Job title affects car insurance

--Tony--

I found this, really interesting.

What motorists do for a living plays a big part in determining how much they pay for car insurance, it has been revealed. Comedians and choirmasters end up forking out £200 a year more than clergymen, even whenthey drive the same car and live in the same area, according to car insurance search enginecompany www.confused.com Bank managers have the lowest premiums and professional footballers the highest, the company discovered. It looked at insurance for 365 professions andassumed each person was 35, male, living in the Vale of Glamorgan and driving a Vauxhall Astra 1.8.Drivers were also assumed to want fully comprehensive insurance and have a maximum no-claims bonus.The lowest average annual premiums - of £309.39- for bank managers contrasted with the highest average figure - of £691.69 - for professional footballers. Confused.com managing director Kate Armstrong said: "Although occupation is just one element that can affect your car insurance premium, making sure that you put down the right career
is critical. Take, for example, a TV broadcaster paying £448 for their insurance; if they'd described themselves as a TV announcer they'd have to pay an average premium of £681."

Bossyboots

This is no great secret. We have had to be careful for years how we describe my OH's job as the description does indeed affect the premium.

scheming_gypsy

so what would happen if you stretched the truth slightly about your profession? Do they actually check what you do for a living?
I'm not talking about everybody saying they're bank managers but if a TV Announcer said they were a TV broadcaster to save a few quid.


Before people start telling me it's fraud - tape it - i'm asking a hypothetical question to see if it has any actual effect.

Bossyboots

I think the issue will only arise if the vehicle is involved in an accident and the insurers question its use at the time if it doesn't seem to fit with what has been said.

Obviously, a broadcaster might be expected to work from one location but a presenter might be working from different locations so there is more risk to the vehicle as it will be doing more miles.

For the bulk standard job, I can't see they are going to ask unless you put something like you were going to a job when your insurance only covers commuting, not business travel.

Janis

When you look for car insurance on line you can alter things like job title to see how it affects your premium, just like it recalculates the premium if you keep altering the excess you want to pay.

When i changed my job to a lecturer from working in a hospital some insurers wanted to increase the premium (in case I carried students in my car, which was not allowed anyway in my college) whilst others would reduce it because they regarded lecturers as safer drivers than hospital scientists. Then I discovered housewives had a lower premium than almost any job, and if you work less than 16 hours you can claim to be a housewife, so I was told. I did this when i did very part time work and my working hours were very patchy.

When I was widowed I phoned up my insurer to remove my husband's name from my insurance, assuming the premium would become lower as:(a) i would be a single named driver, (b)I would be a woman on my own without an accident prone man to increase my premium and (c) because he had been at the wheel of all but one accident in this household over the years. So guess what? as if being widowed isn't bad enough they immediately increased my premium because I was suddenly a single person and single people make more claims. And yet i was the same person, married, widowed, working or not.

Wish I hadnt told them, but I thought I could save some money, which is the thing that motivates me to do most things.

Interestingly I can claim to be a housewife because I am a woman called 'Mrs' that doesn't work, yet I am considered single because I am a widow. I dont know how it would affect a premium if I said I was 'unemployed'.

(And about 5 years ago when I filled in an E111 form I had to tick 'pensioner' because I am not employed or self employed, but in receipt of a widows pension, despite the fact I had a 12 year old daughter then and am many years away from getting a bus pass.)

Altarf

scheming_gypsy wrote:

so what would happen if you stretched the truth slightly about your profession? Do they actually check what you do for a living?

Not when you take out the insurance, but they will/may do when you claim.

Insurance is a contract of ‘utmost good faith’, which means that if you lie on the application or even fail to mention something that you know would affect the premium (even if not asked) the contract can be invalidated when the issue comes to light.

So the problem is, you lie/stretch the truth and get a cheaper premium, but are you actualy insured? You won't know until you come to claim.

Most of the lies/stretched truths such as occupation, place where the car is kept, who is the main driver, are easily uncovered once the insurance companies put their minds to it. Is it worth saving a few quid on the policy, only to have the insurance company consider your stretched truth to be a lie and invalidate your policy just after you crashed your car?

Skint_Catt

I have always worked in administration/secretarial offices and my job has never affected my driving, however when I switched jobs from an insurance company to a Professional Sports Association they tried to triple my car insurance! I argued the point with the girl, that although I was driving a few miles further at the end of the day I was just sitting behind a desk picking up the phone. Who was on the other end of it shouldn't affect my driving!

They re-adjusted my quote to say I worked for 'Office Services' instead of Professional Sports, and it came back down to £300!

My better half is a qualified professional sports person and pays £600 although he is in the safest age bracket, does few miles and drives like an OAP, lol. He worked for a sports retailer at his last renewal and quite rightly told them that he was a sales assistant. Bought his premium down to £200 odd! Shame it has to go back up shortly!

S_C

MarkyMarkD

You don't only have to notify the insurers of changes of employment, for example, at renewal, which is the way I read your post, Skint_Catt. If he's already changed back to being a professional sports person instead of a shop assistant, he needs to notify them NOW (and pay the increased premium now, almost definitely). Otherwise he will definitely be in trouble if he has to claim, for the reasons that Altarf has expressed.

Rover1_2

I used to have the same problems when I worked for BBC Engineering. A bit of explaining that I was not a Celeb usually got a quote. You do however have to make sure that your insurer knows exactly waht you do as a living and for whom you do it. Be up front - a minor fib may get you a cheap quote, but come to claim and it will all come out in the wash. You could end up finding out that your insurance is invalid.

Conor_3

I remember querying a renewal once as it was horrific. It was because I was a HGV driver. Apparently the insurers logic went along the lines of the fact that I was a HGV driver meant I'd be driving other peoples cars as part of the business so I was a risk. What the hell? I quickly sussed that they were referring to car transporters and when I pointed out that car transporters make up about 1/10,000th of UK Haulage PLC fleet and that I'd never driven one as it needs specialist training, my renewal quote mysteriously dropped a hundred quid.

Thankfully now, they recognise the fact and treat it as an advanced licence which means £120 F/C on a 2.8 V6.

MarkyMarkD

I think it's silly how minor differences in a job's description can make such a difference. I could easily describe my job in a number of ways and it would probably lead to different premiums. And each description is quite justifiable.