Bit of a long one, sorry. Trying to get a quote on an A6 Avant 2.8 SE. 7 yrs old, worth £4995. I have had a clean licence for the last 6 odd years and have held it for 20 yrs. I'm 38, married, kids, mortgage, the whole picture. My house is half a mile off the nearest road in a country area. Yet because, over a year ago, someone nudged the company car I had at the time in a car park while I was in a meeting in a mile away, I am being quoted £1050 for fully comp.with £400 excess. Without this claim the prem would have been £750. One price is from a company which has been recommended here, the other a broker picked at random.
Can anyone explain how the actions of someone I've never met and over which I had no control, in connection with a car I didn't own, can possibly make me a higher risk of future claims arising, when I have an unblemished driving record? Basically the insurance company is saying there is a one in 5 chance that the car will be written off in the next 12 months.
Does anyone know of an insurer who will insure a group 18 car on 3rd party F&T because at these rates I might as well self-insure for accident damage? Are there any insurers who will look at the value of the car rather than just its ins. grp? Are there any insurers who can distinguish between a 10 foot drive outside your house and a half mile dead end track to a farm house?
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I pay £740 for a group 18 car (I'm 28) so I don't think you are being unrealistic. I'd just keep shopping around on all the online quote systems you can find. Axa were the cheapest for me and I tried about 10 others, most of whom were at least several hundred pounds more expensive. If you have had the claim over the last year ago you should have nearly your full ncd back so I don't know why it is still so expensive.
The TPFT route isn't likely to be possible as most insurance companies insist on fully comp on any car worth over £4k
teabelly
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Just got a good deal from www.budgetinsurance.com for my insurance. Tesco can be very good too if you have a less than stellar history, although they were way off for me.
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Nsar
Not justifying it, but the problem is that you had a claim. Not your fault, but you had a claim. The insurance company of the company car can't say you have a claim free record, and insurance companies have a simplistic view of claims - you claim, they pay out, you lose bonus. They don't care about fault in cases like this. So your potential NCD is hit.
As for the current situation, from the insurance company's point of view the value of the car is secondary. It's the third party claims that cost the money. For example, the damage you can do to pedestrians is almost as great with a slower car as a fast one. However, claims from faster cars do tend to be more costly, so premiums are higher. Therefore, I don't believe TPFT would be much cheaper than Full Comp.
Given that you've transferred from a company insurance, with limited NCD the quote probably isn't that far off the mark, I'm sorry to say.
Regards
John S
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I'm not having a pop at you John, but I didn't have a claim - the company I worked for at the time had a claim thanks to someone else's actions. I wasn't in any sense involved in the incident or the claim, but 14 months on, I'm being punished! They might as well ask me if any of my friends have ever had a claim, for the difference it makes to the probability of me making a claim in the future. I've always thought actuaries wwere the most dispassionate, logic driven people, but logic doesn't seem to be a factor here!
Thanks to all who have replied so far
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That's semms like a logical point. It's not you who have claimed, it's presumably your employer. No doubt someone who knows the answer will be along shortly!
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Nsar
I realise you're not 'having a pop'.
Like you, I moved from a company car to my own. As you say the company holds the insurance, not the drivers. So, technically, you haven't had a claim. Equally, when you want your own insurance, you, technically, don't have any NCD either, because you haven't personally held any insurance. Most insurers, though, will give you some discount (not, therefore, strictly NCD - more an introductory discount) if you can show that you drove on company insurance without a claim. Unfortunately the car you were using did have a claim, so they reduce the discount in much the same way as they would if it had been your own car and your own insurance - you were in charge of after all. It's one downside of company cars - whereas you'd probably pay for a car park scratch yourself, to preserve bonus and clean record, the company happily gives it to the insurers.
Now, we all realise that car park damage isn't your fault, but it ain't a no-fault bonus, it's a no-claim bonus. And, some people are far less careful about where they leave there cars than others, plus some unscrupulous characters (not you I'm sure!) put 'moving' damage down to car park damage. So, they've seen that your previous insurer has paid out and you suffer, even though there was nothing you could do about it. In their eyes it might affect your chances of making a claim in the future, and they base it on what they've paid out, as well as what they might pay out. That's actuaries for you.
No, I don't work for an insurance company, but my wife used to and I've some idea how they think.
Regards
John S
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I have had a personal policy on another car of which I'm the reg. owner since July 2001 without a claim, but that doesn't seem to qualify for any NCD in these circs because the company claim was Feb last year. The irony is that I can protect my NCD for a few extra quid each year going forward and they would then ignore claims such as this, but without it, it's going to cost me hundreds extra. Mad and madder!
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Nsar
Yes, that's the other issue. Each individual vehicle policy earns its own NCD, despite the fact that the vehicles in a household probably have the same drivers. So, you can't use NCD earned on your other car for this new one.
Protected bonus is essentially an additional premium against the loss of NCD a claim would create. It's rarely total cover, usually allowing X claims in Y years.
As you're insuring two cars, there's a double whammy if a named driver has a claim. The policy holder suffers (it's a claim on their policy), as does the named driver should they apply for their own insurance as they have to admit to having had an event leading to a claim.
Regards
John S
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Hope this will help, but when I was looking for cover, I got the best deal from Norwich Union Direct.
Open up their website, (any search engine will find it. )
Start going through the process, then phone them up.
Tell them you're having problems with exactly what information they want.
You'll find that they then do all the work for you, you still get the Web price, and I got another discount for paying straight away (over the phone), and they also gave me a further discount because my wifes policy is with them.
- Oh and they were very good when I needed to make a claim.
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