Car Insurance & Unemployment

Izbizzle

Hi all,

I am in the process of looking for a new job as I have just returned home from travelling. I am about to buy car insurance for my first car (!), but I realise being unemployed really affects the price of insurance. I am looking for work in a specific role/field, so I am likely to have a job within the next couple of weeks (fingers crossed)!

Are you able to inform the insurance company of the change in occupation from unemployed to employed once you've bought the insurance, and will it affect the price of the policy after I've bought it? E.g. Will I get any money back? If not - I know we must be honest with insurers - but would it really be so bad if I said I was employed at the point of buying it? The quotes I have found vary hugely. It's just frustrating as I need a car to go for interviews etc, otherwise I might have waited to insure it.

Forgive me if I seem a little clueless about this, I only passed my test 6 months ago and don't really know what I'm doing! :eek: Thanks for your help.

stator

You absolutely must tell them you are unemployed, otherwise you are uninsured and could be procescuted as such.

The insurance admin fee for changes might eat into any savings you get from being employed.

If you want your own car you don't have much choice but to pay.
Make sure you pick an insurer that is cheap for you employed and unemployed, so you don't get stuck with a huge additional premium when you do get a job. Use fake details for the dummy quotes to avoid triggering their fraud detection.

Quentin

Your occupation is a material factor as far as your premium is concerned, thus any change can mean a revision of the premium (up or down)

forgotmyname

Only passed 6 months ago, you dont want to be adding cancelled insurance to your quotes.

Mancunian_Nick

Hello

I am in the process to start looking for a new insurance quote for a car I've just purchased - first one I've owned since 1996 if memory serves. I've been given a week's free insurance (to drive the car away from the dealer which I shall be doing shortly) and also an annual quote. I said I was unemployed (although I'm doing a remote learning course in customer service with Vision2Learn at the moment) and the quote was £1,090! I was gobsmacked but then reading the motor insurance section here, see it's likely because I said unemployed, although the reason they gave me was I had no no claims bonus. The thing is the motor is only £2,100 to buy so seems rather excessive to say the least! As I'm 63 in November and unlikely to find a job before 2018 (I'm currently on ESA and PIP for a leg ulcer, although it doesn't affect me driving), what should I do? I intend to look around later today but I had absolutely no idea my insurance would likely be this much or I might well have had second thoughts before purchasing the car!

Thanks for any help, advice or recommendations. BTW the course is due to finish later in June - I'm half way through at the moment. Could I say I'm a student even though I work from home? Also I'm single with no children so homemaker or househusband isn't an option either.

Thanks again, Nick

Mancunian_Nick

Further to what I said above, I took advice from this site and visited the 4 comparison sites. Checking GoCompare.com, I went through the getting a quote a stage and was DELIGHTED that Hastings Essential quoted 3 different rates, from £781.99 to £862.26 for all in premium. After some deliberation and checking the other comparison sites,I decided to go for that so I clicked accept and was transferred to Hastings own website where I put my details in and checked the policy/insurance details. In the process of that, I noticed it had that I'd been driving for 20 years when in fact it's 42 so wishing to be accurate, I clicked on the edit button but couldn't find the licence details so decided not to worry about it and just accept their quote when, to my horror, ANOTHER quote popped up but this time of £1115.74! I couldn't believe it. How could a quote go up that far in literally 5 or 10 minutes at most? I phoned them to query it only to be told by some !!!!!! that quotes can change even whilst you're online and in minutes but there was nothing he could do about the quote of £1115.74! That's an increase of £253.48!! Wow if it carries on increasing at that rate, it will be several grand by the end of the month. This is totally crazy and checking 3 more companies just now who don't use comparison sites (Aviva, Zurich and Direct Line), they're all quoting crazy money from just over £1,000 to a couple of grand! If I'd known this, either I'd have bought a cycle or a mini! So I'm going to have to go with Citroen/Evans Halshaw's quote with UK Insurance unless I can get the Co-op to come down a bit more. They told me they didn't add extra for employment status because it wasn't considered for their quotes yet they still quoted me £1015.79! With legal cover and breakdown, that goes up to £1091.79. If I knew I needed to be a millionaire to drive a car these days, I wouldn't have bothered.

rev_henry

Mancunian_Nick wrote: »

Hello

I am in the process to start looking for a new insurance quote for a car I've just purchased - first one I've owned since 1996 if memory serves. I've been given a week's free insurance (to drive the car away from the dealer which I shall be doing shortly) and also an annual quote. I said I was unemployed (although I'm doing a remote learning course in customer service with Vision2Learn at the moment) and the quote was £1,090! I was gobsmacked but then reading the motor insurance section here, see it's likely because I said unemployed, although the reason they gave me was I had no no claims bonus. The thing is the motor is only £2,100 to buy so seems rather excessive to say the least! As I'm 63 in November and unlikely to find a job before 2018 (I'm currently on ESA and PIP for a leg ulcer, although it doesn't affect me driving), what should I do? I intend to look around later today but I had absolutely no idea my insurance would likely be this much or I might well have had second thoughts before purchasing the car!

Thanks for any help, advice or recommendations. BTW the course is due to finish later in June - I'm half way through at the moment. Could I say I'm a student even though I work from home? Also I'm single with no children so homemaker or househusband isn't an option either.

Thanks again, Nick

Put 'not employed due to disability'. This seems to fit the bill given your benefits status and may be cheaper.