Car insurance in the thousands after at fault claim

spira9

I had a small accident where I knocked into the back of another car at a slow speed. Their car had a damaged bumper and my car was written off. I am looking at quotes and have been quoted in the £3000s for basic car insurance on a £2000-£3000 low insurance group car. I had business insurance that I paid around £800 for. I also had courier insurance which I claimed on and not through my regular insurer. My regular insurer has quoted me around £3200 for business insurance. I think my quotes are all excessive as I am in my 30s with 6 years no claims and a clean license as well as driving for 8 years.

It's become way to expensive to drive with the insurance but I need a car for work. Is there anyone who can help me understand why am I getting quotes as I'm a 17 year old trying to insurance a sports car?

Ayr_Rage

How did a "small accident" result in your car being written off ?

As you were at fault then you are a risky prospect if you are driving for a living, hence the high premiums.

Mildly_Miffed

It's very simple. They think you're the kind of driver who drives into stationary objects, so presents a high risk of doing it again and leaving them with an expensive claim.

And they're not wrong, are they?

You make it sound like the other car having a damaged bumper is minimal.

It's likely to cost them an absolute minimum of a few hundred pounds for the bumper skin, plus the cost of painting and fitting, plus the cost of the hire car while it's being done. Then there's the admin cost of managing it all. That's way more than your £800 premium already - especially once you've taken off tax, admin cost, etc from the premium.

Then there's the risk of next time you do it, you damage the bootlid of the car, the metalwork behind the bumper, the boot floor... And, of course, the driver and passengers claiming for whiplash.

The simple answer is not to drive into stationary objects if you want insurers to think you're a good driver.

k12479

spira9 said:

I had business insurance that I paid around £800 for. I also had courier insurance which I claimed on and not through my regular insurer.

I wonder if this is an/the issue, your business insurance provider pricing you as a courier.

spira9

Jeez people on here are quite hostile You don't know what happened in the accident, which is why I don't go into detail. The third party was nice about it and said it was an accident. Standard insurance I used to get quoted around £400, so having it go into thousands is excessive I'd say.

Mildly_Miffed

You're right, we don't know what happened - other than you were held to be liable for driving into a stationary object, which means having your business cost your insurer money.

That's all the insurer care about... will having your business cost them money?

All insurance has gone up a lot this year, because of parts and repair delays in a post-Covid post-Brexit country meaning several years of higher costs, especially for hire cars.

But you're also seen by the insurer as a higher risk than you were - and that's the main reason.

Mr.Generous

Mildly_Miffed said:

It's very simple. They think you're the kind of driver who drives into stationary objects, so presents a high risk of doing it again and leaving them with an expensive claim.

And they're not wrong, are they?

You make it sound like the other car having a damaged bumper is minimal.

It's likely to cost them an absolute minimum of a few hundred pounds for the bumper skin, plus the cost of painting and fitting, plus the cost of the hire car while it's being done. Then there's the admin cost of managing it all. That's way more than your £800 premium already - especially once you've taken off tax, admin cost, etc from the premium.

Then there's the risk of next time you do it, you damage the bootlid of the car, the metalwork behind the bumper, the boot floor... And, of course, the driver and passengers claiming for whiplash.

The simple answer is not to drive into stationary objects if you want insurers to think you're a good driver.

And that's not the worst part, the personal injury claim will be more.

Bigphil1474

OP, I've been driving 35 years, not had a claim in over 20 years, got full NCB, and my premium for this year has still gone up by 50% after trying every site I can think of to find a better deal. Add in your recent incident and the prices aren't that outrageous.

DullGreyGuy

spira9 said:
Standard insurance I used to get quoted around £400, so having it go into thousands is excessive I'd say.

Everyone's insurance has gone up even if they have remained clean, those that haven't are getting the double whammy of increases due to claims/points etc and compounded with the general increases everyone is seeing. Increases are also not applied uniformly so some are seeing modest increases others very significant. You could be unlucky to be in the higher end which again is exponentially worse given the compound impact. 

Ultimately you can only shop around and look for the best deal open to you.