Churchill, Direct Line, Privilege – do not pay to guarantee your no claims discount, it’s a con.

Zorillo

I'm very grateful to have protected my NCB last year, as an expensive at-fault claim has only put £100 on my premium this year.

AnotherJoe

I had this experience with Admiral, they outrageously doubled my insurance the following year, for a no fault claim. I had "protected" NCD.

I decamped to Direct Line and have been there since. I've just taken out a new insurance with them after a 6 month gap with one at fault accident (car park, I reversed into a pillar, doh) and at most my insurance is £50 more than last years, £300 vs £250 (but previous car was older cheaper and I also understand insurance has gone up? ) DL were cheaper than everyone else I looked at. No complaints here.

csgohan4

It's a CON not to understand how your premiums and NCD are different. Your just bitter the premium has gone up and looking for someone to blame 

Petriix

Surely you switch every year? I think it's only happened once in my 15 years of driving that my current insurer has offered the cheapest price on renewal. Funnily enough, this year, my cheapest offer was from Churchill who happened to be the insurer of the third party who hit me in a no fault accident last autumn. The premium was actually the lowest I've ever paid.

DCFC79

Well that was a let down.
I'd be happy to go back with Direct Line, had no issue with them, only reason I moved was found a cheaper price.

molerat

DCFC79 said:

Well that was a let down.
I'd be happy to go back with Direct Line, had no issue with them, only reason I moved was found a cheaper price.

Just renewed with DL again.  Had a look round and found some cheaper quotes - then started adding on the extras - usual bait and switch insurance quotes coming out at 25-50% more than the renewal !

chrisw

Direct Line do appear to be quite competitive at the moment. I've just let my wife's car auto renew as I couldn't find cheaper, my mum's auto renewed as there was about £10 in it, and they're coming out the cheapest for me at the moment apart from Hastings Direct which I have to admit, does look a good deal as it includes breakdown and all the extras.

Mickey666

dunstonh said:

His insurance co even had it on record that he was at no fault but trotted out the excuse that 'statistics show he's more likely to be involved in another accident in the future'.

No wonder people tend to hate insurance companies!

Insurance is priced on statistics.  So, that should not be a surprise.

We know people dislike insurers. That is why 8 out 10 people are happy to defraud them. It is quite adversarial.  

Of course it's all about statistics and like any statistics issues can arise depending how they are used.  I'd suggest that market competition doesn't always work to the customer's interest in the case of insurance.  Consider this, there are X motoring claims each year costing a total of Y and Z vehicles on the road..  One method of insurance would be for an insurance premium of Y / Z to be paid for each car.  Everyone would pay the same and everyone would be fully covered - arguably the most altruistic method of insurance; we all share the risk and we all pay the same.

Then the market gets involved and competition begins.  So companies drill down into the statistics and find that drivers of 'Type A' have fewer accidents than anyone else so offers to only offer them insurance, not everyone, and can do so for less than everyone is paying, which means 'Type A' drivers pay less so everyone else has to pay more.  As more and more companies enter the market the risk statistics are divided into ever smaller groups until we find situations like this example where a no-fault driver ends up penalised by the actions of someone else.  Whether that's fair or not will depend on your own view, but it's 'just statistics'.

This sort of thing is also becoming a big problem for private health insurance as medical science (particularly genetics and genome analysis becomes ever more advanced).  One minute you can get health insurance of £x but next year a simple genetic test can reveal you are, say, 80% likely to get a very expensive-to-treat disease within, say, 5 years.  What do you think will happen to your insurance premiums then?  Is that fair?  After all, it's 'just statistics'.  Imagine trying to get life insurance in such circumstances, what do you think the premiums will be?

The more statistics available (driving, health, house fires, holidays, etc), the more your individual risk will be assessed and the more the original concept of insurance as a risk-sharing mechanism goes out the window.  The ultimate outcome for insurance companies will be when they profile your individual risks so accurately that they 'know' what claims you will make in the next year and when that happens what do you think the premium for that 'risk' would be?  Yep - it would be equal to the claim itself, at which point why would you even bother buying insurance at all?

So meanwhile, the only way to get 'a good deal' is to endure the hassle of shopping around every year, same as we now have to do with electricity, and gas, and fuel, and broadband plans, etc etc.  Funny old world.

Marvel1

Gazzer said:

]My stepdaughter did and was involved in a minor accident where both parties were at fault and the damage to her car was so minimal that she did not even bother to get it fixed. When her renewal from Churchill arrived she still had the maximum no claims discount but they had hiked her premium because of the accident and when it was queried with them apparently this is standard practice even if you are involved in any accident and have paid them extra money to protect yourself.

I think this is a CON, she paid extra to have her bonus protected only for Churchill to penalise her in another way. Their explanation was the bonus was guaranteed but they reserve the right to increase premiums if someone is involved in an accident. Had she been involved in a number of accidents then it would be more acceptable but for one minor accident it is not.

Being in an accident having an increased in premium is normal, no con.

Sea_Shell

TBH it's got "worse" since the whole market has become ruled by algorithms and computer based rating, and MUCH less transparent.

Back in the day, it was VERY unusual for any insurer to "load" the premium for 1 non-fault accident.   This is back in the day of the Rating Guides, that were issued every month from each insurer, and set out all the rates, loadings and discounts to be applied (and in what order).     We used to be able to SHOW the customer, exactly HOW their premium had been calculated.    Rating is a dark art now!!

Also, they didn't rate on bad "combinations" in the same way as they can now.    Now they might load (more or less) for a non-fault accident, dependent on other rating factors (age, area, car type), rather than on the incident in isolation. IYSWIM.