Car insurance makes no sense to me 25 July 2018 at 12:10PM edited 30 November -1 at 12:00AM in Insurance & Life Assurance 11 replies 1.1K views

smipsy

Hi everyone!

Bit of background:

I'm 28, got my licence in December 2017. My husband is 34, got his licence some 15-16 years ago. He hasn't had a car for some time, so no NCB for either of us. We've been looking to buy a car, found a nice used one, and tried out some quotes online.

We tried a few combinations, and as expected, the cheapest was to make him the owner, the policy holder and the main driver, with me as a named driver. Price quoted was around 580, which taking everything into consideration wasn't bad.

Day after these quotes, this quote (GoSkippy) went up to 1100, with the new cheapest now being Admiral at about 880 (although the day before they were around 720)

What could be the reasoning for this? We used the same data, same car, same everything. Could it be because we tried to get too many quotes while juggling around best combinations in terms of owners, drivers and best fitting job titles? Or there's simply no logic behind it?

Thanks in advance!

tacpot12

Not sure why this has happened, but if the insurer you wanted to go with has a website, I would try plugging your details into their website to see what price you get.

You could also try again on the comparison site tomorrow to see if the price reverts.

Morph4610

Smipsy, welcome to the confusing world of car insurance. Important question - did you save the quote for £580? If so it's likely to be valid for 30 days. In simple terms lots of brokers and insurers change their prices daily some even hourly or less. Certainly getting multiple quotes and playing around with combinations of information can lead some insurers to think you're potentially trying to work the system and they will load their prices accordingly. One option is to ring the insurer you had the best price from and confirm details with them - they should find the quote on their system and be able to support it. Good luck

dunstonh

We tried a few combinations, and as expected, the cheapest was to make him the owner, the policy holder and the main driver, with me as a named driver. Price quoted was around 580, which taking everything into consideration wasn't bad.

Day after these quotes, this quote (GoSkippy) went up to 1100, with the new cheapest now being Admiral at about 880 (although the day before they were around 720)

Probably their anti-fraud measures kicking in. if you change things in quotes which are major facts for underwriting, then the insurers will often increase their price or even refuse to cover you.

Getting quotes changing who the owner/main driver looks like fronting.

smipsy

tacpot12 wrote: »

Not sure why this has happened, but if the insurer you wanted to go with has a website, I would try plugging your details into their website to see what price you get.

You could also try again on the comparison site tomorrow to see if the price reverts.

this has originally happened on 15th of July, and I've been checking the same quote once every 4 days or so, it's always the same result. Debenhams and GoSkippy were the cheapest with the same price. Since then Debenhams has completely disappeared while GoSkippy has doubled in price. I also get roughly the same quote when I go directly to GoSkippy.

Morph4610 wrote: »

Smipsy, welcome to the confusing world of car insurance. Important question - did you save the quote for £580? If so it's likely to be valid for 30 days. In simple terms lots of brokers and insurers change their prices daily some even hourly or less. Certainly getting multiple quotes and playing around with combinations of information can lead some insurers to think you're potentially trying to work the system and they will load their prices accordingly. One option is to ring the insurer you had the best price from and confirm details with them - they should find the quote on their system and be able to support it. Good luck

The cheapest quote was through Confused.com, and I can see the 580 quote in there, but when I click on "more details" which takes me to the insurer's page, it goes up to 1100 or so. I also have an email from GoSkippy saying "your quote is 580 blablabla", but following that link goes up to 1100 as well.

Don't know whether that's "saved" or not, I didn't see any other options where I could save the quote.

dunstonh wrote: »

Probably their anti-fraud measures kicking in. if you change things in quotes which are major facts for underwriting, then the insurers will often increase their price or even refuse to cover you.

Getting quotes changing who the owner/main driver looks like fronting.

Seems to me to be the most likely scenario. I didn't expect that, since not everyone wants to commit fraud, I just wanted to find the cheapest deal, as do many others, I'm sure. Especially since none of us would really be main drivers, we'd just drive it when either of us goes out shopping, maybe driving out to countryside every once in a while, that's about it.

I guess I can just give them some more time to see if the quotes revert back to normal. If they don't, then I simply don't buy the car, considering their increase in insurance costs more than the car itself

Quentin

Whenever you do online quotes you agree to be telling the truth.

When you play around with quotes changing material details like this you cannot be being truthful every time!

Next time you want to play with quotes use dummy details

smipsy

Well, to be fair, I don't know yet whether I'm buying the car, or he buys the car, as well as not knowing who will drive it more

So I was always telling the truth, because depending on the insurance costs of all these options, we would have bought the car in that manner. I understand that it doesn't look nice to the insurance companies, but hey, the car isn't bought yet neither it is decided who owns it and drives it the most

Morph4610

Snipsy, you haven't done anything wrong really. The key is to learn quickly. Another tip is insurance companies generally expect there to be one clear main driver who will typically be the policyholder e.g. who will drive it to work and who will be the registered owner? Certainty on these types of issues with help

smipsy

yeah, i've reached the conclusion that it's all slightly random to an extent. i haven't changed any details, i've let some time pass, and my prices have now dropped to around 850-ish. the 580 quotes are still nowhere to be found, but maybe they reappear eventually

keith1950

You don't seem to grasp what you have been told....you must run anonymous quotes if you don't want anti-fraud software to kick in.
I doubt the lower prices will 'reappear'...and when you do get a reasonable quote make sure to save it.

smipsy

no, i get that part, i've been doing them anonymously since then for comparison, but now i wanted to run them "properly".

if I'm now always checking them with actual data, without changing anything, what fraud element is there? i'm just checking once every 7 days now, that's all. hence seeing that i'm now being offered 300 less than after I messed it up. can't be fraud to check the same set of details once a week, surely!