Occupation for car insurance?

Dave_Thomas

I know that by tweaking job descriptions you can alter the premiums on insurance quotes and I want to do this for my wife who has recently taken early retirement from her job as a Local Government Officer.

She is nowhere near state retirement age, but is now receiving her occupational pension. She is not considering working again. I have entered her occupation details as housewife and I also tried retired and the quotes for retired are coming out about £15 cheaper. So would it be reasonable to state her occupation as retired or do I have to say that she is a housewife, because she is not claiming her state pension yet?

Tom99

I would put 'retired' because she has. They can see her age so will know she is not at state retirement age.

dj1471

Have a go with MSE's insurance job picker tool:
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/insurance/car-insurance-job-picker/

Aretnap

The insurance company has a duty to ensure that the questions they ask are clear and comprehensible to the average customer, and you are entitled to assume that the words they use have their ordinary meaning unless they make clear that they are using a specific meaning.

In ordinary language someone who has taken early retirement, is drawing an occupational pension and has no intention of working again is retired. (The phrase "early retirement" is a bit of a giveaway in this regard).

So unless the question offers a specific definition of "retired" (for example by phrasing it as "retired (drawing state pension) ") then it's perfectly reasonable to describe her as retired.

Kynthia

As state pension age is put back the percentage of those who will retire before receiving their state pension will increase. Alternatively there's nothing to say you can't still work after claiming it, as i know people who do and therefore would not describe themselves as retired. Unless the insurance companies definition of retired states that it's from state pension age then it's irrelevant.