Car insurance renewal: enhanced 3rd party liability, personal injury and passengers over 79

noideapleasehelp

Hi Forum Members
I'm renewing my car insurance following Martin's guidelines.  I'm finding that I not all the quotes offered include enhanced 3rd party liability, enhanced personal injury.  
I'm insured with Hastings direct who offer these enhancements and which I've previously taken out for peace-of-mind.  
When comparing against other company quotes (and yes I've gone on their websites), they don't offer these extras.
The difference between continuing with Hastings with the enhancements vs going with other new companies is around £80.00 which is around £6.60 per month.  
Is there a reason other companies don't offer such enhancements?
And, also reading the small print (as opposed to the smaller small print we get with the actual legal docs when signed-up) it seems that any passenger in my car over 79 is excluded from any enhancements AND any accident insurance.
I have an elderly Mum who I regularly take-out just locally, and to be honest, it never crossed my mind until now that if I had an accident and she was injured, she would be excluded due to age from my insurance.
Is there a reason why if you have a passenger over 79 they are excluded in the event that you (or anyone else) have/has an accident?  What happens if it isn't your fault and they are injured?  Who pays for their injury/recovery/death?
Thank you for anyone in advance who has knowledge of all of this.

MattMattMattUK

noideapleasehelp said:

Hi Forum Members
I'm renewing my car insurance following Martin's guidelines.  I'm finding that I not all the quotes offered include enhanced 3rd party liability, enhanced personal injury.  
I'm insured with Hastings direct who offer these enhancements and which I've previously taken out for peace-of-mind.  
When comparing against other company quotes (and yes I've gone on their websites), they don't offer these extras.
The difference between continuing with Hastings with the enhancements vs going with other new companies is around £80.00 which is around £6.60 per month.  
Is there a reason other companies don't offer such enhancements?

From a quick skim they largely seem like gimmicks, the reason others do not offer them is that they see no commercial benefit from doing so.

noideapleasehelp said:

And, also reading the small print (as opposed to the smaller small print we get with the actual legal docs when signed-up) it seems that any passenger in my car over 79 is excluded from any enhancements AND any accident insurance.
I have an elderly Mum who I regularly take-out just locally, and to be honest, it never crossed my mind until now that if I had an accident and she was injured, she would be excluded due to age from my insurance.
Is there a reason why if you have a passenger over 79 they are excluded in the event that you (or anyone else) have/has an accident?  

Older people break more easily, a healthy thirty year old will survive a much worse accident than a healthy eighty year old, when one factors in general age deterioration that increases even more. Someone in their forties or fifties can walk away from a fairly significant accident, someone in their eighties or nineties in the same accident would likely have injuries ranging from broken bones to internal bleeding.

noideapleasehelp said:

 What happens if it isn't your fault and they are injured?  

The claim goes against the at fault party, which is what happens normally.

noideapleasehelp said:

Who pays for their injury/recovery/death?

The at fault party and/or their insurer, potentially the schemes to redress if they are uninsured, civil recovery of costs etc. 

facade

What is "enhanced third party liability"?

noideapleasehelp

What I've referred to as enhanced 3rd party liability is on my insurance Legal Liability to other people's property to a cost of £20 million.

user1977

noideapleasehelp said:

What I've referred to as enhanced 3rd party liability is on my insurance Legal Liability to other people's property to a cost of £20 million.

I'm intrigued as to what possible circumstances would amount to a claim reaching that figure (i.e. for property as opposed to personal injury). The Great Heck crash apparently resulted in a total of £30m claims, but I expect most of that was personal injuries.

Aretnap

noideapleasehelp said:

What I've referred to as enhanced 3rd party liability is on my insurance Legal Liability to other people's property to a cost of £20 million.

The legal minimum liability cover that insurers have to provide for damage to third party property is £1.2 million, however most instead provide a much higher figure (up to £20 million) as standard. As above it's difficult to imagine a scenario in which you could actually do £20 million of property damage - crash into a van full of Van Goghs perhaps? - so for practical purposes it means unlimited cover. It sounds like Hastings might be charging you extra for a level of cover that most other insurers just include as standard.

noideapleasehelp said:

And, also reading the small print (as opposed to the smaller small print we get with the actual legal docs when signed-up) it seems that any passenger in my car over 79 is excluded from any enhancements AND any accident insurance.
I have an elderly Mum who I regularly take-out just locally, and to be honest, it never crossed my mind until now that if I had an accident and she was injured, she would be excluded due to age from my insurance.
Is there a reason why if you have a passenger over 79 they are excluded in the event that you (or anyone else) have/has an accident?  What happens if it isn't your fault and they are injured?  Who pays for their injury/recovery/death?

She would claim from the liability insurance if the at-fault driver, which could be you, or someone else (or the MIB if the at fault driver was uninsured). Insurers have to provide unlimited liability coverage for death or injuries to third parties, including passengers, and cannot exclude passengers or anyone else from this on the grounds of age.

The part that she does seem to be excluded from is the personal accident section which is an additional payment that the insurer will make to you or your passengers, regardless of liability or blame. It's often a fairly token amount eg £1000 for a fracture, which would be small in comparison to the actual costs of the injury or what you could claim under liability law. Personally it's not something I would pay extra for 

DullGreyGuy

noideapleasehelp said:

Hi Forum Members
I'm renewing my car insurance following Martin's guidelines.  I'm finding that I not all the quotes offered include enhanced 3rd party liability, enhanced personal injury.  
I'm insured with Hastings direct who offer these enhancements and which I've previously taken out for peace-of-mind.  
When comparing against other company quotes (and yes I've gone on their websites), they don't offer these extras.
The difference between continuing with Hastings with the enhancements vs going with other new companies is around £80.00 which is around £6.60 per month.  
Is there a reason other companies don't offer such enhancements?
And, also reading the small print (as opposed to the smaller small print we get with the actual legal docs when signed-up) it seems that any passenger in my car over 79 is excluded from any enhancements AND any accident insurance.
I have an elderly Mum who I regularly take-out just locally, and to be honest, it never crossed my mind until now that if I had an accident and she was injured, she would be excluded due to age from my insurance.
Is there a reason why if you have a passenger over 79 they are excluded in the event that you (or anyone else) have/has an accident?  What happens if it isn't your fault and they are injured?  Who pays for their injury/recovery/death?
Thank you for anyone in advance who has knowledge of all of this.

Most personal lines insurers provide unlimited bodily injury and up to £20m property damage as standard on third party cover which is more than enough for the overwhelming number of accidents... dont recall any motor claim in the UK I've seen that came close to breaching the £20m property damage limit. 

Enhanced personal injuries is presumably enhanced personal accident? In my days of Motor claims never saw a single payout, even asked how to process one from a trainer of 20 years and she didnt know how to either. Be aware it only covers death, loss of eyes and loss of limbs (often required to be above the last joint) so only covers the most extreme accidents and the sums insured, even if enhanced, are rather modest compared to most people's needs if the lose a leg or such.