Car insurance. Anyone asked for money back as car hardly driven due to Covid?

justworriedabit

I missed most of the convo on the radio but someone was saying some companies were returning cash to drivers
who were working from home because of Covid. . We've hardly covered any miles on both of our cars as both of us
took our cars to work and been working from home. 
I may phone them tomorrow and ask subject to how long I have to wait on the phone to get my call answered.
If you have succeeded , please let me know. We have our cars insured with LV. I think but will check.

Grumpy_chap

Some insurers have offered small refunds - and made a lot of noise about it.  That is all part of their marketing budget rather than anything about being fair to drivers.

In the most part, changing the number of miles covered makes only a small incremental difference to risk and premium.  If you call to change the cover, then the admin fee will probably exceed any reduction in premium.

cajef

Direct Line are offering reduced payments, you have to register your mileage with them then give it again just before your renewal is due and they will calculate a reduction depending on the mileage.

https://www.directline.com/mileage-moneyback

JamoLew

They should be charging people more imo 

The standards of driving seem to have rapidly gone downhill.
Most noticeable the last couple of weeks as the kids go back to school and people who haven’t been driving for weeks/months get back on the road.
It feels like Christmas where people drive around with other things on their mind.

Biggus_Dickus

JamoLew said:

They should be charging people more imo 

The standards of driving seem to have rapidly gone downhill.
Most noticeable the last couple of weeks as the kids go back to school and people who haven’t been driving for weeks/months get back on the road.
It feels like Christmas where people drive around with other things on their mind.

How much would you be willing to pay? 😁

purple45

I was with esure and got an email about it so I applied.  We had our miles set as 5000 for the year.  From March last year we were doing less than 50 a month just to keep the battery going.  I think I only got around £10 back to cover a couple of months.  It really wasn't much.  Spent the year taxing, insuring, faffing around to charge the battery but ended up scrapping the car as it was no longer viable.  It hasn't been a good year for motoring for me! hahaha!

A_Lert

People who are low mileage anyway will get little or no discount. In fact I believe the lowest mileage sometimes raises premiums, I'm guessing because some drivers who put down under 3000 miles are either less experienced because of it or are lying.

But if you expected to do like 50,000 miles and you've actually done 500, I would hope for a decent discount.

Biggus_Dickus

Grumpy_chap said:

Some insurers have offered small refunds - and made a lot of noise about it.  That is all part of their marketing budget rather than anything about being fair to drivers.

In the most part, changing the number of miles covered makes only a small incremental difference to risk and premium.  If you call to change the cover, then the admin fee will probably exceed any reduction in premium.

To the best of my knowledge Admiral were the only company who gave their customers an automatic ‘no questions asked’ refund on every car policy last year.

Notwithstanding ulterior motives it cost Admiral £110Million,... which on the face of it was a very  magnanimous gesture, imho.

I think?? a few other companies offered refunds but invariably they had conditions attached of one sort or another.

AdrianC

Biggus_Dickus said:

Grumpy_chap said:

Some insurers have offered small refunds - and made a lot of noise about it.  That is all part of their marketing budget rather than anything about being fair to drivers.

In the most part, changing the number of miles covered makes only a small incremental difference to risk and premium.  If you call to change the cover, then the admin fee will probably exceed any reduction in premium.

To the best of my knowledge Admiral were the only company who gave their customers an automatic ‘no questions asked’ refund on every car policy last year.

Notwithstanding ulterior motives it cost Admiral £110Million,... which on the face of it was a very  magnanimous gesture, imho.

Let's put that figure into perspective.
They gave £25 back per customer.
For that to reach £110m, that would be 4.4m policies.
There are about 29m privately registered cars in the UK.
So their figure would require about 15% of all cars to be insurer with Admiral or one of their brands.
The average fully comp car insurance premium in the UK is just under £500.
So they're giving about 5% of their annual £2bn+ insurance revenue back...

Like the man said... It's part of their marketing budget, nothing to do with risk.

JGB1955

My husband got £4.60 back from Direct Line, based on his 2 months mileage before renewal. Hardly worth the effort of going through the registration and claim process.

Biggus_Dickus

AdrianC said:

Biggus_Dickus said:

Grumpy_chap said:

Some insurers have offered small refunds - and made a lot of noise about it.  That is all part of their marketing budget rather than anything about being fair to drivers.

In the most part, changing the number of miles covered makes only a small incremental difference to risk and premium.  If you call to change the cover, then the admin fee will probably exceed any reduction in premium.

To the best of my knowledge Admiral were the only company who gave their customers an automatic ‘no questions asked’ refund on every car policy last year.

Notwithstanding ulterior motives it cost Admiral £110Million,... which on the face of it was a very  magnanimous gesture, imho.

Let's put that figure into perspective.
They gave £25 back per customer.
For that to reach £110m, that would be 4.4m policies.
There are about 29m privately registered cars in the UK.
So their figure would require about 15% of all cars to be insurer with Admiral or one of their brands.
The average fully comp car insurance premium in the UK is just under £500.
So they're giving about 5% of their annual £2bn+ insurance revenue back...

Like the man said... It's part of their marketing budget, nothing to do with risk.

Completely agree with everything you’ve posted Adrian. I didn’t get any cash from Admiral, btw. I’m merely stating that £110M is a lot of money for an insurance company to relinquish given the circumstances in which they dished it out,...and ‘yes’ I’m fully aware that insurance companies don’t have bleeding hearts  and that ‘commercial’ factors would have been the prime mover.

Nonetheless, it appears(??) that the vast majority of insurance companies looked upon the reduced number of claims and subsequent pay-outs last year as a financial windfall that they happily trousered in its entirety.

Admiral chose not to do that,...well, not completely anyway. £25 per customer didn’t  change anybody’s life but at least they paid something.

If you wish to view the payments as a magnanimous gesture or an opportunistic/cynical marketing ploy does it really matter?  Each customer received £25. Nothing more to it than that.