allocated a new car after 10 years and could sell it the day after for ten times its value and my Uncle was on a 23 year waiting list to have a phone connected in his flat and ration cards were in force and this was the 80's0
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chippy_250 wrote: »House prices & mortgages
Why are mortgages sold privately?
Just like car insurance, they shouldn't be allowed to charge these stupid interest rates. The base rate is practically zero yet these stupid private companies are ripping us off.
No-one my age has got a mortgage yet. And I know at least 250 people my age! WELL i'M NOT MOVING OUT UNTILL I CAN PAY FOR MY HOUSE IN CASH! YOUR NOT GETTING MY MONEY!
You don't remember when interest rates reached 15% do you?
I'm loving the recession. Can't wait to wake up and watch a big company go bust! I love watching them moan on Tv and saying how times are so bad that they can only afford 2 Villa's abroad now and not 5. I hope they all go down the pan, that's what I say!
Just hope that all your family work for the company that goes bust so they lose their income and pension as well as their jobs.
Any thoughts?
(PLEASE READ MY ADDITIONAL POST ON PAGE TWO!)
Don't be so naive, sell the car buy a bike and enjoy life and don't fund slave labour buy buying cheaply made garments from abroad as there are plenty of companies in the UK still making clothes, not cheap but at least you can make a village in Bangalore redundant by buying a UK made pair of jeans.0 -
Procrastinator333 wrote: »I felt hard done by too. I knew I was a significantly safer driver than some of the idiots. I knew one chap who treated the local roads literally like a racetrack. Would be doing 70 or 80mph round blind bends on the wrong side of the road. But how can you prove that to an insurance company? They did try that black box scheme where they track your useage. And maybe in future they will extend that to track speed and driving style too. At that point there may be some differentiation.
At the moment, younger male drivers cause the majority of costs for insurance companies. At the moment, they charge that age group the most. I would argue that is fair. I paid through the nose while I was younger, like you. And in a few years when they get to 25 they will see the premiums start to fall away. It really won't seem fair when you are 30 and being asked to subsidise the young male driver category.
You have just picked that £800 number out of the air. My guess is that when averaged, insurance companies actually spend more than £800 per young male driver. You may find nobody actually offers insurance.
A further problem is tha unless every insurance company applies that 5%, price differentials will kick in. Insurer A who does this may find that they can't actually get any older male drivers becasue insurer B doesn't apply this 5%.
The insurer can't wait for someone to prove they are a bad driver, that is usually proven via very costly insurance claims. By then it is too late!
The only realistic way I see for insurance for young males to come down would be if they had a speed / tracking device fitted to their car - E.g. If they proved to the insurance company they stuck to the speed limit, sensible roads and drove carefully. Until that happens it will always be a function of statistics. No doubt it hurts like hell when you are on the wrong end of those statistics, but in my opinion that is actually quite a fair system. We all suffer as younger drivers and all enjoy lower premiums later in life.
I did ask my dad and he did confirm he didn't have to pay for his car again when he started driving.
Anyway, my point is rather than trying to get every age group to balance its self I am in short saying make a loss on young drivers and charge the rest (the majority) a small amount more. In many respects if the government forced a s capped insurance with conditions the insurance companies would do this anyway to recoup the loss.
I did pick £800 out of the air as what I would deem to be a reasonable cost if a young driver has just got a sensible small car.
I am not sure of the exact proportions of the young drivers to the older drivers, but in short I would happily pay a bit more on my premium if it meant the generations below me would get a better deal.
With that I do think it should maybe be illegal to drive a powerful car car for the first 2 years of holding a license regardless of age.Have my first business premises (+4th business) 01/11/2017
Quit day job to run 3 businesses 08/02/2017
Started third business 25/06/2016
Son born 13/09/2015
Started a second business 03/08/2013
Officially the owner of my own business since 13/01/20120 -
Mr Procrastinator333,
I can see you points and don't complete disagree, but I go back to discrimination, just because I am a male doesn't make me the same as all other males yet insureance companies say I am.
I'm not sure risk profiling and discrimination are one and the same.
Fact of the matter is, if you're young there's a 99% chance you'll drive like a total !!!!. The 1% that's left, unlucky.This is a system account and does not represent a real person. To contact the Forum Team email forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com0 -
I'm not sure risk profiling and discrimination are one and the same.
Fact of the matter is, if you're young there's a 99% chance you'll drive like a total !!!!. The 1% that's left, unlucky.
You have just proven my point really, I know many people my age who did the same as me and bought a sensible little car and we have all managed to get over 25 with no claims being made.
Yes I do see some young drivers (and older ones) who really shouldn't be on the road.
In short I do see it as descrimination to say that all 19 year olds are the same and all males are the same.
Yes the under 25s do cost insurance companies more to which why should the sensible 19 year olds be held accountable for the not so sensible just because they share the same age?
Out of interest those who support the current system, what percentage of your car value was your first years insurance (and what year was it)? as mentioned above mine was 150% in 2003.Have my first business premises (+4th business) 01/11/2017
Quit day job to run 3 businesses 08/02/2017
Started third business 25/06/2016
Son born 13/09/2015
Started a second business 03/08/2013
Officially the owner of my own business since 13/01/20120 -
My first car was a 12 year old 1.0 Nissan Micra, insurance was about 200%
But the cosr compared to the cost of the car is so irrelevent I don't know why you bring it up.This is a system account and does not represent a real person. To contact the Forum Team email forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com0 -
Out of interest those who support the current system, what percentage of your car value was your first years insurance (and what year was it)? as mentioned above mine was 150% in 2003.
When you insure a car you're not just insuring against the value of the car though are you? You're paying a premium which means the insurance company will pay out not only if something happens to your car, but also if something happens to you or the people and cars you effect if and when you hit them.
So the annual insurance for my first car was about the same as the value of the car. But that's not really the issue - the cost of the insurance was based on the fact that I was 20 years old and 20 year old drivers cause more chaos on the road than other drivers.
My understanding is that insurance is like shares, in that the market will find the fair value. If all current insurance companies were charging well over the odds for 18-25 year olds then I'm sure another company would open up offering cheaper insurance to this group. The fact that this hasn't happened tells me that there isn't money to be made and that the premiums charged are probably about right.
And anyway, moaning about your car insurance when you're young is a rite of passage.0 -
I bought my first car when I was 18 in 1964 (1937 MG TA). It cost £80 and the insurance for the first year (TPF&T) was £11. Premiums do seem to have gone up a lot proportionately - though the car would barely do 60 mph!I used to think that good grammar is important, but now I know that good wine is importanter.0
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