Car Insurance Article Discussion

fisheryowner

Hello;
My question concerns Car Insurance or more specifically the fraudulent setting of Car Insurance rates. By that I mean, when you take out insurance the provider asks you for the value of your Car; you respond say £3000 and the Insurance rate is set on the valuation that you have provided (£3000 in my example). If you subsequently have a crash and the car is written off, the Insurance provider provides you, the insured, with THEIR valuation of the car's worth NOT the insured value upon which you are paying insurance. In my example they would most likely give a valuation of £1000 AND want to pay you the £1000 NOT £3000 insured value.
If you had insured it for £1000 you would most likely pay 1/3rd of the rate quoted.
My point is that they accept YOUR valuation and set the rate accordingly and take your money based on your valuation, and should pay out on the accepted risk NOT on their valuation. If their valuation always took precedence then they should inform you at the time the insurance rate is set and by not doing so I believe that it is fraudulent trading. Every vehicle insurance company pays out on the industry practice of THEIR valuation of the car.
I believe that this is something that should be investigated.
Thanks for listening to my gripe.
Cheers

Steve_xx

fisheryowner wrote: »

Hello;
My question concerns Car Insurance or more specifically the fraudulent setting of Car Insurance rates. By that I mean, when you take out insurance the provider asks you for the value of your Car; you respond say £3000 and the Insurance rate is set on the valuation that you have provided (£3000 in my example). If you subsequently have a crash and the car is written off, the Insurance provider provides you, the insured, with THEIR valuation of the car's worth NOT the insured value upon which you are paying insurance. In my example they would most likely give a valuation of £1000 AND want to pay you the £1000 NOT £3000 insured value.
If you had insured it for £1000 you would most likely pay 1/3rd of the rate quoted.
My point is that they accept YOUR valuation and set the rate accordingly and take your money based on your valuation, and should pay out on the accepted risk NOT on their valuation. If their valuation always took precedence then they should inform you at the time the insurance rate is set and by not doing so I believe that it is fraudulent trading. Every vehicle insurance company pays out on the industry practice of THEIR valuation of the car.
I believe that this is something that should be investigated.
Thanks for listening to my gripe.
Cheers

On the day you take the insurance out you value a car at say 3k. As the months roll by the car becomes worth less. If you write the car off the insurer will pay out based on the 'book' value of the car, and this willgenerally not coincide with what you think it is worth. However, if you do write it off and they make you an offer, then you are quite at liberty to dispute it and ask for more. Generally they will initially make you a low offer in the hope that you would accept that and go away. You might have to have a couple of goes at them to get them to pay out what you think it's worth.

Your point that in only valuing the car at a third of its value would effectivly reduce the policy by two-thirds is not the case I'm afraid. You are insuring yourself for a plethora of possibilities, not just your car being written off. If you write your car off by running it in to someone then the insurer might have to pay for that person to be looked after for the rest of their lives, potentially running into millions of pounds worth of claims.

bottletop

My son is just about to get his first car, and although he is 22 he still stands to get stung on the insurance, what with no NCD etc.

What he has discovered, however, is that if he puts me down as a second named driver, his premium drops by a couple of hundred pounds.

I cannot understand why this should be; and what possible disadvantage could there be in my being named like this, even if I barely touch the car?

kstrachan

can anyone explain to me why when shopping around for my renewal on a 1 yr old car I am getting different quotes for the same insurers from both price comparison sites the difference is nearly £30 (which is nearly 10% of policy price)

Steve_xx

kstrachan wrote: »

can anyone explain to me why when shopping around for my renewal on a 1 yr old car I am getting different quotes for the same insurers from both price comparison sites the difference is nearly £30 (which is nearly 10% of policy price)

I think that it is due to the fact that competition is playing its part, ie go to a comparison site and there's competition for your business. Go to the site dorect, and there isn't!

stuhh

Hi,

The first year of my policy was paid in full via debit card over the phone to commence on 3rd April 2010 but when it came to renew my policy, to follow on in 2011 I decided to pay by Direct Debit which was sorted out over the phone and later received the Certificate of Insurance and the Direct Debit plan stating all the withdraw dates and the cost.

As I Taxed my car with all the relevant documents at the post office at the back end of April with no problems, you can imagine my surprise when I was pulled over by the police on the 7th July 2011 for driving my car with no insurance. That resulted in having my car taken to a secure compound and a £200.00 fixed penalty notice and a minimum of 6 Points on my current Clean Driving Licence plus a £150.00 release fee of my car.

I then contacted Aviva assuming there was a genuine mistake, Only to be told it had been cancelled and they had no record of sending out a Certificate of Insurance and the Direct Debit plan stating all the withdraw dates and the cost.

As a direct result in the incompetence of a company as big as Aviva I am now £350.00 worse off, Plus needing to take out a new cover that is a lot more than money for poorer quality cover and for the years ahead having to submit the 6 penalty points to future insurance organisations.

Upon taking my document to the local police station the officer at the desk was NOT at all surprised with the situation and the lack of customer service that Aviva had given me while at the same time denying all knowledge of any documents had been sent out to me. It seems to be a problem the police are all too familiar with.

Unfortunately due to the incompetence of Aviva my family have suffered a Great deal of Stress and Financial Loss.

Steve_xx

stuhh wrote: »

Hi,

The first year of my policy was paid in full via debit card over the phone to commence on 3rd April 2010 but when it came to renew my policy, to follow on in 2011 I decided to pay by Direct Debit which was sorted out over the phone and later received the Certificate of Insurance and the Direct Debit plan stating all the withdraw dates and the cost.

As I Taxed my car with all the relevant documents at the post office at the back end of April with no problems, you can imagine my surprise when I was pulled over by the police on the 7th July 2011 for driving my car with no insurance. That resulted in having my car taken to a secure compound and a £200.00 fixed penalty notice and a minimum of 6 Points on my current Clean Driving Licence plus a £150.00 release fee of my car.

I then contacted Aviva assuming there was a genuine mistake, Only to be told it had been cancelled and they had no record of sending out a Certificate of Insurance and the Direct Debit plan stating all the withdraw dates and the cost.

As a direct result in the incompetence of a company as big as Aviva I am now £350.00 worse off, Plus needing to take out a new cover that is a lot more than money for poorer quality cover and for the years ahead having to submit the 6 penalty points to future insurance organisations.

Upon taking my document to the local police station the officer at the desk was NOT at all surprised with the situation and the lack of customer service that Aviva had given me while at the same time denying all knowledge of any documents had been sent out to me. It seems to be a problem the police are all too familiar with.

Unfortunately due to the incompetence of Aviva my family have suffered a Great deal of Stress and Financial Loss.

So in effect you are saying that you did have a valid insurance certificate. If this is the case, and you were able to produce that certificate to the police, then it's hard to see how they could prosecute you for not having insurance?

Your penultimate paragraph does not read as I suspect you want it to. In your first paragraph you say you received the certificate of insurance, yet in the penultimate paragraph I think you are intimating to the police that the insurer has denied that they have sent the insurance certificate.

Either you had a valid insurance certificate or you didn't. Which is it?

gary38uk

it says "MoneyExpert:
This smaller site also pays £25 cashback, but currently its sister, SimplySwitch*, is topping the offer up to £40 if you go via its site and enter the code SIMPLYCAR.

have got to the buy now bit and can see no place to enter this code?

anyone used this?

SimplySwitch_Company_Representative

You should enter the code in the 'Offer Code' bax on the form. Please email me if you have any problems.

theChimbles

I need to to renew my car insurance on the 15th of July. My existing insurer has quoted me £300, which is fairly competitive with what else is out there after checking. They actually come out top of on the comparison website, but higher than my renewel quote, so I'll probably stick with them. However, I'm moving house a month into my policy and have done another search on the comparison websites (my existing lender again coming out top) and the quote on my new property is approximately 50% less then the renewel quote (basically because of a better postcode, residential estate and off-street parking).

My question is, if I take out the year's insurance now, can I ask them to reassess my premium when I move and get a rebate? Or can I cancel my insurance after a month and take out new insurance at the lower rate? Or am I stuck with higher premium for a year?

Thanks