Car insurance - infrequent driving

JohnBravo

Hi All,
I hope you are well. Since car insurers ramp up their insurance costs are there any alternatives e.g. insurance per day rather than as ongoing monthly / annual cost?

I don't drive every day, perhaps once or twice a week.
I think insuring a car for daily driving considering the most recent price hikes is no longer financially viable.

I also don't like wasting my time on these annual quotations to look for better deals. A lot of my personal data is stolen in the process by all these comparison websites. Once the insurer knows my phone number then they harness me with phone calls and texts well over a month before the policy expires.

Mildly_Miffed

Your car has to be insured, legally, at all times its taxed under the Continuous Insurance legislation that was introduced in 2011.
https://www.gov.uk/vehicle-insurance/uninsured-vehicles

Apart from that, what if it's stolen or somebody drives into it on one of the days you're not using it?

Also - insurers don't "ramp" their costs. Both my everyday car's policy and my mother's policy have been renewed in the last few weeks, and both are cheaper this year than they were last - same cars, everything else the same except we're both a year older...

As for "no longer financially viable" - I have three two cars and a camper van insured. The total of the three premiums is about £550.

DullGreyGuy

JohnBravo said:

Hi All,
I hope you are well. Since car insurers ramp up their insurance costs are there any alternatives e.g. insurance per day rather than as ongoing monthly / annual cost?

I don't drive every day, perhaps once or twice a week.
I think insuring a car for daily driving considering the most recent price hikes is no longer financially viable.

I also don't like wasting my time on these annual quotations to look for better deals. A lot of my personal data is stolen in the process by all these comparison websites. Once the insurer knows my phone number then they harness me with phone calls and texts well over a month before the policy expires.

The problem is Continuous Insurance Enforcement which requires all vehicles to have insurance or be SORNed. In principle you'd have to tax and then SORN the car every time you wanted to use it and you dont get part month refunds any more. 

Due to the above, most (if not all) temp car policies require the car to have other insurance on it already.

Comparison sites don't "steel" your data, you have to give them your data for them to be able to perform the task of obtaining quotes for you. 

JohnBravo

ok so because of the enforcement of the Continuous Insurance the emergence of alternatives is pretty low.
In my case no one else drives the car.
I mean if it was stolen as uninsured then it would be taken off from insurance policy of someone else similar to car vandalism e.g. someone else damaged/destroyed your car and quite often is not identified (left the scene) but your insurance premiums go up even if it wasn't your fault. The insurance company assumes it was you who did it without telling you that, it is reflected in the new price.

In my case a quote from a new insurer always comes cheaper.
For years the insurance stayed pretty much the same but not in the last 2 years and they did send an email to announce that they will increase it "due to raising costs" and blame it on all sorts of things "costs of living crisis", electric cars, Ukraine etc.
I don't know if this is in general or some insurance companies take their chances.

I agree they don't steal my data but then I have to use Incogni to erase the data from the brokers they sell it to.
Even if they don't do it intentionally it ends up on the Internet as a result of not rare data leaks companies experience some admit years after it happened.

DullGreyGuy

Having your own car yes. If someone would lend you their car periodically then temp car insurance would cover you rather than you being on their policy but because temp insurance has to cover the cost of sales each and every time they are vastly more expensive than an annual policy on a per day basis. Fine if you want to use it 1-2 times a year, not if it's that per week. 

New customer discounting has been banned for the last 2 years on Home and Motor but there are nuances to the rules that many probably dont understand. The "always cheaper" for most isn't the hard rule it used to be and you'll find many threads on here with people saying surprisingly their renewal was the cheapest they could find. Even with the rule though it doesn't automatically mean renewing will be cheapest either as companies change priorities, have strategic plays etc. For me personally Motor is worth shopping but Home isn't but then we have niche requirements and so most others either won't insure us or ask for 5x the premium

Ectophile

Have you looked at limited mileage policies?  If you agree that you won't do more than an specfied number of miles a year, then they may offer a lower premuim.

user1977

JohnBravo said:

Once the insurer knows my phone number then they harness me with phone calls and texts well over a month before the policy expires.

Then don't give them your phone number? You don't have to.

cw8825

JohnBravo said:

Hi All,
I hope you are well. Since car insurers ramp up their insurance costs are there any alternatives e.g. insurance per day rather than as ongoing monthly / annual cost?

I don't drive every day, perhaps once or twice a week.
I think insuring a car for daily driving considering the most recent price hikes is no longer financially viable.

I also don't like wasting my time on these annual quotations to look for better deals. A lot of my personal data is stolen in the process by all these comparison websites. Once the insurer knows my phone number then they harness me with phone calls and texts well over a month before the policy expires.

Couple options I can see
change car for cheaper insurance
pay what’s quoted for annual 
pay per mikes policy (which will be an issue if you have any longer journeys)
stop driving

JohnBravo

Ectophile said:

Have you looked at limited mileage policies?  If you agree that you won't do more than an specfied number of miles a year, then they may offer a lower premuim.

Good point. I have to check on my MOT how many miles I do in a year.
I usually declare 5k miles per annum. Should I go lower than that?

I checked my history and in the last 2 years it was around 3k miles but it could go up to 5k from historical standpoint.

cw8825 said:

JohnBravo said:

Hi All,
I hope you are well. Since car insurers ramp up their insurance costs are there any alternatives e.g. insurance per day rather than as ongoing monthly / annual cost?

I don't drive every day, perhaps once or twice a week.
I think insuring a car for daily driving considering the most recent price hikes is no longer financially viable.

I also don't like wasting my time on these annual quotations to look for better deals. A lot of my personal data is stolen in the process by all these comparison websites. Once the insurer knows my phone number then they harness me with phone calls and texts well over a month before the policy expires.

Couple options I can see
change car for cheaper insurance
pay what’s quoted for annual 
pay per mikes policy (which will be an issue if you have any longer journeys)
stop driving

What parameters of a car do impact the price of insurance?

Aretnap

JohnBravo said:

Ectophile said:

Have you looked at limited mileage policies?  If you agree that you won't do more than an specfied number of miles a year, then they may offer a lower premuim.

Good point. I have to check on my MOT how many miles I do in a year.
I usually declare 5k miles per annum. Should I go lower than that?

You should really declare the number of miles that you actually do, but lower mileage doesn't always mean a cheaper quote. People who drive very low mileages are often nervous inexperienced drivers who aren't necessarily lower risk than the average person who drives a normal number of miles, so once you go below a certain point you might actually see your quotes creep up again.

Mildly_Miffed

JohnBravo said:

What parameters of a car do impact the price of insurance?

Only insurers know exactly how their underwriting models work in fine detail, but broadly speaking the main factors are:

Car:
Performance
Cost of repair
Availability of parts
Frequency of claims

Driver:
Age
Driving history (claims, points)
Occupation
Location