Insurance *%@+*

[RonYarisX]

So many variables when it comes to insurance that there are no hard and fast rules - you just have to shop until you drop for cheaper car insuance.

Recent increases can easily be explained by the increased cost in material, labour rates etc - someone has to pay for it.

I've also read many on this thread implying that because the cars have so many safety systems, insurance should be cheaper? Hmmm.  Do these safety systems work tho? Does lane keep assist etc really prevent accidents? Our cars are full of touch screen tech which obviously means taking our eyes off the road more often. Fatality rates may have been reduced due to safety tech but I'm not sure accident rates have. I've already mentioned in another thread how disappointed I am with the visibility out of the YC windscreen - the rear view mirror causes a massive blind spot. That's not good new for preventing accidents.

So when I see that our cars have all these systems what that tells me is when you have a slight bump on the corner of your bumper, when it used to be filler or new bumper, respray and perhaps a new light lens, now you have the additional work of replacing or at least resetting those sensors, re-alligning radar systems etc. And we no longer replace a £50 cracked indicator lens, we have to replace the whole LED headunit which costs a £1000.

Apart from the cost of actual insurance increasing, some savvy shoppers may have noticed that many insurers have withdrawn from the cashback websites too. Cashback used to be a great way to effectively cut the premium, but in the past year, nearly all car insurers have withdrawn from sites like TopCashBack and Quidco.

result of these increases? You can bet your last dollar there will be more and more uninsured drivers on the road + fronting and other insurance frauds will be on the increase.      

[Big_D]

18 hours ago, RonYarisX said:

You can bet your last dollar there will be more and more uninsured drivers on the road + fronting and other insurance frauds will be on the increase.      

And of course this means ... Higher insurance premiums again

[Peterd23]

On 8/9/2023 at 10:15 PM, Lawnmowerman said:

Toyota was £1204 🤣

That would have been a bonus for me - Toyota declined and wouldn't quote !. Similar situation to you, full no claims, no points on licence, but reach 70 next year.

[Sooty]

I have just renewed my insurance.

Best quote is with Toyota Insurance. It went up from £700 to £915 with 10 years no claims and no changes in circumstances.

I saved about £150 by paying the full lot in one go.

I'm not too sure whether the increase is affected by the change from Lloyd Latchford to Nissay Dowa or not.

[FROSTYBALLS]

48 minutes ago, Sooty said:

I'm not too sure whether the increase is affected by the change from Lloyd Latchford to Nissay Dowa or not.

Nissay Dowa are the underwriters for Toyota Insurance, and have been for a number of years. Lloyds Latchford are brokers.

[YarisHybrid2016]

Our insurance DOUBLED this year at a minimum! My car was horrendous! My old Yaris was £350-ish.

My new Yaris? * Lots of expletives! * £1200! 😳

WHY??!!!??!!!

[MikeSh]

7 hours ago, YarisHybrid2016 said:

WHY??!!!??!!!

Insurance has gone up in general - a lot.

You've gone from a 7yo to brand new car (AFAICS).

Your new car has Sport in the name, which probably gives underwriters the hebejebees.

[Big_D]

And don't forget the shortage of any (more expensive) parts which may be required in the event of an accident.

[Moleman]

3 minutes ago, MikeSh said:

Insurance has gone up in general - a lot.

You've gone from a 7yo to brand new car (AFAICS).

Your new car has Sport in the name, which probably gives underwriters the hebejebees.

You also probably want to use the car on the road and drive it!!!

Underwriters now in total panic. 

[MikeSh]

1 hour ago, Big_D said:

And don't forget the shortage of any (more expensive) parts

There's another gotcha in there too. It means cars are off the road for longer causing bigger loan/hire car costs.

[Big_D]

True

[Cyker]

16 hours ago, YarisHybrid2016 said:

Our insurance DOUBLED this year at a minimum! My car was horrendous! My old Yaris was £350-ish.

My new Yaris? * Lots of expletives! * £1200! 😳

WHY??!!!??!!!

Welcome to the club! Thanks to inflation, supply chain issues, the war, the car being new and especially the FCA banning new-customer offers for insurance, we have a perfect storm of price hiking!

Only option is to double-down on price hunting now, as the major price comparison sites have not really been as helpful.

I will say, Adrian Flux was one of the only insurers to get me a sane price (The other was MoreThan, who then refused to insure me when I told them I had 15" steel rims on instead of 17" alloys, and also have now left the car insurance market, so I dodged a bullet there!!)

 

[Max_Headroom]

42 minutes ago, Cyker said:

Only option is to double-down on price hunting now, as the major price comparison sites have not really been as helpful.

I managed to half the £200 my insurance tried to raise it this year by getting the best quote from the comparison sites  taking a note of the details so when asked  I could prove they were cheaper, it worked for me give it a try.

[DAN@ADRIAN FLUX]

23 hours ago, Cyker said:

Welcome to the club! Thanks to inflation, supply chain issues, the war, the car being new and especially the FCA banning new-customer offers for insurance, we have a perfect storm of price hiking!

Only option is to double-down on price hunting now, as the major price comparison sites have not really been as helpful.

I will say, Adrian Flux was one of the only insurers to get me a sane price (The other was MoreThan, who then refused to insure me when I told them I had 15" steel rims on instead of 17" alloys, and also have now left the car insurance market, so I dodged a bullet there!!)

 

Hi.

Glad we could offer you a competitive insurance quotation.

Regards,

Dan,

[YarisHybrid2016]

On 9/15/2023 at 11:06 AM, Moleman said:

You also probably want to use the car on the road and drive it!!!

Wait...you mean I'm not supposed to drive it through fields?

[YarisHybrid2016]

On 9/15/2023 at 11:01 AM, MikeSh said:

Your new car has Sport in the name, which probably gives underwriters the hebejebees.

That thought did cross my mind! It's hardly any different from any other Yaris where it matters! 

[MikeSh]

8 hours ago, YarisHybrid2016 said:

That thought did cross my mind! It's hardly any different from any other Yaris where it matters! 

You clearly haven't yet understood the insurance mindset. It's not only what the car can do, it's what it suggests about the owner.

Eg. @Cyker putting different wheels on suggests someone trying to 'improve' the car - which is someone more enthusiastic about driving than average.

Insurers, for a few reasons, do not like 'special' anything.

[Cyker]

It does depend on the insurer - Adrian Flux are generally known to be one of the few insurers who don't penalize you for changing rims, vs. e.g. insurers trying to charge me £70+ for changing the badly corroded 14" alloys on my Mk1 Yaris to identically sized but non-OE 14" alloys.

The steel rims on my current one have been a bit mixed - Except for MoreThan, all the insurers I've used so far have just noted it down but not charged me any extra (Or given a discount alas!), as their terms were "Modifications that increase the value or performance of the car", and steel rims do neither of those things   Plus their systems had no entry for reduced size rims or steel rims, only bigger rims and alloys! 

Adrian Flux were a bit weird as they have classified them as third-party Alloy Wheels, despite them being steel, but the agent was insistent this was the correct procedure for them and it didn't raise the premium so meh?? I'm a little worried about that if it becomes an issue, since it is clearly inaccurate, but that's on them and they can pull the recording if it comes to that.

 

[dannyboy413]

1 hour ago, Cyker said:

and they can pull the recording if it comes to that.

 

I often wonder just how many calls are actually recorded, (how would they store them all?). We, the customer, are usually told that calls "may be recorded for training and quality purposes". I was once having a conversation about a complaint with a company 'advisor' and I asked if the call was being recorded. I got a very evasive answer so I told the 'advisor' that if they could not confirm that the call was being recorded, they would be losing a customer - the 'advisor' then told me that the call would be recorded. 

[Cyker]

I'm under the impression third-party companies handle that for them so it's probably all in "The Cloud" somewhere...

[RonYarisX]

2 hours ago, Cyker said:

Adrian Flux are generally known to be one of the few insurers who don't penalize you for changing rims

Adrian Flux were a bit weird as they have classified them as third-party Alloy Wheels, despite them being steel, but the agent was insistent this was the correct procedure for them and it didn't raise the premium so meh?

I stand to be corrected but Adrian Flux is NOT an insurer rather they are a broker. They sell other peoples insurance policies, they don't write policies themselves.

So when you say they don't penalise you, if the underwriter charges extra for non-std equipment then Adrian Flux is charged too. Of course whats happening in reality, is Adrian Flux charges everyone this fee - it's built in to their premium.

If you look at their adverts, they appear to be aimed at 'high risk' groups:

We have discounted schemes for Young drivers, Mature drivers, Convicted drivers. They have specialised departments for Hot hatches, performance cars, modified cars, grey imports, US cars etc.

Who pays for these discounts?

I'm a low-risk bog stardard boring phart.  🤣   I don't want to subsidise anyone from the above groups. I suspect that's the very reason that Adrian Flux and other similar brokers have never offered me anything like a compeditive quote.  They'll definitely suit some people, just not me.

 

[Cyker]

Yes, that is the case, although from my point of view it doesn't really make any difference.

It turns out quite a few 'insurance' companies are actually brokers, which is quite funny when you use things like confused, the meercats etc., which are effectively self-service brokers, and some of the quotes are from broker companies  

Personally I'm not bothered about that or who they specialize in; At the end of the day, all I want is for the policy to be of a certain spec and the price to be as low as possible - If they can stick their own cut on that and still be cheaper than everyone else, which is what happened in this instance, more power to them.

To be fair, this is the first time I've had a competitive quote from them, so clearly the insanity of other companies jacking up their prices so much has helped them out there! I have to say it wan't the first quote from them - The initial quotes were just as astronomical, but as they are a broker they were waiting on more quotes to return and when I checked back a few days later one had come back with a much better quote.

This is why I get quotes from all companies, even Toyota - Sometimes it literally pays off!

 

[MikeSh]

4 hours ago, Cyker said:

Adrian Flux are generally known to be one of the few insurers who don't penalize you for changing rims

As Ron says, they are brokers specialising in non-standard cars. (I used them myself when I had an American import some years back.) So your non-standard car does fit, however you may view it.

Normal insurance companies don't want the hassle of dealing with weird stuff, so will usually err on the safe side (for them) and charge a hefty bit extra.

[Cyker]

You say that, but the only reason I switched was because AF were the only people to give me a reasonable quote, it had nothing to do with the change of rims; As I said, prior to that, the other insurance companies just noted the change but didn't charge me extra or refuse insurance. That was specific to MoreThan.

The increased quotes I was getting was *not* due to the steel rims, but just because of the general hike.

 

[Lawnmowerman]

My circumstances have changed and my potential annual mileage is set to double to 24K. My policy has just been active for 18 days and it has cost me £282 to change cover to the higher annual mileage.