Car Insurance Article Discussion

s2000

Lol!!! I wouldn't insure you that's for sure!

Also, have you thought about not driving children in your car? Do your children's friend's parents know about your history?

I think anyone with 5 or more accidents in 10 years should be made to drive with an amber flashing light and a speed limiter set to 30mph – let alone seven accidents in 10 years!

To top it all off she's annoyed with the INSURANCE company!! Should be glad she ever got insurance in the first place with that record!

fallen121 wrote: »

Pretty hacked off at Sheila's Wheels. Joined them last year because they gave me a 20% staff discount. 10 days before my policy renewed, a driver entering a roundabout in the right hand lane (my husband and I were in the middle lane going straight on) turned left across the front of my car, totally smashed up the front. Of course he just had a few scratches to his back wheel.

The moron first of all drove off and wouldn't stop until we chased him down the road. Then he insisted on calling the police. Wouldn't exchange details and locked himself in his car and said my husband had assaulted him. All he did was yell at him for being so stupid whilst I took a few photos of his car and a few more of his face because I was scared he would drive off.

Then he told the police that we had pulled out in front of him, which is not only total lies but inconsistent with the damage on the cars. Presumably he's going to have to tell his insurer that we was driving around the roundabout to make THAT story work, not that he was in the wrong lane and entered the rounabout at the same point we did. And this is not some young bloke with something to prove, but an older guy maybe late 40's/early 50's.

Sheila's Wheels say a roundabout accident with no witnesses will go 50/50 at best. So that's £250 excess to pay when I pick up the car and then they slapped another £52 on the policy renewal today, I make that about a 23% increase on the previous premium. PLus they slapped another £40 on the premium of another car we had insured with them that we renewed the policy on last week.

Not only do I want to strangle the guy who hit us for a completely unnecessary piece of bad driving which probably won't affect him (he had an older car and probably won't bother getting it repaired as it was just a few scuffs on the back wheel for him), but I just feel like standing out in the street sometimes and handing people money out of my wallet. I've had to take time off work to sort out the pickup of the car as well.

This experience isn't out of the ordinary for most people I know, and I guess I should be grateful that neither of us were hurt and that my 7 year old wasn't in the car at the time.

However, I've now had 7 accidents in the last 10 years and none of them were my fault (in 2 cases I was nowhere near the car) but in 6 of them have been no witness accidents settled 50/50 (in one case the rear door of my car was ripped off by another car driving too close whilst I was putting my two year old into the car seat and it was deemed to be my fault because even though the door was already open) and it just makes it so hard to change insurers. I'm also getting to the stage that I get scared even getting behind the wheel because of my fear of what other drivers will do to me and I'm sure that my lack of confidence actually affects my driving sometimes, i.e. I'm too cautious.

I'm all for accident databases but these days it always seems to be about how many accidents you've been involved in rather than whether any were actually your fault. Also insurers aren't about investigating the circumstances anymore, it's all about fitting your accident into a neat little accident category so that they can recover their costs and if you end up havign to take the blame for accidents you never even caused well that is just tough.

I'm scared to mention the current accident at work because they just make jokes about my driving all the time and can't see how much it hurts.

I'd love to use public transport, but the hours I work involve a lot of early starts and late finishes so it's not always practical.

Lookingforabargin

After recently becoming unemployed, I had to sell my car and cancel my insurance after having used 56days of the cover (15.77% of the 355days). To my astonishment my insurer (RAC) declared their charges as 72.51% of my payment which was in full by debit card.
After reviewing the cancellation policy, it transpires they only refund a percentage of the insurance premium and keep the payments for all the products I purchased in good faith:
Cancellation Costs: £76.80 40% charge (within 2mths of policy inception) / £24.75 Motor legal protection / £60.67 Breakdown cover / £14.27 5.14% insurance premium tax / £35.00 cancellation fee = £211.49

They may be legally entitled to these charges but surely this cannot be deemed as appropriate cost incurred by the insurer!
I also realised the 5% tax they charged equates to 5.14% - they charged ‘more’ than they stipulated!

Can anyone provide some clear direction how best to recover a more appropriate refund?
Also why are insurers allowed to make exorbitant charges when ‘banks’ currently have to redress their charging practices?
May be I should count myself fortunate as I’ve discovered some insurers give ‘NO’ refund after 14days!!!

s2000

Lookingforabargin wrote: »

After recently becoming unemployed, I had to sell my car and cancel my insurance after having used 56days of the cover (15.77% of the 355days). To my astonishment my insurer (RAC) declared their charges as 72.51% of my payment which was in full by debit card.
After reviewing the cancellation policy, it transpires they only refund a percentage of the insurance premium and keep the payments for all the products I purchased in good faith:
Cancellation Costs: £76.80 40% charge (within 2mths of policy inception) / £24.75 Motor legal protection / £60.67 Breakdown cover / £14.27 5.14% insurance premium tax / £35.00 cancellation fee = £211.49

They may be legally entitled to these charges but surely this cannot be deemed as appropriate cost incurred by the insurer!
I also realised the 5% tax they charged equates to 5.14% - they charged ‘more’ than they stipulated!

Can anyone provide some clear direction how best to recover a more appropriate refund?
Also why are insurers allowed to make exorbitant charges when ‘banks’ currently have to redress their charging practices?
May be I should count myself fortunate as I’ve discovered some insurers give ‘NO’ refund after 14days!!!

I can't imagine that RAC hid their cancellation policy until you decided to cancel. Presumably you agreed to all of the terms and conditions when you took out the policy – it's no use whinging now, chief.

dacouch

It explains their charges on page 4 of their Terms and Conditions which you normally tick a box to confirm you have read them.

http://www.rac.co.uk/library/pdfs/RAC_Car_Insurance_Policy_Sample.pdf

s2000

dacouch wrote: »

It explains their charges on page 4 of their Terms and Conditions which you normally tick a box to confirm you have read them.

Nice bit of research!

There you go "Lookingforabargin" – looks like you didn't "lookforabargain" hard enough before you blindly ticked the box.

Next!

dacouch

I was reading a reply to a question recently from an underwriter recently (Either on here of moneysupermarket). They mentioned that looked into the average time for a customer to read their T&Cs was and it worked out to be 7 seconds. The amusing thing was they stated that for the average person with average connection the downloading of the document would take around 5 seconds.

If everyone was as savvy as Lisyloo there would not be problems.

mrnomoneybags

Other than first direct isnt there somebody else offering to beat your renewal quote?

thanks

-Tom

Lookingforabargin

Just to clarify your responses – no guidance to improving my refund. From long standing members, I was expecting a more positive and understanding response!
As customers, it appears that we have no say in these levels of charges levied by car insurers for services they are no longer required to provide.

Can you at least tell me which insurers accept customer objections and change their T&C’s before agreeing the cover? That would be useful!
Or a bulletin listing the best insurer T&C’s or ones to avoid? This probably exists and would appreciate a link to its location in readiness for when I next look to purchase insurance and avoid ‘blindly’ ticking the T&C’s.

Lynee65

Hi everyone. I am new to this form and found it a little confusing so apologies if I am leaving this omment in the wrong place......

I just searched for car insurance using the MyMoneySupermarket link and Barclays came up with an excellent quote of £79.98 plus £24.99 legal cover so a total of £104.77ish. When I then went to the Barclays page via the link it immediately, without asking me any more questions jumped to £154.80!!!!!

I rang them direct and they said the comparisms sites are not underwriters and cannot therefore give correct quotes.

So beware!!!! Dont just note the best quote and expect that to be near enough correct as you could be being misled.

I applaud Martin Lewis' site as it has helped me many atime in the past but on this ocassion I feel very let down

Regards to all
LyneeD

barnyg

Thought I would share my experience.
Renewal arrived on Saturday - £410 fully comp protected no claims etc.
I had a bump 2 years ago - skidded on ice at 5mph & slid into a fence >£2,000 of damage, no damage to fence & first accident in 25 yrs.

Went to Confused.com whic came up with MoreThan @ £286.00 all in.

Went to Qidco & then to MoreThan, cost £285.00 all in & £75.00 cash back in the pipeline.
Net charge £210.00 with hire car, legal assistance, protected no claims etc.
I am one happy bunny!:T