Renewal of car insurance

jimpyrah

My car insurance is due for renewal on 7th October 2024. My insurer offered us (I am applicant alongside spouse as named driver) a premium of £391.83 with protected no claims discount continuing. I advised them my wife had a at fault claim, on a different policy elsewhere (also myself applicant with her named driver with protected no claims). This put the premium up to £643.13. My wife is only on the first policy in case of an emergency, and has never actually driven my car in over 3 years since purchase, so I asked for a quote, for me only, taking her off entirely. I expected with the liability to the insurer reduced to covering me, and the claim having been made on my wife, that the cost would be lower than the original £391.83, but it is £448.87. Does anyone know how this can be? I know that I am the applicant on the policy, but how can my wife's accident affect me? (Other insurances are even more.)

DullGreyGuy

Insured + Spouse is normally cheaper than Insured Only Driver... you haven't lowered the mileage so the car is still going to be used as much as when there were two drivers covered but now all the eggs are in the one driver basket rather than being distributed over two. 

Consumer insurance is priced on statistical analysis not logic and stats show that a car shared by a married couple typically have lower claims experience than a one driver only vehicle... maybe its because in most cases the joint name car is a family car whereas the husband only car is his weekend play thing where he may not be driving as he would on a family trip to the supermarket, if you want to apply logic to rationalise the stats

jimpyrah

Thanks. Very helpful.