Car insurance trebled at new build house

Kel83rid

Hi Martin

I've been searching price comparison sites for my dads car insurance renewal. It came out at £260 with Axa which was great but when he called them to change his address to his new home (a new build house a few streets away from where he lives now) the quote changed to £990!!!

The operator said it was because the new address is a new build and they hold no history on the postcode and also the people who lives there must have nicer cars!

How can this be and will it be the same for all companies?

Thanks
Kelly

InsideInsurance

No, each insurer will have its own pricing structure but you'll be looking at cancellation charges if you dont stick with Axa

To be honest, sales staff in insurers try to explain things that they dont know the answers to. Sometimes they can be close to the mark and others they are miles off.

Pricing for a new build is going to cause some issues because of the lack of history and to be honest it is a little to granular in operations for me to have come across it but I would expect the process to be looking at the surrounding postcodes rating factors and either using an average or the worst as the base and then make a relatively small adjustment for it being a new build.

What can cause additional problems is if (a) the postcode isnt in the system yet and so the insurer looks at a much broader area or (b) the postcode is actually being reused and historically was in a much higher risk area

Out of curiosity, if you put the postcode into GoogleMaps or such does it drop the pin in the right area or somewhere else?

Kel83rid

Thanks for your quick reply. Google drops the pin in the next village awY around 5 miles from where it should be.

InsideInsurance

In which case it could be that the PAF files havent been updated yet and so whilst it has the right address it geocodes to the wrong location and so it is rated based on where the geocode states it is (ie the next village)

Kel83rid

Thanks again, that makes sense now. I'll ask them to check again using a postcode nearer where the house is maybe.