Car Insurance and Driveways

Finleythefish

I just rang up my insurer as I'm changing my car and I wanted a new quote.
The quote was favourable so I asked them to go ahead with it but before I finalised the call, I also informed the adviser that I would no longer be keeping the car on the road and that now in fact be kept on the driveway.

Now, me in my ignorance, thought that keeping my car on a driveway would be a safer place to keep it. After all, I saw a few cars come skidding down my road after the snow this winter and was definitely glad that I had a driveway!

But oh no! Silly me! Of course putting my car on my driveway, is actually a riskier place to put it, meaning the extra premium went up by £15

The adviser explained to me that it was more at risk from theft on the driveway, it was easier for a thief as they would be more concealed and would therefore be more able to steal it.

Now I know that you all can't come and look at my driveway, but let me tell you it's an open plan estate, the drive only fits one car, is overlooked by the house and really there is no difference between it, and the road.

Thoughts anyone?

Quentin

The premium may have remained unchanged, and the £15 was actually their admin charge for changing the policy.

Takecareofthepennies

There was a post on here a few days ago by someone who had a slightly higher price quoted for putting his car in a garage - because of the increased risk of damage when driving into the garage!

Anything they can get away with I guess ...

lisyloo

It could be an amendement charge if the policy had already been purchased at that point in the call.

there is no difference between it, and the road

Insurance quotes are never personal. No-one will come out and look at your driveway before quoting just as you won't have a medical or driving test.
The rates given are done by putting people/locations into categories.
It's could even be a fluke of the statistics, but if the stats show more claims on drievways then the costs will be higher.
It's all down to the stats and grouping and can give anomalies.

I live on a hill, but aparrently my house it at risk of flooding.
There is absolutely no way my house could get flooded but I'm judged by claims in my postcode area and not my individual house.
This is in some cases unfair, but it's impractical and prohibitively expensive to do personal quotes hence the groupings.

There has been a big disussions on this wrt gender recently because from Dec 2012 insurer will not longer be able to disriminate on gender. This is liekly to mean they will discriminate more on other things.

Ninnut85

I had the exact same thing happen to me. If I park my car on the road it's £100 cheaper than if I LOCK it away in my garage.
Utterly bizzare.......

lisyloo

Utterly bizzare.......

Why do you say that.
Someone trying to break into a car in full view in the middle of the road is more likely to get caught.
Stick it under a lampost.

A lot of garges have terrible security and can be gotten into quite easily, worringly so if it's attached to your house.

Ninnut85

lisyloo wrote: »

Why do you say that.
Someone trying to break into a car in full view in the middle of the road is more likely to get caught.
Stick it under a lampost.

A lot of garges have terrible security and can be gotten into quite easily, worringly so if it's attached to your house.

Perhaps in general which i know is what the insurance companies obviously go off but this is far far from the case for me and my postcode.

lisyloo

Perhaps in general which i know is what the insurance companies obviously go off but this is far far from the case for me and my postcode.

Their pricing models are not perfect and there are anomalies.
it can't fit every indidvidual scenario. It would simply be prohibitively expensive.

In your case ther answer is simple.
Leave it on the street and save yourself £100.

But you do raise an intersting point.
We lock away our cars when we go on holiday.
We never thought there would be an issue with this as we assumed it was safer.
If it's more risky then we shouldn't do it and could even find ourselves uninsured.