Higher Car Insurance because I'm not working!

Jackie_Wow_Wow

Can someone give me a valid reason why, after working 25 years and now out of work, my car insurance is £100 more! When I was quoted this higher fee the insurance company said basically it's because I'm not working. It appears that because I have more time on my hands I have the potential to use my car more often, ie shopping, leisure or looking for work. I don't have the money to fill the car or have trips out to the shops or even the seaside therefore any job searches will be on foot or by the web or at a push, via the bus. Surely we insure our vehicles for the purpose of driving be it 24 hours a day or once a week. I'm not a speed merchant, and my age (past the half century mark) is surely a factor of being sensible. I'm flabbergasted by this hike. Can someone shed any feasible reason why the insurance companies can get away with ripping off this sector of car drivers.:mad:

vaio

unemployed people are all skint crooks who make fraudulent claims.

There was another thread on here in the not too distant past, same as you..... bloke lost his job, told his insurer, got a premium hike....two months later he got another job, told his insurer, got another premium hike.

it's pretty much standard, your insurance company want you to pay the premium (and particularly the renewal premium) and not cause them any work.

Once you start drawing attention to yourself then it invariably ends up costing you ££££. Sadly change/loss of job is something you are obliged to tell them about so unless you can prove they are treating you unfairly (in the FOS sense of the word) there isn't anything you can do about it.

McKneff

I retired, rang them expecting my premium to go down, the cheeky sods upped it by £50. I wasnt happy about it at all and I;ll certainly be shopping around come next June.

vaio

McKneff wrote: »

I retired, rang them expecting my premium to go down, the cheeky sods upped it by £50. I wasnt happy about it at all and I;ll certainly be shopping around come next June.

If you cba ring them again tomorrow and tell them you are thinking of going back to work, I bet they want to increase it again.

InsideInsurance

With an insurers hat on, simply because the data of our 10 million customers over the last 25 years shows consistently that the total claims costs are higher for unemployed than a call centre worker.

Insurers work on stats where ever possible. The underlying reasons dont come into it when there is so much data already, only when you are going into brand new territory and no data is available do you start looking for logical rationalisations.

If you wanted to put logic to it - increased mileage is more or less irrelevant because mileage is declared separately. You are however likely to be: stressed, driving to places you dont know for interviews and under time pressure, a fraud risk due to money worries etc

System

InsideInsurance wrote: »

With an insurers hat on, simply because the data of our 10 million customers over the last 25 years shows consistently that the total claims costs are higher for unemployed

As the unemployment rate is higher for women than men, and they proportionately bear the brunt of new unemployment, aren't you indirectly discriminating by using this method of assessing risk?

InsideInsurance

I am not a statical analysis person, understand the broad theory but not the in depth practical aspects.... with such a large book of data you are predominately able to isolate individual contributing factors.

As an aside, is the statement even true? I'd certainly image the female population is economically less active but unemployed is a specific situation and doesnt include housewives etc.

According to the BBC there are more unemployed men than women but it was a couple of years old article