Massive increase in car insurance

Bigphil1474

OP, if his current policy ends in 2 weeks he needs to get on it right away. IME policy prices get more expensive as you get closer to renewal day.

UnsureAboutthis

Thinking more about this thread and the helpful points people have raised, I had a bit of a "hang on a minute" moment.

It’s one thing for premiums to go up slightly, but it feels like insurers properly hammer the person at fault, and then turn around and hammer the innocent victim as well. It comes across as outright profiteering off people’s bad luck.

Yes, insurance is a business, but it's wildly unfair. It reminds me of how letting agents used to double-dip by charging sign-up fees to new tenants and fees to the landlord—until the government finally stepped in and put a stop to it.

facade

It’s one thing for premiums to go up slightly, but it feels like insurers properly hammer the person at fault, and then turn around and hammer the innocent victim as well. It comes across as outright profiteering off people’s bad luck.

Think of it as a bet. You are betting that within the next 12 months you will write off a £30K car, and run up incidental costs, call it £50K that they have to pay out, and they are betting that you won't.

If your premium is £500, they are offering you odds of 100:1, which is very reasonable.

However, once you start having accidents even if they are not your fault, your risk changes, and it becomes statistically more likely that you will win the bet next year (people often say "bad luck happens in threes") so they would be stupid to offer odds of 100:1 then, they might think it is only worth 50:1 so your premium jumps to £1000.

It is only "profiteering" (and no more so than any bookie) if they keep winning the bet, they often lose as that adage proves true- my late father managed 3 accidents over 2 years, all non-fault, in a green Rover SD1, swapping the car for the more usual blue or grey colour (a succession of Vauxhalls and poverty spec. Mercedes as it happened) he never had another.

My late Uncle used to park on the street outside his end terrace house. Being the first car in the line, every drunken & careless driver that went past would smash straight into it, eventually his premiums got so high that he just gave up the car altogether.

Not one of the accidents was his fault, (he wasn't even in the car at the time) but you could predict that they were extremely likely and he was inviting them by parking there!

Cornucopia

The last time I made a claim on my own car insurance was some years ago, and the incident was deemed 100% the fault of the other party.

However, I made the mistake of claiming on my own fully comp policy, and my insurer suffered a loss of several £1000s even if they ought to have recovered that from the other side.

At renewal, my premium with them doubled. But the extra premium was only with that company. As soon as I shopped around, it was pretty clear that other insurers were satisfied that my risk had not increased.

UnsureAboutthis

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82186508#Comment_82186508

I've never quite wrapped my head around how "claiming directly against the other driver's insurance" is supposed to work in practice.

If that’s an option, why doesn't everyone do it when liability is 100% clear-cut—like when someone drives straight into the back of your stationary car, or ploughs into a queue and shunts the cars behind into yours?

Cheers in advance buddy.

LightFlare

Theres two aspects:

1. not being at fault
2. not putting yourself in a risky place/position

1 can be true at the same time as 2 is false

Cornucopia

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82186669#Comment_82186669

You kind of need to be committed to it from the outset of the claim. You also need to be reasonably sure that the other party accepts responsibility, for example if they already said so at the scene.

You then need to put off your own insurance company's claims managers for a day or two whilst the other party's claims managers get in touch and beg you to make the claim with them for the sake of their own costs.

You could probably also contact the other insurance company directly, but I didn't have to do that.

It's all probably easiest if the vehicle is driveable in the meantime, which mine was.

UnsureAboutthis

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82186831#Comment_82186831

To be clear: you notified your own insurer as required, but since it was clearly the third party's fault, you instructed your insurance to hold fire because you wanted to claim directly against theirs?

Apologies if I'm missing something, but assuming it all went in your favour, how can you be sure your renewal premium won't still increase because of the incident, aside from the usual yearly inflation jump?

Thanks for your time and patience.

Cornucopia

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82186948#Comment_82186948

This was about 7 years ago, so I'm a little hazy about the exact detail.

I can't remember what is possibly a key detail for you - whether I reported it to my insurer at the point of the claim, or just included it in my details upon renewal. I may have reported it after the repair was complete because it would be all done and dusted in terms of responsibility and funding.

The advantage of trying to go this way is that you don't have to pay any excess, and nor is there any requirement to claim back your excess from the other party.

I don't think my premium increased - I went through a prolonged period of always paying c. £300pa, and that didn't change.

ThorOdinson

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82186261#Comment_82186261

Yes, what you need to do is claim against their insurer for the increased insurance premium. If it went up but £300, you claim £300 as an uninsured loss from them.

You have to do a bit of work to show you shopped around.