Car insurance - £500 to £2600 difference in same city

letournoi
letournoi Posts: 5 Forumite
edited 12 March 2017 at 12:03PM in Insurance & life assurance
Hi
Looking to move house - found a house we like in BD2 (bradford postode) and checked how much car insure would be thinking it should be cheaper, further out of town than I am now, quieter street etc. buts its more than double! £2600 a year, from £1100.

This I must add is on a car worth no more than £1500

Did some changing of postcodes and found some really odd things (to me at least!)

3 other parts of Bradford
BD2 - £2600
BD5 - £1100 (current house)
BD13 - £760 (parents house)
BD22 - £500 (out skirts of Bradford but Bradford postcode)

So if your rich enough to live in bd22 you save over £10,000 in 5 years over people insuring cars in BD2. This is insane surely! One of the reasons they give is amount of uninsured drivers in a postcode, but at those prices surely they must see the premium is part of the reason for the uninsured drivers.

I'm not willing to move to this area based on the car insurance cost (being nearly £200 a month!) if others follow suite the value of these areas will reduce potentially causing a further disparity to those well off and those struggling to get by.

Sorry lots of thoughts here and probably not very well structured. Think I'm asking is there sensible ways around this. Are there pressure groups for fairer (?) ways of doing car insurance?
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Comments

  • Rates are based on risk, and prior experience.

    If an insurer has had poor experience (of things like theft, arson and vandalism) at a certain postcode they will rate it higher.
  • forgotmyname
    forgotmyname Posts: 32,518
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    At least you can get cover, i have been with specialist club insurers and they wouldnt even quote you with a BD postcode whether its the best or worst they just said dont bother asking.

    Pressure groups for fairer insurance, vote with your feet and try different insurers if they are all the same then there will be a reason for that. You may think its a quiet area but the reason for the claims may not be visible when you drive around the area and think its quiet.
    Censorship Reigns Supreme in Troll City...

  • At least you can get cover, i have been with specialist club insurers and they wouldnt even quote you with a BD postcode whether its the best or worst they just said dont bother asking.

    Thanks for the reply! Why can't you get cover?
  • eddddy
    eddddy Posts: 16,294
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    If you got all these quotes using the same name and car details, it may be that you triggered a fraud alert (or a competitor alert) - which resulted in inflated premiums being quoted.

    For example, the system thought you were looking for the cheapest postcode in order to use a fake address in that postcode.

    Or you were a competitor trying to 'steal' their postcode/risk profile.


    It's unlikely that a 'genuine potential customer' would have a legitimate reason for checking 4 (or more) different postcodes.
  • rtho782
    rtho782 Posts: 1,189
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    And if you're asking for these quotes all from your existing insurer, they might just be of the variety that offer a cheap (loss making) quote on the logic that X% of people change details in the year, and they can then fleece them and make up the losses.

    Get new quotes if you have to, and cancel your insurance.
  • It was in the local paper (Telegraph & Argus) not that long ago that BD2 and BD3 have the highest rates of uninsured drivers in the UK.
  • Nasqueron
    Nasqueron Posts: 8,631
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    eddddy wrote: »
    If you got all these quotes using the same name and car details, it may be that you triggered a fraud alert (or a competitor alert) - which resulted in inflated premiums being quoted.

    For example, the system thought you were looking for the cheapest postcode in order to use a fake address in that postcode.

    Or you were a competitor trying to 'steal' their postcode/risk profile.


    It's unlikely that a 'genuine potential customer' would have a legitimate reason for checking 4 (or more) different postcodes.

    Wonders of the "computer says no" times we are in. A legitimate reason would be someone looking to move house and looking at prices for the different areas depending on where they'd move, just as they'd check schools, crime rate etc. Such a person may well be unaware the system can trigger alerts or even fraud especially using their own details and then has the insurer getting funny when they do move and quote a postcode which is cheaper!
  • Shakin_Steve
    Shakin_Steve Posts: 2,695
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    I live in Barnsley (not exactly crime free) but am originally from Liverpool. My brother and I have almost identical cars yet I pay £900 less here than he does in Liverpool.
    You can't argue with this, I'm afraid, ins cos make their livings on the back of risk assessment and they're not going to change any time soon.
    I came into this world with nothing and I've got most of it left.
  • teddysmum
    teddysmum Posts: 9,471
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    It was in the local paper (Telegraph & Argus) not that long ago that BD2 and BD3 have the highest rates of uninsured drivers in the UK.



    It was in other national papers, too , as well as Bradford's reputation being mentioned in a tv programme about accidents etc.
  • Shakin_Steve
    Shakin_Steve Posts: 2,695
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    teddysmum wrote: »
    It was in other national papers, too , as well as Bradford's reputation being mentioned in a tv programme about accidents etc.
    Accidents that weren't accidents.
    I came into this world with nothing and I've got most of it left.
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