Rip off car insurance in the UK

Gracchus_Babeuf

The real ripoff isn't insurance companies, but mechanics, who rake in the cash by charging huge rates for basic bodywork. I recently scraped my car accidentally and it left a visible (but not huge) dent in it. The mechanic wanted £850 + VAT!! For fixing a scratch and doing some spray painting. And £566 of that was just labour costs - for what I estimate is a few hours of work.

Trebor16

Gracchus_Babeuf wrote: »

The real ripoff isn't insurance companies, but mechanics, who rake in the cash by charging huge rates for basic bodywork. I recently scraped my car accidentally and it left a visible (but not huge) dent in it. The mechanic wanted £850 + VAT!! For fixing a scratch and doing some spray painting. And £566 of that was just labour costs - for what I estimate is a few hours of work.

How many estimates did you get for the work, just the one?

TrickyWicky

vaio wrote: »

isn't that essentially what the MIB & s151 do in terms of payment to innocent third parties?

Totally different. They cover the victim but the government do not issue any form of cheap / basic insurance to poorer motorists.

The MIB uninsured driver scheme does not do this so how on earth can you think this is essentially the same?

vaio

TrickyWicky wrote: »

Totally different. They cover the victim but the government do not issue any form of cheap / basic insurance to poorer motorists.

The MIB uninsured driver scheme does not do this so how on earth can you think this is essentially the same?

really? In terms of payment to third innocent third parties what is the difference between the Canadian system and s151/MIB?

Dontknowanymore

jaydeeuk1 wrote: »

My insurance has gone down too.

If you're a sh*t driver, or live in a crap area then your premiums will be, quite rightly, sky high. Just admit you can't afford to drive and take the bus.

Not in my case.
My premium is so high because the fool that is liable for the crash I had in November wont admit liability so I wont get my 3 years NCD until it is all sorted, plus I have to declare the crash as a fault claim.
Once I hopefully get my NCD back then my premium would be £330 a year.

samba

jaydeeuk1 wrote: »

My insurance has gone down too.

If you're a sh*t driver, or live in a crap area then your premiums will be, quite rightly, sky high. Just admit you can't afford to drive and take the bus.

What a bad attitude you have! I could sum it up as "I'm alright, screw everyone else". You seem like the sort of person that wouldn't think twice about putting in a huge personal injury claim for whiplash when you weren't even in the car.

My premiums have gone up 2 years in a a row yet I haven't made a claim or been involved in an accident in over 15 years, I have lived in the same place for 7, and driven the same car for 4.

Even if I shop around, I still can't find a quote that's on par with what I paid last year.

Quite simply I am being ripped off because of the greed of others.

poppasmurf_bewdley

vaio wrote: »

isn't that essentially what the MIB & s151 do in terms of payment to innocent third parties?

I suppose the difference is that uninsured people over here only have to pay if they get caught or have an accident.

Do you happen to know what happened in canada if someone poor caused a bad PI accident? would they be effectively banned forever?

I know nothing more about the scheme than I've said above. I only found out about the scheme at all because I had a friend who was a policeman in Toronto and he told me about it.

Whether people were effectively banned forever I don't know. If the Canadian Government is like the British one, then everyone will eventually be let off whether they paid it off or not!

dacouch

poppasmurf_bewdley wrote: »

I don't know if they still run the same system, but when I lived in Canada in the late 60's/early 70's you could drive uninsured on public roads by paying a small fee (about $20), but if you had an accident causing injury or damage, you lost your licence until you had paid off what you owed. The government covered the damage.

But there again, that was a case of a Government actually looking after the poorer drivers.

If the small fee was $20 back in 1970, then taking into account inflation it would have cost equivalent to £370.

If that is the case, then the risk / reward would not stack up for me

vaio

Good point but I think insurance inflation is different to wage & general inflation.

Mid '70's as a proud possessor of a shiny new licence I paid £40 (two weeks apprentice wages) to insure a 1500cc GT Cortina, 6 years ago our then apprentice was paying £1600 (over three months wages) to insure a small engined Rover 25, these days I expect he'd be paying twice or three times that and I'd be surprised if apprentice wages have gone up at all in the past 6 years

TrickyWicky

vaio wrote: »

really? In terms of payment to third innocent third parties what is the difference between the Canadian system and s151/MIB?

The difference (as explained above) is that the MIB will not provide any cheap insurance cover which ALLOWS you to LEGALLY drive.

Yes they do cover claims against uninsured drivers but uninsured drivers get hit by the law. I repeat: Poor drivers have no cheap legal insurance available to them.

Comprende?