Car Insurance up 37.5% in last year !!!!

[AW8]

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Some may feel that costs to those more law abiding should be offset by higher loading to those with historic but serious motoring offences & fraud convictions.

Others may feel more needs to be done to catch & higher penalise those without insurance, (who push up costs to insured & involved parties).

Some feel more should have been done to reduce the number of accidents through education &/or enforcement to combat stupid driving & not just speed.

Claim settlement companies have a lot to answer for as they charge massive admin costs for their services on top of the damages awarded.

Insurance fronting has been clamped down on the many who have smashed up their "so called" parents cars on back of premiums not reflecting the real owner.

Of course there is the possibility we are also further victims of "Rip Off Britain."

I am aware some other countries charge silly premiums but a 37.5% hike isn't funny in tough times & when many are taking pay or working hour freezes or cuts.

[X5Sport]

And we mustn't forget that it was one of the two previous Governments that changed the law to allow these Accident Chasers to come into existence in the first place. Some of these folks take 40% so of course have to claim disproportionately higher 'injury awards'.

I also noted the unbelievable costs of insurance for new drivers - some as high as £12k on a £1k car. No wonder there are so many uninsured drivers, especially given the average penalty is about £200, 6 points and lose your car. Still a lot less than £12k a year!!! With fewer Traffic Police about dramatically reduding the chances of getting caught, it's no wonder it's now at epidemic proportions and the legitimate drivers/owners amongst us get hit hard. The penalties do need to be much more severe and should include paying for the other sides damages if you 'the uninsured' are involved in any kind of RTC. If you were legal then there's not so much of an issue. But if you're illegal, well you wouldn't have been there would you...........? Bit of a paradox that one I know.

Several major players in the insurance industry are no longer covering young drivers so they're being priced off the road, or forced to drive illegally if they can't afford the insurance. And no I don't think they're in the right. I'm a believer in the 'if you can't afford it, don't do it camp', but you have to have some sympathy for these folks.

Also of interest has been a piece of work published last week in Auto Express which shows that speed is a factor in less than 5% of RTCs - so that just strengthens the case that cameras are cash cows.

[pvr]

Touch wood - all mine have actually come down ... Not sure how they calculate the premiums exactly and based on what.

I am very much in favour of car based insurance rather then person based, that way - you never have uninsured cars and premiums work out fine with the bonus malus systems. When I turned 18 and got my license in NL, I could and did drive my dad's 3.0 Mercedes the same day. Drove anything exotic I could get my hands on without paying a penny. If I was to have an accident, it would cost the owner / insurer of the car 20% no claim.

When I insured my first car, I paid 120% of the base premium. The base premium is what everyone pays for the car, no difference in age etc. Then based on your no claim, you go to 80% discount. So experienced drivers pay less, and those that have lots of accidents pay 20% more each year. Very simple and effective, those that crash pay, those that don't, don't pay. It seems such a more fair system and I can't see any drawbacks either. Remember that the base premium of an expensive car is high, so unless you have the 80% discount it will be expensive to insure for someone paying the 120% premium.

[AW8]

Agree re accident chasers, they apply extortionate costs which massively increase claims, (& costs), to levels far beyond what's reasonable.

There could be far higher financial penalties, (min fine £1000 &/or 100 hours community service for those that can't pay), mandatory seizure & sale of uninsured cars with any revenue from sale into the M.I.B. pot, (scheme to pay victims of non insured drivers),to reduce claim costs to insurance companies.

Most accept that (inappropriate) "speed kills", however, some argue that process quotas for traffic officers, (& consequences of not meeting them), make issuing speeding tickets more beneficial, (to individual officers), than less quota productive hours preparing a CPS file for careless or dangerous driving. Replacing process quotas & encouraging/allowing the issue of endorsable fixed penalty notices for non contested careless & borderline dangerous driving, (caught on in car video), might be a start point to reduce deaths, collisions & even total insurance claim costs.

Some feel ,(as in some countries), minor speeding offences should merely carry a fine, this would reduce admin costs, reduce insurance company profiteering, (by premium loading), prevent bans from totting up, (of minor infringements), & might even get more ,(otherwise law abiding), folk more on side with the Police.

Premiums of youngsters may reflect probable risk but perhaps more needs to be done to reduce risk. Many rural collisions occur with young people often conducting daft, (untaught), overtakes in underpowered cars, loaded with mates. The dark art of safe overtaking not developed or helped by an increase in 50mph rural limits & the growing acceptable practice of folk closing gaps. Decent tuition is costly but showing gruesome (mock up), video of consequences of dangerous driving not so. Why not add footage before Cert 18 Horror Films on rental or Cinema, (clearly folk dont have weak stomachs if paying to see same) ?

Some would argue that more could be done to educate immigrants, (from eastern european or under developed countries), in road safety & u.k. traffic law, (these comments categoricaly not aimed at anyone on here!).

In summary some feel there is a real need to radically revisit the way collisions & road deaths numbers are reduced, (& in turn claims and premiums reduced). Clearly the widespread use of Gatsos & the repeat message "Speed Kills" , (semingly targeted at commuter Dad doing 35 in a 30), might not have been enough !

Food for thought.

[AW8]

[quote=""pvr""]I am very much in favour of car based insurance rather then person based, that way - you never have uninsured cars.............[/quote]

Cant see how this would prevent someone buying a car for cash and driving it uninsured............Perhaps I am being thick.

[pvr]

[quote=""AW8""][quote=""pvr""]I am very much in favour of car based insurance rather then person based, that way - you never have uninsured cars.............[/quote]

Cant see how this would prevent someone buying a car for cash and driving it uninsured............Perhaps I am being thick.[/quote]

Well, that goes without saying

Difference is, just like road tax, you can see that the car is uninsured. Now, I can insure a car and let any uninsured person driving it without them having any risk in getting caught as the car will not have a "no insurance" tag on it in the database. If the car is insured, anyone can drive it ...

[AW8]

No stats to back up but I reckon most folk driving without insurance in the uk do so in abscence of any policy being held by another.

In the UK it is also the case that the car that is insured, however, all drivers appear on the policy, (with exception of rare "any driver" policies & fully comp policies that allow 3rd party cover to drivers who have their own fully comp policy for another car & who are 25 or over).

It is definitely the car that is insured in the UK............ If the owner of car A has full NCD a then buys Car B then Car B does not attract NCD at 1st policy inception, (though insurer may give discount recognised solely by them).

Obviously a UK car wont flash up as "non insured" if being driven by someone not covered by a policy in existence, however, in the event of a driver being spoken to face to face relavant checks can be made & cross checked.........yet another argument to justify benefits of Police over Gatso for effective checking of compliance of Road Traffic Laws.

As far as traffic policing goes, like many other good folk I would rather more was done to identify & police non insured drivers, non licensed drivers & vehicles related to crime or containing folk that need locking up rather than seeing disproportional attention given to minor speeding offences.