Car Insurance Is Now Becoming Ridiculous

IamNotAllowedToUseMyName

Car_54 wrote: »

Which particular law did you have in mind?

I can't think of any supplier (of any goods or services) who explains how his prices are arrived at.

Simply any contract with a consumer has to be clear and unambiguous. If the man in the street does not understand how no claims bonus works, then is it a valid contract, especially if another company might apply different (hidden) rules?

I'm not suggesting that there is a deliberate attempt to confuse the public, simply that the industry has evolved and within the industry there is a different level of understanding of how things work than amongst the general public - everyone should be able to understand the contract that they have entered into, and you just have to read insurance posts on this site to recognise that it is a common, but wrong, assumption that NCB = NBB. If it is a common mistake then what is the industry doing to resolve it?

Nick_C

Car insurance is a highly competitive market, and it is very easy to shop around and find the best deals.

There are still some not for profit companies operating in the market; Co-op, LV=, NFU.

The fact that the commercial companies often undercut the mutuals shows how effective the market is.

paddyandstumpy

Nick_C wrote: »

Cat insurance is a highly competitive market, and it is very easy to shop around and find the best deals.

There are still some not for profit companies operating in the market; Co-op, LV=, NFU.

The fact that the commercial companies often undercut the mutuals shows how effective the market is.

Trust me when I say the mutuals are still out to make a profit, they just keep the profit for themselves and invest it back into the company, rather than pay it away to shareholders.

mgfvvc

stevepb101 wrote: »

No,but surely all the costs are paid by the person at faults insurance company and the person not at fault does not pay or suffer financially afterwards,that is right.

The nature of insurance is that you pay for other peoples' behaviour. If you drive a type of car that is popular with boy racers then your premium will reflect the risk for that car, which is higher, due to the boy racers, regardless of whether you are a boy racer yourself. The flip side of that is that the careful drivers reduce the premium for the boy racers because they reduce the accident statistics for that type of car.

It might not be fair, but the insurers don't have a magic tool that allows them to distinguish the risky from the just unlucky. All they have is statistical analysis.

dacouch

angrycrow wrote: »

You do realise that your 1980 insurance cost of £75 is the equivalent of around £303 in todays money so not actually any cheaper it's just everything is more expensive now but wages have risen as well.

And I most certainly remember there being on average 8 rating areas when I used to manually quote in the 80's with an underwriting guide and calculator.

Even then a few Insurers would load for non fault claims and your occupation was a rating factor along with how long you had held your licence.

The current system rewards lower risk driver and charges higher premiums to higher risk drivers.

unholyangel

iolanthe07 wrote: »

if you have a non fault accident your premium goes up (why??)

Because it is a no claim bonus, not a no blame bonus. Actually, I think car insurance is quite reasonable. I pay under £200 for each of the family cars (Mazda MX5 & Kia Picanto), fully comp, wife and I named drivers.

NCB is the discount you get off the premium, not the premium itself.

But to answer the OPs question, its because statistically even if you weren't technically at fault for the accident, you contributed to it and will go on to make a claim where you are at fault.

Thats all insurance is - a risk assessment based on statistical analysis.

angrycrow wrote: »

You do realise that your 1980 insurance cost of £75 is the equivalent of around £303 in todays money so not actually any cheaper it's just everything is more expensive now but wages have risen as well.

Yeah but in the same time the average price (of goods/services in general) increased by over 50%, the average wage only increased by 18%. One bill increases by maybe 5%, another by 8% but they might have only gotten a 1% payrise - and the government wonder why more people are falling below the poverty line and why the poor/rich divide is widening.

DUTR

unholyangel wrote: »

NCB is the discount you get off the premium, not the premium itself.

But to answer the OPs question, its because statistically even if you weren't technically at fault for the accident, you contributed to it and will go on to make a claim where you are at fault.

Thats all insurance is - a risk assessment based on statistical analysis.



Yeah but in the same time the average price (of goods/services in general) increased by over 50%, the average wage only increased by 18%. One bill increases by maybe 5%, another by 8% but they might have only gotten a 1% payrise - and the government wonder why more people are falling below the poverty line and why the poor/rich divide is widening.

I don't think the Gov are wondering that, do they really care? It's the people that voted them in, although, I'm yet to meet someone who admits that they did :rotfl:

bigadaj

unholyangel wrote: »

Yeah but in the same time the average price (of goods/services in general) increased by over 50%, the average wage only increased by 18%. One bill increases by maybe 5%, another by 8% but they might have only gotten a 1% payrise - and the government wonder why more people are falling below the poverty line and why the poor/rich divide is widening.

that perspective is valid over the last decade but not back to the eighties, people are massively better off over those decades.

The triple lock for example is a great boon for pensioners, and to be honest is unaffordable in the long term, bit of the three locks then that against earnings is the most valuable in the long run.