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NU has announced that premiums are to rise by 14% overall and some by 40%. As an aside, thay add that 40% of what they pay out goes to lawyers! Now we know what pays for those grisly TV adverts of dim tradesmen falling off ladders and fat ladies falling over in the office!
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It wasn't my fault. Somebody gave me the wrong type of ladder.
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It wasn't my fault. Somebody gave me the wrong type of ladder.
Wow that add winds me up, just think what he would have done had the given him the wrong type of drill!
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NU have been undercutting other insurance companies for a couple of years to gain market share (my sis works for them) - it's now payback time.
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NU could save a fortune if they cut out their awful ads! It will now be "Quote me Miserable"!
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Just renewed SWMBO's policy with Norwich Union. They were still doing good deals last week!
Renewal quote £369 but when I phoned, the nice chappie in India offered me a deal which was hard to believe ............ if we took out RAC breakdown through them (we don't need it) at a price of £52 - the price of the deal (car insurance & RAC) went down to £310 saving £59. Even though we did n't need the RAC cover it became a no brainer
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IanS
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>>40% of what they pay out goes to lawyers! <<
This has been the case over the last 5 years since legal aid was replaced by Conditional Fees ("no win-no fee"). Solicitors only take on cases they are confident of winning and then claim a success fee which can mean an uplift of their charges by up to 100%. The lawyers fees frequently exceed he compensation paid especially where they act for 4/5 occupants of the same car all claiming whiplash injuries!
Of course the blame will rest with Insurance Companies for inevitable premium increases rather than the Government for creating the situation
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Their costs may have increased, but I'd be surprised if they weren't still in profit. I await (with much anticipation) of an insurance company that specialises in young male drivers who actually have ncb and aren't appalling drivers.
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If even you find out, let me know won't you?
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news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5300930.stm
Oh good.
I still think that the loading can go too far tho. A friend of mine has 3 points, 2 fault claims and yet pays £240 to insure her Focus fully comp. I have 6 years no claims (and a 13 year clean record, I lost my first NCB when my Ma crashed my car), no points, no nothing, and I'm 30 not 29, yet I paid twice that on a comparable car (Xsara) because I don't have boobs. Seems a bit unfair (although I'm aware that statistically it's probably perfectly justified). Ah well.
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Gordon - shop around, you can do a lot better than that I would have thought. I am over 30 and pay £220 a year full comp, £100 XS, 2 drivers and protected NCB on a 307.
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That money goes to lawyers because the insurance industry wants to work in a particular way.
If they reject a claim, they can hardly complain if a claimant gets lawyered up and sues them, wins, and gets an order for legal costs.
Nobody would argue that a claimant with severe injuries should not be entitled to the best professional help to get compensation.
Uplifts in no-win no-fee cases for RTA claims re usually very modest. Extremely rare to get anything like 100%.
the government decided to allow no win no fee cases so it could effectively do away with legal aid in civil cases. This effectively shifts the cost onto insurance companies who in turn shift it to us via the premiums. The gov looks good (it has slashed legal aid budget) while at the same time allowing the gov to cynically say that it is all the lawyer's fault.
If "non-deserving" claimants think they have a chance of getting compensation, it is because some judge somewhere has set a precedent that gives them hope of a recovery. If there is such a hope of recovery, the lawyer cannot pretend there isn't. He cannot take his client's money and then say, wrongly, that the claim has no chance of success. That would be negligent and immoral.
The perception that we are turning into a more litigious sociey is wrong. There are fewer court claims year on year. It is one of those things that people perceive to be constantly on the rise (like violent crime/child murder/abduction) when in fact the reverse is true.
Lawyer bashing is usually misconcieved, and when done by politicians, it is usually the worst kind of populism.
Rant over.
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NU has announced that premiums are to rise by 14% overall and some by 40%. As an aside, thay add that 40% of what they pay out goes to lawyers!
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BBC R4 interview at lunchtime shed some light on the 40% increase.
They quote an example where dad has three cars insured with a sprog as a named driver on one or more of them. They are saying it is a sham as sprog is main driver of car three. So the plan a big hike up to 40%.
One example for a single car owner £1800 premium going up to £2322.
We all know it goes on but I guess the next tactic is to split the insurance accross companies.
If you want to listen to the item
www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/youandyours/
tab through to about 40 from the start.
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NU may have been buying business, but in specific areas. They (through confused.com) quoted my 18 y/o daughter >£1k for her first renewal - she's paying £450.
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Insurance companies can and do increase their own costs through instransigence.
I had a 2 week old car and the car was hit from behind at red traffic lights. Both the chap behind and the woman who caused the accident were both insured by the same company. Simple you might think.
The chap behind me through a broker and the woman behind them directly with the Ins Co as it was a Company car.
The broker Ins Policy through a Glasgow Claims Office would not pay out as they said it was the Company car part (Leeds Office) of their company that should pay - same company - different budgets.
3 months goes by - time to get a lawyer involved................they went to 16 hours before the court case and settled out of court.
MY lawyers bill was £700+ VAT..........the car repair cost was £650+VAT. So they effectively doubled their payout and taken up considerable man hours @ the Ins Co and their lawyers in Glasgow - which was probably £700 if we assume they spent the same time arguing over not a lot.
The well known Ins Co then took 2 months to write a cheque - 102 weeks in total from accident to settlement (and I got my NCB back.)
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Guess it will result in more toe rags driving round without insurance.
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spot on turbo 11 !
In the course of my work I meet people of all walks and some are indeed kids without insurance.
Their reasoning? If (big if!) they get stopped and fined for no insurance as a first offence the fine is less than the insurance!
It's the ones who do it repeatedly (and the system knows who they are!) that end up causing the headlines of course but as is often the case the base cause is buried a lot further out of sight.
Until the fine is worse than the insurance or the insurance is lower (unlikely) it will never stop!
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A BBC report I listened to said that its young male drivers who could see the greatest increases. As if the safer ones like myself aren't penalised enough already. My premium fell again this year to £465, still a ridiculous amount. Turbo11 and yorkiebar have hit the nail on the head!
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I happen to work for a well known insurance company and insurers have no obligation to report uninsured drivers to the police. Plus, the damage caused by uninsured drivers gets paid for by the MIB (motor insurance bureau). Which is funded by the government. Which is funded by us, the taxpayer.
What sucks is that I'm a young driver myself. I'm only 20 and it sucks that the assumption is made that we're all going to drive like pink fluffy dice!
I bought a lovely Honda Prelude with my savings but i've had to take it off the road until i'm 21 because I can't afford the insurance. I'm trundling round in an old Ibiza diesel for the time being.
Anyway, back to the topic...
Premiums are only ever going to rise, but I've found www.ecarinsurance.co.uk provide good premiums, at least for young drivers.
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The MIB is paid for by a levy on all insurance companies (and hence policyholders), not the Government (taxpayer).
Chris M
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'Plus, the damage caused by uninsured drivers gets paid for by the MIB '
That statement is simply untrue. The MIB is insurance of the last resort. If you are insured fully comp you HAVE to claim on your own insurance, MIB will not get involved.
From their website:
'The Motor Insurers' Bureau is a fund of last resort and as such will consider claims for property damage and injury where compensation cannot be claimed from another source.'
My car was hit while parked by some scallies in a cloned car. They drove the car off, dumped it, ran and were never caught. As I had fully comp cover I had to claim on my insurance.
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MIB is really there to cover serious personal injuries when the other motorist is uninsured.
I know of a family who have benefitted from the MIB but I can assure you it's an incredibly long drawn out and complex process.
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I just couldn't get my head around this guys argument.
He stated that premiums would go up by 40% because of insurance companies losing money due to internet competition. Err... run that by me again...
Surely the internet is just another way of getting a quote. Confused.com for example doing the work that used to be 20 phone calls. Even so that is no reason for an insurance company to write a policy that loses them money.
What he seemed to be saying (my interpretation) is that improved search methods have reduced his ability to rip customers off through inertia marketing.
Slightly off topic but using Confused I recently reduced my house cover from £600 to £150 for the same level of cover.
Also, as the lawman says insurance companies are paying a fortune to lawyers because they have chosen to operate in a certain way. Virtually all insurance claims now seem to be automatically rejected in the hope you just go away. In an increasingly litigious society we don't, we don't even try again we just get lawyered up. If they started playing fair perhaps their legal costs would go down.
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i've just renewed @ £325 f/c on my terracan 20k pa inc biz use - saved 50% on last year!
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Drive Your Way - If anything can, TerraCan
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