Car insurance classification & price increase help

Witchywoo68

I took out car insurance last month as was happy with the quotation price and have also been with the company in the past, although not last year. The price quoted was affordable to me and I also opted to have Rac as a package on top. The total cost was £289.55 with instalments of £26.32 per month.
I was then emailed for more info on NCB etc but also for me to contact them via phone. I did this and they queried my Employment Status. I am not working as I have a couple of medical conditions, which I do receive benefits for, but am not classified as disabled either. I am also a full time parent. I stated myself as a house person/parent as per a discussion with this in the past, with the same company and on their advice said this would be the most suited to my situation. On conversing with them yesterday, they have now decided that I am in the disabled category and are now charging me £175 more for the pleasure, which is increasing my payments up by almost £16 per month. I was told basically that there is nothing I can do to change it and when I asked about cancelling, it would result in charges of around £96. I would never have taken this insurance out at that price and they have now referred this to their complaints dept, which the process could take up to 8 weeks so I'm told. I feel totally stuffed and I have to accept this but al also outraged at the same time. Any advice please?

Sandtree

What benefits are you receiving that are related to your medical condition but not disability?

What is the household main income? Is it your benefits or do you have a partner with an income? Once your children are of an age where most parents go back to work will you?

Based on your initial message here its possible to understand the broker/insurers decision however the devil is in the detail and depending on the answer to the above may make their decision more or less reasonable.

Ultimately the process is to register a complaint for which they have up to 8 weeks to respond, obviously most are dealt in a fraction of that time. If you arent happy with their reply or they fail to reply in the 8 weeks you can then take the matter to the ombudsman (their timescales are massively longer - just got a first response to my own complaint raised in April)

Witchywoo68

Sandtree said:

What benefits are you receiving that are related to your medical condition but not disability?

What is the household main income? Is it your benefits or do you have a partner with an income? Once your children are of an age where most parents go back to work will you?

Based on your initial message here its possible to understand the broker/insurers decision however the devil is in the detail and depending on the answer to the above may make their decision more or less reasonable.

Ultimately the process is to register a complaint for which they have up to 8 weeks to respond, obviously most are dealt in a fraction of that time. If you arent happy with their reply or they fail to reply in the 8 weeks you can then take the matter to the ombudsman (their timescales are massively longer - just got a first response to my own complaint raised in April)

I recieve esa as my main benefit, and the household income is purely my own as I am a single parent. They told me that I can't be under the classsification of house person/parent as for that, there needs to be another person to provide financial support to me. Maybe the criteria  has changed and I was unaware of it, not really sure. As for going back to work once my child is old enough, I can't say at this moment in time.
I have recently been on a comparison site and ran through quotes based on me changing to the disabled option, and they still come back a lot less that what they are now charging me.

Sandtree

There generally isnt strict definitions and therefore there is an element of subjectivity... to revert to the non PC term, I would struggle calling someone a housewife/husband if they are the sole adult occupant - the marriage element isnt important but the fact theres been an active decision not to work and support is in the form of a partners income is.

I'll fully admit to not knowing much about benefits and not having the inclination to learn more from a purely academic perspective but I'm a little surprised that there is a benefit you can claim only when unemployed/under employed that you appear to be able to elect to not work on for reasons of childcare/choice rather than medical condition however this isnt the point of the thread and I dont want to derail it. On that basis I can see however why a disabled/medically unfit type determination can be appropriate.

A big driver will be what the options are for the insurer in question, if you look at Direct Line for example there is no "full time parent" option... for someone that is they have to pick something else (more focused on how they fund that decision) like housewife/husband if a partner is providing, independent means if living off savings etc.

Check what options they have on their site, make sure you chose the most appropriate, and construct your argument as to why it is in your complaint.

MovingForwards

ESA is a benefit payable to those who have health issues or disabilities which restricts their working abilities, or prevents them from working. Based on what you've said about not knowing if you will return to work in the future, I can see why the insurance company changed your status.

Witchywoo68

Sandtree said:

I'll fully admit to not knowing much about benefits and not having the inclination to learn more from a purely academic perspective but I'm a little surprised that there is a benefit you can claim only when unemployed/under employed that you appear to be able to elect to not work on for reasons of childcare/choice rather than medical condition however this isnt the point of the thread and I dont want to derail it.

No of course there isn't a benefit that one may be entitled to, purely if they decide they don't want to work. I don't think the system works like that. I was told previously that it didn't matter that I was a single person bringing up a child, to be called a house person/parent. Maybe it was the wrong advice, but I had no reason to question it, until now.

MovingForwards said:

ESA is a benefit payable to those who have health issues or disabilities which restricts their working abilities, or prevents them from working. Based on what you've said about not knowing if you will return to work in the future, I can see why the insurance company changed your status.

Sorry I don't really understand why you said that. The insurance company didn't ask me about my future employment plans and I certainly don't think they would raise my premiums due to what they, or even myself may assume, will be one day in the future.. They didn't ask me much at all, just when I told them that I was on benefits, the quote was re-calculated. I can understand that happening in certain circumstances but to me it just seems that everyone is classed as the same high risk factors, which I feel is unjust.

MovingForwards

You must have mentioned either health issues and / what benefits you receive for the insurance company to interpret it the way they have:
"On conversing with them yesterday, they have now decided that I am in the disabled"
And 
"They didn't ask me much at all, just when I told them that I was on benefits".

Unfortunately, unemployed, retired etc do have higher premiums as they're a higher risk, had it happen with my OH's insurance and it's been discussed several times on the forum about how those not working are expected to find money for the increased premium.

Witchywoo68

Yet again those on benefits are penalised for not working and expected to pay more money. I'm confused about the whole process with the classifications tbh. An employed person who may travel daily to work, hence higher usage with car, is less risk?

Anyways, yesterday I had a phone call from the company and although they won't change things, they are going to waiver the extra premiums, so my payments will revert back to what they originally were.  

csgohan4

It is about risk management and statistcally what will happen more

Those not in work are more likely to have accidents according to your insurer, whether they claim benefit or not

just at it is more expensive in certain postcodes due to more accidents


no point in getting bitter about it, some occupations also attract higher premiums as well

Sandtree

Witchywoo68 said:

Yet again those on benefits are penalised for not working and expected to pay more money. I'm confused about the whole process with the classifications tbh. An employed person who may travel daily to work, hence higher usage with car, is less risk?

Anyways, yesterday I had a phone call from the company and although they won't change things, they are going to waiver the extra premiums, so my payments will revert back to what they originally were.  

Dont think about mass market consumer insurance with logic, insurers just look at the statistics and price accordingly. Pricing is also not purely on risk but also things like customer elasticity - again derived from statistical analysis rather than logic.

Only when insurers try to do something brand new, eg using credit score as a rating factor, do they have to fall back on logic until the data is collected to enable them to refine pricing