Car insurance through roof

HoolyNI

I'll try and keep this brief. My wife and I have insurance for a single car, but unfortunately she clipped a parked car whilst parking and did approximately £600 worth of damage to the other car. None of any note to ours.

As we had never claimed before, we decided to go through our insurance. When the renewal came, our no claims bonus had stayed at 9+ years, but the premium had jumped from £308 per year to £598.

I did expect the premium to increase a bit following the claim but was surprised it was that much considering the £600 cost of the repair. If our premiums stay high for 5 years now, we could end up repaying the claim a couple of times over.

As I was shopping around, I needed to change my employment status too, as I had been a part-time HGV driver for a few years since stepping back from full-time but haven't worked for over a year now due to ill health [not licence related].

When I changed my status to "household duties", the premium jumped to £750...anyone have any ideas why that would be?

I managed to get the quote "down" to £577 elsewhere but am just curious as to how less commuting equates to a much higher premium.

MyRealNameToo

HoolyNI said:

I'll try and keep this brief. My wife and I have insurance for a single car, but unfortunately she clipped a parked car whilst parking and did approximately £600 worth of damage to the other car. None of any note to ours.

As we had never claimed before, we decided to go through our insurance. When the renewal came, our no claims bonus had stayed at 9+ years, but the premium had jumped from £308 per year to £598.

I did expect the premium to increase a bit following the claim but was surprised it was that much considering the £600 cost of the repair. If our premiums stay high for 5 years now, we could end up repaying the claim a couple of times over.

As I was shopping around, I needed to change my employment status too, as I had been a part-time HGV driver for a few years since stepping back from full-time but haven't worked for over a year now due to ill health [not licence related].

When I changed my status to "household duties", the premium jumped to £750...anyone have any ideas why that would be?

I managed to get the quote "down" to £577 elsewhere but am just curious as to how less commuting equates to a much higher premium.

Have you spoken to your insurers about what the quote would be if you "bought the claim back"? ie refunded them what they paid out?

The value of the claim generally isnt a consideration for pricing, its a matter of luck rather than anything else if you clip an old banger where the repair is £50 or you clip a rolls where repairing the same damage is going to be £5,000+. Insurers simply care you've been hitting static objects. 

The impact of a single claim will tail off sharply so yes it will be declared for 5 years but its impact in year 5 will be much less than year 1 as long as you dont have any more accidents. 

Insurance pricing of mass market consumer products is done on statistical analysis not actuaries sitting in an ivory tower debating if a house husband is going to have a larger or smaller claims exposure to a HGV driver or a vet. They have sufficient data to have a strong statistical relevance simply by looking at the claims for everyone who's a house person and comparing them to everyone who's a HGV driver and price accordingly for the differences in experience. 

If you wanted to try and guess why a HGV driver has less claims than a house wife/husband then most would probably argue that they do vastly more driving but the insurer isnt exposed to the risk on that additional driving so gets the benefit of the extra experience without the risks. House persons also typically are doing lots of small erronds at all times of the day, fairly often with children or pets in the car so wouldnt be surprised if they have a higher propensity for low value claims from clips in the car park etc. 

mebu60

Have you tried 'Retired' to see what effect that has?

Maybe household duties (and retired) demographic have higher incidence of supermarket car park prangs or more incidents being out and about in the car more rather than it being parked somewhere while you were at work. 

My policy with Saga I have the usage level which specifically excludes commuting to any place of work or business use in any form. 

Mark_d

HoolyNI said:

I'll try and keep this brief. My wife and I have insurance for a single car, but unfortunately she clipped a parked car whilst parking and did approximately £600 worth of damage to the other car. None of any note to ours.

As we had never claimed before, we decided to go through our insurance. When the renewal came, our no claims bonus had stayed at 9+ years, but the premium had jumped from £308 per year to £598.

I did expect the premium to increase a bit following the claim but was surprised it was that much considering the £600 cost of the repair. If our premiums stay high for 5 years now, we could end up repaying the claim a couple of times over.

As I was shopping around, I needed to change my employment status too, as I had been a part-time HGV driver for a few years since stepping back from full-time but haven't worked for over a year now due to ill health [not licence related].

When I changed my status to "household duties", the premium jumped to £750...anyone have any ideas why that would be?

I managed to get the quote "down" to £577 elsewhere but am just curious as to how less commuting equates to a much higher premium.

I don't think it was necessarily the wrong decision to go through your insurers.  Even if you didn't make a claim, you would still have to notify the insurer of the accident and your premium would go up.
"household duties" means less commuting but did you know that more accidents happen in supermarket car parks than A-roads/motorways? On a supermarket trip there will be more distractions and more pedestrians/vulnerable road users around.

dunstonh

As we had never claimed before, we decided to go through our insurance. When the renewal came, our no claims bonus had stayed at 9+ years, but the premium had jumped from £308 per year to £598.

That is not much of an increase for someone that has just had an "at fault" claim.

When I changed my status to "household duties", the premium jumped to £750...anyone have any ideas why that would be?

A professional driver is more likely to be on the road in the HGV than in their own vehicle.   A housewife/husband is more likely to be an occasional driver or even a Sunday driver, if you recall that phrase.

HoolyNI

Thanks all for your replies, things seem a bit clearer now. I tried "household duties", "retired" and "unemployed". "Retired" was the cheapest option but I presume you have to actually be retirement age to use that option. I got a quote through Go Compare and they had an option "not working due to disability" which returned the cheapest quote and is the most accurate description of my circumstances. Will shop around closer to the time.

MyRealNameToo

HoolyNI said:

Thanks all for your replies, things seem a bit clearer now. I tried "household duties", "retired" and "unemployed". "Retired" was the cheapest option but I presume you have to actually be retirement age to use that option. I got a quote through Go Compare and they had an option "not working due to disability" which returned the cheapest quote and is the most accurate description of my circumstances. Will shop around closer to the time.

Unless there are helper notes that define it in more detail its plain English meaning and as long as you feel comfortable defining yourself as such you should be fine. 

To me it's not a clear definition, a chap that works for us has "retired" in pension insurance terms as he is drawing his private pension but works full time at the same time. At the same time a friend sold their business at 45 and has no intention of ever working again so I'd argue he has retired

mebu60

HoolyNI said:

Thanks all for your replies, things seem a bit clearer now. I tried "household duties", "retired" and "unemployed". "Retired" was the cheapest option but I presume you have to actually be retirement age to use that option. I got a quote through Go Compare and they had an option "not working due to disability" which returned the cheapest quote and is the most accurate description of my circumstances. Will shop around closer to the time.

Nope! I retired at 54. For the second (and final) time! 

But sounds like you've found an even cheaper descriptor so good luck when the time comes to look seriously at quotes.