What's happening with Car Insurance?!

GadgetGuru

Purchased a new BMW X5 back in late 2019.
On the first day of bring the car home I had an Autowatch Ghost Immobilser installed, just for my own piece of mind. 

It's a second car - so only used on weekends for SDP. Car is about 3.5 years old and has still only done just under 14k miles!

My insurance has always been around the £700 mark. 
In April 2023 my renewal shot up, without reason, to £1450. Cheapest I could find. All the comparison sites were in excess of £2200.
Although my insurance is not due until April 2024, I had a look online (regrettably) and my prices are around £2500 for the year (fully comp).

Full UK license. No points. Completely clean, 17 years no claims. East London.

I don't understand why it's jumped up so much? I've had no change in circumstances at all. Can this huge jump just be down to location??

Goudy

Some of it's down to inflation.

Everything just costs more these days. Parts, labour, electricity and gas etc.
Car prices have also shot up, even used ones now cost more than a few years ago.

When everything goes up, so does the cost of claims, so premium rise.

la531983

Everyones has gone up. Your story is nothing unique.

Herzlos

Cost of living crisis has put the cost of everything through the roof, and as a result is probably leading to more claims (not all of which will be legitimate).

Couple that with having a desirable luxury car for thieves, and it's just more expensive/risky for insurers.

At least it's not a Range Rover - some people in London just can't get quotes for them at all, except quotes above the replacement value.

My insurance looks like it's going to at least double next month; best I've found is £450 (was on £200), and that's with points dropping off. It's mental.

Keep_pedalling

Time to ditch it before you end up spending even more on some very expensive out of warranty repairs. 

RogerPensionGuy

The insurance companies mopped up during covid with so little claims. 

Now the claims have gone back to normal, they want to increase their profit margins again.

These insurance companies don't need a cartel, they just look online and charge similar. 

A lovely business to be in.

oldagetraveller1

la531983 said:

Everyones has gone up. Your story is nothing unique.

My "Classic's" renewal, after a bit of haggling, has reduced from £71 to £50. Same broker and insurance. That includes basic breakdown cover too.

Stubod

Over the last few months many people reporting car insurance hikes, although most suggesting around 33% on average. I seem to recall a recent thread regarding a Range Rover that had been quoted £44k....!!!!!

We have 2 cars and have been with Admiral mutli car for ages, but this year I changed to get a better price. Our "main" car had gone up around 33%, but managed to get a 3 year fix. Our 2nd car I actually managed a reduction??

..so much for 10% inflation...totally bonkers...I blame the Tories and Brexit....

Nobbie1967

I read recently that three things were driving insurance increases, cost and availability of part pushing up repair costs, higher residuals pushing up writeoff payouts for vehicles and increase in theft of late plate high end cars for breaking or export overseas. Sounds like the latter is the main factor affecting you and probably more pronounced being in London. Could be worse, you could have a Range Rover

DullGreyGuy

RogerPensionGuy said:

The insurance companies mopped up during covid with so little claims. 

Now the claims have gone back to normal, they want to increase their profit margins again.

These insurance companies don't need a cartel, they just look online and charge similar. 

A lovely business to be in.

How many insurers can you name that only write Motor?

Whilst the tin foil hat brigade may enjoy looking for the reptilian plots etc the reality is the majority of insurers in the UK are diversified and write multiple classes of insurance. Yes, in 2020 the industry combined ratio for Motor was the best on record at about 90.3% but Home insurance had one of its worst years ever with 110.5% and SME Commercial equally had a bad year with 106.9%

Guessing you think Life insurers did really great too?

But don't worry @rogerpensionguy we both know you won't let a little thing like reality get in the way of your conspiracy theories. 

kokolino23

My reply won't make you feel better as our insurance is triple as well. Everything becomes a joke, honestly. They fill up their pockets and we have no option than to pay  these greedy companies. It's the same with supermarkets, energy, council tax, etc.
Inflation 4% ?! Where?! Everything has gone up at least 50-80% and guess what? Record profits for a lot of companies while they complain about the bad time we are all facing?! Really?!