"pay As You Go" Car Insurance (norwich Union)

lisaburton

I have been with Nu pay as you drive for 2 1/2 years now. They originally ran a piolet scheme for under 21year old drivers to see how well it would do before changing over to a new system and opening it up to everyone.

I think Norwich union pay as you drive is great because as well as keeping the premiums down you get pay as you drive navman fitted too which is great if you have a really bad sense of direction like me you just top it up like a mobile phone and use it when you need to.

hansi

Agreed, and it's working out very cheap for me.

TetrisX

Make no mistake, this is the way of the future. You can liken the car insurance market to Water rates vs Water meters. Pay as you drive will be excellent for lower useage drivers but awful for higher useage ones. At the moment low use drivers subsidise in part higher risk drivers by overpaying in risk premiums because the insurers have to assume that you may drive the car at 3am a lot, or do a lot of rush hour travel, etc. With this type of insurance they know when you are using it and can charge accordingly. A lot fairer in my view.

The way I look at it is this, every policy is made up of a number of elements when deciding risk, like how likely is the car to be stolen (postcode and manufacturer security), how likely will there be a theft from the vehicle (postcode), how likely is the vehicle going to be in an accident (mileage). It is a little hit and miss. Mileage for example, just because you drive 20,000 motorway miles a year doesn't mean (in my eyes) you are more likely to cause an accident than someone driving 10,000 local road miles (as junctions and side turnings are a big factor), but the cost of the accident should you crash is likely to be more for the motorway miles.

Road pricing is on the way, there is no escaping it, no matter how opposed we are to it, it is already coming in via the back door. Priced car insurance is the first step.

The main people who will benefit from this type of insurance are stay at home mums/childminders, who walk to school and use the car to visit toddler clubs and go shopping and the like. Certainly judging by the quote given, my partner who does about 2000 miles a year and is a childminder, who walks the children to school, will save over £300 a year in premiums by changing to pay as you go cover. An excellent money saving, although you have to balance that against your personal views on being monitored everywhere you drive.

TetrisX

We have had the device fitted in our car now, took about 2 hours to do by the roadside by an RAC man sent by Norwich Union.

A round black aerial the size of a small drinks coaster was fitted to the windscreen behind the mirror so barely visible. A microphone was fitted on the door frame to the right of the driver and an assistance button fitted into the dashboard.

All very professionally done and if you didn't know what they were you could easily be forgiven for thinking that they were manufacturer fitted.

Took about 10 days from signing up until fitting complete.

So far so good. Will report back experiences once the bills start rolling in. The good news thus far, is that the cheapest quote was around £600 (NU own price for a regular policy was about £750), the Pay as you Drive estimate is about £400, or a 33% saving, plus you pay monthly at no extra charge so great for budgeting purposes

[Deleted User]

Its really interesting to see what people think about PAYD, please keep posting your thoughts here so I can pass them onto my colleagues.

Becca

hansi

As I have said before, I have been on the PAYD scheme since January and it is going to save me a LOT of money. In an average month I might drive around 400 kiles, some months more, and my bills so far have been very small. This is the future of card insurance.

TetrisX

Sure Becca, will do. Like I say so far so good. It is nice to see NU being brave enough to take the lead in this area which I am sure will be followed by other providers also. Our existing provider asked why we were moving and we told them about PAYD, the rep had not heard of it before but took details down

Also for anyone considering this should just add that NU give a premium guarantee, so that if your costs for PAYD in the first year exceed what it would have cost you for a standard NU comprehensive policy then you won't pay any more than that. So if a NU price is already good for you, then worth a shot

TetrisX

beccus wrote: »

Its really interesting to see what people think about PAYD, please keep posting your thoughts here so I can pass them onto my colleagues.

Becca

Hi Becca

Feedback so far.

Seems to work well.

Things that should be improved:

1. The fixed daily cost before the device is installed. This is unfair and out of proportion. This should be replaced with an average daily charge of say the first 90 days of use, multiplied by the number of days without the device, payable in month 4.

2. The cost of the navigation and speed camera services - too expensive. One cost for both services would be more appropriate! A Sat-Nav with speed camera locations, plus an update subscription can be had for much less cost, around £110 from ebuyer. e.g. the annual cost of sat nav would buy a sat nav in year one with no cost in year two. Charging 20p if you go off route and need to get back on track is a bit cheeky too! Suffice to say we did not subscibe to these services and have a removable sat-nav device instead, with the benefit of being able to move it between cars. Certainly if the cost of subscription was lower (say half the current rate) we would have been tempted - as it is it is poor value compared to buying a system of your own, even if it breaks every year it is cheaper to replace than subscribe! Pay as you go by voucher instead is a nice option though

As for the actual PAYD insurance, no problems thus far other than point 1 above.

The installation was performed very neatly, the microphone and aerial are placed well and are not noticeable, and everything was installed by RAC cleanly and efficiently.

hansi

As I have said before I have been more than happy with PAYD, but last week, the SatNav really messed up when I requested a route from Tonbridge to Cardiff avoiding the M25. It took me miles out of my way almost to the outskirts of London and they said that the route would have to be split into three. After the first route, it switched off but I knew where I was by then but all the SatNav man had to do was to route me via the A25 all the way to almost the M4! On the whole, it has been excellen though!

QQuaver

Just a bit more info for those considering this insurance, the black round antenna was placed on the lower right-hand corner of the front windscreen in my case.

Also, the pay as you go SatNav is 89p/trip, but top-up is £25. The 89p comes off that.