On the thread drift point of pet insurance, some years ago I had insurance for a cat, but I decided that it was too expensive and so I cancelled it and stopped the direct debit. Inevitably, a week or so later we had an unexpected large vet bill.
Then a couple of months later Tesco (as it was them) told me that my direct debit wasn’t working, I owed them two months‘ premium and if I didn’t pay up they would cancel the policy. So I said that I had already told them to cancel. They said they had no record of that and the policy was still in force. So of course I paid the two months’ premium, made my substantial claim and then cancelled the policy. They were quite happy with that.
I do find the start at 00:00 and expire at 23:59 inexplicable and creating an uninsured minute with the potential for you to be caught out if an accident or other claimable event occurs in that minute - and knowing what some insurance is like there would seem to be an opportunity for an insurer to exploit.
Is there any genuine technical reason why the end cannot also be at 24:00 midnight? If there is, why not 23:59:59? (Or even 23:59:59.9)
I strongly suspect that missing minute is actually covered, or at least that in the event of a disputed claim the ombudsman would back the insured person, but when so many other things with insurance policies are explicitly detailed this seems odd without a clarifying explanatory note.
I believe it is meant to avoid ambiguity. Stating 24.00 or 0.00 would be unclear (to a lay person) whether it refers to the start or end of the day in question. 23.59 is clearly the end of the day. It includes the seconds, so there is no risk of a gap in cover.
Having had Mrs AC’s renewal quote through a fortnight ago I was a little surprised it had only gone up <10% given a claim for unwitnessed damage (presumed vandalism) to the bonnet in late 2021 which we advised but took some time to sort out as we had difficulty finding an approved repairer locally.
Mine arrived today and I was surprised the premium had gone up by around 40% as I have not had any recent claims myself. I find this odd unless it’s because she’s a named driver on my policy (or me on hers?).
She rarely drives the vehicle and in the past it’s been cheaper to leave her on the policy than to have me alone insured which is also odd to me.
Thought I’d have the thread re-opened rather than starting another, but looks as though there’ll be a bit of a faff looking at alternatives early next week.
I think I’d have renewed both if the rise was <10%, simply as the current insurer has always been good handling past claims.
My policy even has the multicar discount but it might be worth looking at some other companies who specialise in multi-vehicle policies. I also wonder if the multicar option could be doing something to my quote as we’re ‘linked’.
What are others finding with car insurance as the press was certainly hinting at significant rises for most people given costlier repairs/reduced parts availability in the last couple of years?
I seem to have been having a good few conversations about premiums increasing substantially this year. The thing is, I don’t think insurers are profiting.
My wife twirled the wheel the wrong way a few weeks back, reversing past my car, broke her mirror housing, bent mine back and put a shallow dent in my door. All this at under 5mph. Looking at it I’d have thought worst case £1,500 damage in total across both cars. It’s come out at nearly £5,000. While I was grumping about that a friend sent me pictures of his car after a cow leaped in front of him - £57,000 damage on an annual premium of £1,200.
It used to be the case that it was always cheaper to have a woman insured to drive a car that is being insured by a man, because (I was told) statistically men in a relationship with a woman have a better claims record that men not in such a relationship.
But our BMW insurance which covers my car with my wife as an additional driver and my wife’s car with me as an additional driver, on separate policies, notes in both cases that the risk is calculated on only the higher risk driver, which is said to be me in both cases.
As my wife and I are the same age and both have no relevant claims or traffic offences, it has to just be that men are regarded as a higher risk than women, all other things being equal.
It’s still odd though because both premiums have been fairly similar though hers always cheaper for years (both named on the other’s policy as additional drivers).
Looking at both renewal quotes it’s odd as she has the presumably vandalised bonnet in 2021 listed as ‘accident’ under previous claims whereas on mine her claim is listed as vandalism/malicious damage. (I don’t think it was targeted damage just probably some idiot in high spirits thinking it’d be a lark to jump onto the car).
As I reported and dealt with her claim I wonder if that’s loading against me somehow.
Yes, bonnet replaced and dents knocked out of the roof. I’m wondering if she is seen as a risk due to ‘malicious damage’ - it happened after a Bank Holiday and the car wasn’t driven until a few days later when she noticed the bonnet had a large dent near the passenger washer jet. I’m assuming some lout decided it would be fun to jump on a random car bonnet and ‘palmed off’ the roof.
Took it to many garages, but most wouldn’t consider a repair assuming they were interested in the first place! A very honest repairer said it needed bonnet replacement as the ‘subframe’ or something was buckled and they’d never be able to mend it properly, this meant the washer jet was firing lower than normal though it did pass an MOT despite that. As it was a contract hire vehicle the terms stipulated an authorised repairer and most of the ones I’d have assumed would have been didn’t want the job.
I was trying to ascertain the cost of the claim and guessed panel damage must have been extensive to make the claim worthwhile.
Excess + 5 years of ramped up payments can soon exceed the claim.
My missus got hit by a stolen car and the police advised her to claim as the owner was insured but there was no insurance because the twoccer had then keys - owner was defrosting it. She had 5 years of expensive insurance.
I never claimed for my bike even though it was a total loss . It was worth less than 2k so just wasn’t worth claiming. I still had to declare it as an ‘incident’ though but the premium only went up a few quid for one year.
I think the damage was £1500+ - a new bonnet, removing roof panel internal ‘furniture’, knocking those out and matching respray of new bare bonnet and apparently (scepticism from me) ‘matching spraywork to adjacent panels to make it blend in plus sorting out any electronic systems which needed recalibrating after all of this. The new resprayed bonnet is the one subtly affected by bird poop and I’ve been wondering whether or not to query this with the garage as birds have pooped on the car for almost 5 years and only now am I seeing the loss of shine in certain areas. Hard to prove anything one way or the other I suspect.
The weird thing though is why my premium has shot up not hers?
Yes, this is the correct way to do the job otherwise the bonnet would have looked different. They fade it in so there are no ‘hard’ lines.
Bird poop issue is new paint (not fully hardened) and a lack of protective wax polish. As soon as you see bird crap on new paint wash it it off. It can’t be fixed once the paint has been etched and would need to be re-lacquered at a minimum.
Only the underwriters know why your risk has increased. You could’ve jokingly mentioned you kerbed a wheel once and this would be an undeclared incident. This happened to a mate of a mate - his insurance went up immediately.
Technically you should advise your insurance of the damage even if you pay for the repairs yourself!
I had no choice to declare an ‘incident’ with my bike as the police had closed the road and I went to hospital in a helicopter.
. It was worth less than 2k so just wasn’t worth claiming. I still had to declare it as an ‘incident’ though but the premium only went up a few quid for one year.
