Car Insurance From Insurance By Steve

Car Insurance Promises

Advertising claims made by car insurance providers...

We can save you up to 30% on your motor insurance.

Why should safer drivers pay for risky drivers?

Protect your no claims policy!

In my opinion most of this is hogwash. For a start, any insurance company can claim to cover you for a cheaper insurance premium. All they have to do is provide less cover, usually in terms of raising the excess deductible amount you pay on any damages. So in effect you pay for those bumps and dents.

Safer drivers do not pay extra because of the costs incurred by riskier drivers. Each driver falls into a particular demographic grouping and how much you pay depends upon which group you fall into. That's why young drivers pay more than older drivers and men generally pay higher premiums than women.

How is falsely protecting your no claims policy going to help you? You pay more for it to start with. Then when you renew your insurance the new policy premium takes into account that your no claims period has been artificially extended. It's a gimmick drawn up to give people more confidence.

You Pretty Much Get What You Pay For

The main reason insurance premiums vary so much is because of the level of cover ( for cover read compensation ) that you are given. I know to many of you I'm explaining how to suck eggs but I'll go through the points anyhow.

All drivers need 3rd party public liability insurance to safely drive their vehicles whether it be on public or private roads. The law requires us to have it on public roads and will treat us harshly if we don't have it. But public or private, if we hit some bystander with our vehicle then that poor guy or gal is going to sue us to the hilt in the civil courts. Without insurance we could be financially ruined if found responsible. Not a prospect we face dealing with.

How good you are at avoiding accidents and how willing you are not to make a claim is rewarded by the car insurance companies with a no claims period reduction on your premiums. The more years that go by without you pestering them for compensation money and they'll be more trusting of you. Whack six other cars in a year and they'll punish you with sky high premiums, assuming they want you as a risk at all. But it can be a really unfair system. If your car is the victim of other driver's crazy driving the car insurance companies still punish you for not avoiding the collisions. How daft is that! There must be a lot of drivers who have taken drastic action to avoid a near fatal collision only to find themselves veering off into a lamp post.

The next variant is essentially the value of replacing the vehicle should it be stolen or burnt into a smoldering wreck. It makes common sense that a brand new Ferrari 360 is going to cost a heck of a lot more to replace than an old Daihatsu.

There is then the excess deductible slider scale. Whoever came up with this concept in the car insurance world was a bright spark because it allows insurance companies to make all sorts of claims about how cheap their insurance offerings are. If you have an accident whether it's your fault or not, how much are you willing to pay towards the repair bill? Zero? A thousand bucks? The more you are willing to pay the lower your insurance premiums are but the less compensation you get. Car insurance companies know full well that the vast majority of claims are for small dents and scratches where some dumb driver reverses into your car in a car park. They don't want to pay for them because they are random incidents that they have difficulty in predicting. So they threaten to remove your no claims period. You shudder at the thought of losing it and push up your excess deductible to protect it.

There are other recent inventions from the car insurance industry. One is the legal protection option for which an additional sum is charged. Fine, we all want legal protection, but excuse me isn't that what insurance is in the first place? Why do we need this additional service when we are already paying for other parties to be pursued for insurance claims and we have 3rd party public liability cover? What exactly does these additional legal service provide that the rest of the insurance doesn't? If it is to pursue loss of income following an accident then this can be pursued through a myriad of other legal resources.

The other perks they offer such as a replacement vehicle are also questionable. The cost of renting a replacement vehicle should all be part of the compensation claim against the guilty party.

So in conclusion it is best to focus upon the level of cover you think is warranted for your vehicle, maintaining your no claims period and investigating the reliance of the insurer to pay out when a claim is made.

The Young Driver Dilemma

There is no doubt about it, younger drivers have more motoring accidents than older drivers. It's not their fault entirely. They are inexperienced with all the situations on the road and this of course will lead to errors of judgement. Some incidents are of course created by sheer irresponsibility. As a result, insurance companies charge much higher premiums for young drivers.

A trend has built up over recent years for young drivers to register the vehicle in their parent's name and include themselves as an additional driver. They then use the vehicle for their exclusive use often away from home at a college or university. The problems with this is that a) it is a criminal offence to lie when claiming for car insurance and b) the policy is invalid. If discovered, no sympathy will be forthcoming from either the law or the insurance company. You will be fined, you will not be compensated and any bystander you hurt will be able to pursue you to the ends of the earth with the full support of the law.

The insurance companies claim this abuse is happening a lot. The reason for it of course is the high cost of premiums for young drivers. The advice from the insurers is that young drivers should make a valid application and pay the higher premiums. There is some sense to this because these drivers will able to recover the costs over the following years with a valid no claims period all of their own with no assistance from their parents. The only other money saving alternative is for young drivers to apply for the lowest legal level of cover on their vehicle and incur the cost of accident repairs themselves. This will both reduce the cost of the initial premiums and build up a valid no claims period.