Cheaper premium?

Like most people my attention has been drawn to the rising motor insurance costs. Our premium has already gone up about £150 last time round because we had a couple of claims, none of which was my fault. One of the claims was paid by the third party, the other was not, as someone ran into our car in a car park then scarpered. So the next price increase will be a double whammy.

I've considered changing from the corolla to a yaris. The yaris is group 14 where the corolla is 21. That said, I've read that the yaris is still expensive to insure. Can someone advise me on this, I have max no claims discount and never been involved in an accident that was caused by my driving.

In my experience, having claims doesn't affect the quote anywhere near as much as you'd think - I had 2 crashes one year and my renewal went up by maybe £50 the next year. The year before, I'd not had any accidents and my renewal went up by about £70 as I recall - More than the year I had the accidents!

My renewal last year went up by over £300 over the previous, despite having no claims or accidents or anything for many years prior. I didn't renew with them.

Managed to get it down to at least the same ballpark as the previous after a lot of searching and waiting and retrying - All you can really do is hit the comparison websites and brokers like Adrian Flux and see what they come back with.

Try at intervals - a month before you're due, then at the 'sweet spot' - Money Supermarket has some really good tips.

Something I do is to add my and my friend's mum to my insurance even tho' they never drive my cars - For some reason mums with clean licences and no claims tend to lower premiums; It was saving me over £100 at its peak   Unfortunately my mum's a bit too old now and older drivers seem to get unfairly penalized by some insurers, so it's not as effective as before.

mine went up £100, but still by far the  cheapest at the time ( June ),no wonder you hear of so many uninsured drivers youngsters have pay thousands to insure old bangers.

My insurance was up by 47% this year and that without a clame.

Yes I did shop around and reduced it slightly.

Ask your current insurer, if you were to get a Yaris how much it cost. Also go on comparison sites and do a quote. 

Mine cost £220 more this year due to a change from a 7 year old MK3 to a new MK4 Yaris. Shopped around as my old insurer - Adrian Flux were £380 more than current policy, £600 jump from MK3 had I stay with them! 😳

Hi David,

After much searching on comparison sites I managed to get insurance at about the same price as last year. Tried Adrian Flux and they quoted £100 more then my quote. I was told that they are more of a specialist insurance broker.

It takes a lot of time and effort to get a reasonable quote and it is alarming at the price rises they are asking for. EV repairs and parts cost increases are said to be one of the main reason for the hike in prices.

Maybe next year it will be the price of oranges to blame.

One thing with Adrian Flux is they're a broker - The best quote they gave me initially was insane, like £900, but I checked back some time later and they had gotten more quotes back, with the lowest being just under £600, which was a lot better.

You do have to deal with them over the phone for practically everything, which is a real hassle when you're working all over the place all day, but it is worth checking with the agent after some days to see if they've had better quotes.

I'm always envious of a friend in Quebec who gets state insurance for some ridiculously cheap amount 

With 50 insurance groups in the Group Rating System, changing from a group 21 to a group 14 may not make too much difference in cost. Also some insurers use their own groupings rather than the Group Rating System, so it may not be straightforward.

Best thing to do may be to contact your insurer and pose the question as to whether the Yaris will be cheaper to insure than the Corolla, and go from there ......

Hi,

Thanks for your replies, it's appreciated. Based on what Cyker was saying that the premiums doesn’t go up so much got me thinking, could the big jump in our case be due to the current price increases and the fact we claimed was just a coincidence? When did the increases in premiums begin? We renewed in 23/06/23 

18 hours ago, FROSTYBALLS said:

With 50 insurance groups in the Group Rating System, changing from a group 21 to a group 14 may not make too much difference in cost. Also some insurers use their own groupings rather than the Group Rating System, so it may not be straightforward.

Best thing to do may be to contact your insurer and pose the question as to whether the Yaris will be cheaper to insure than the Corolla, and go from there ......

I seem to remember LV telling me this, that is, they have their own grading system. As you and others have suggested I need to give them a ring.

Another thing to be aware of which I only recently found out - say a car is in group 14 for instance and your old car is group 21 - you'd expect like for like that the insurance would either reduce or at least stay the same...not always so - they work on the theory that a car in a group 14 may be more like a car that a first time driver would be in or an older person so risk is increased and therefore that type of car is more likely to be involved in a prang.  Bonkers and just a convenient excuse to extract every possibly penny from a motorist!

The single biggest reason car insurance shot up over the past year (or two? I forget when they changed the rule) is the FCA

They ruled that insurers HAD to offer renewal quotes the same as they would for new customers and that discriminating between old and new customer was not allowed.

What this meant is that insurers were effectively NOT allowed to offer discounts to new customers, which gave insurers all the excuse they needed to gleefully hike up their prices by double or even triple across the board.

It's like when the FCA banned discrimination based on gender, but instead of men's car insurance going down, they of course instead jacked up women's car insurance, which was traditionally a lot lower, up to the same rip-off level as men's.

Thanks a lot FCA.

The FCA is still trumpetting proudly how they're eliminating discrimination and have helped make everything fairer for everyone. I fear if they help us any more we'll all be out on the street penniless!  

On 11/2/2023 at 10:18 PM, Mojo1010 said:

Ask your current insurer, if you were to get a Yaris how much it cost. Also go on comparison sites and do a quote. 

Mine cost £220 more this year due to a change from a 7 year old MK3 to a new MK4 Yaris. Shopped around as my old insurer - Adrian Flux were £380 more than current policy, £600 jump from MK3 had I stay with them! 😳

Hi.

I'm sorry we were unable to offer you a competitive insurance quotation.

Regards,

Dan.

Have just checked “compare the market” for renewal of my car insurance.  Lowest quote was £2,281.75 !!!

I have had one fault claim in 70 years - that was in 2011, when my caravan clipped another caravan on a ridiculously crowded motorway services, where everyone seemed to be vying for a parking spot.

The stupid thing is, around a month ago when we were considering a motorcaravan, Saga quoted me a figure of £1,579 per year, locked for 3 years.  The value of the 2020 motorcaravan was £54,000.   In April I paid £28,000 for my 2021 C-HR, so about half the value of the motorcaravan, but Saga’s quote for my C-HR is £3,231.84

So, I am 88 years of age, but doesn’t my driving record count for anything?   I have been with Tesco Bank for the last 2 years, and the premium for my previous 2017 VW Caravelle (7-seater) has been around £800 - when I transferred this to my C-HR I was given a refund of about £100.

I only checked compare the market because I got an email reminder due to historical enquiries.  Go Compare were similarly absurd.  I did go direct to Tesco Bank, so I am hoping that their premium stays reasonable.

Prior to Tesco, I was with Admiral for two years and then, without any change of circumstances, they suddenly upped my premium by something like £400. 

Similar topics merged.

Albert, many previous members on this forum have complained about the cost of renewal on their motor polices, it seems unless you spend considerable time and effort trailing various comparison sites and specialist brokers it is difficult to find renewal quotes within a few pounds of what you had originally paid and in many cases it isn't possible.

It's been well documented that insurance costs have rocketed over the last few years and it seems for many an almost impossible task to actually afford these renewal prices.

It isn't fair that despite you having an almost faultless driving record, you should be penalised with such inflated costs. However, no doubt the insurance market see the value of the vehicle's you own and base the prices on the cost of renewal or repair through accident or other incidents.

It is concerning how this will play out in a few years time if the costs keep rising every year.

For many it maybe the end of car ownership.

Unfortunately, it's the whole insurance market covering motor and domestic insurance that have seen these substantial rises.

Loyalty seems confined to history for many.

I just had to renew our 107s insurance and with my Mum in her 80s still on it, you mention 'compare the market' and for us last few years the quotes from them been most expensive, MoneySupermarket were a bit more realistic, but we stayed with the AA as to be fair their renewal was pretty good and when I rung up I even got bit more discount, which didn't happen last year. Yes our premium went up, which I was expecting but it could been a lot worse. As I've said before the irony is many years ago I gave up ringing the AA for quotes cos they were always the most expensive, but always do the yearly merry go round cos you never know what's going to happen. Many years ago we were with LV for good few years, but been off their radar for few years now. 

Know what you mean about motorcaravan insurance, not got one now, but had a quite a few over the years and as you say the insurance cost was always surprisingly low compared to value of the van, when comparing it to our main cars. Yes, they assume you will do less miles in your camper/motorcaravan, but for quite a few years we did more miles in our van than one of our cars. 

6 hours ago, Haliotis said:

So, I am 88 years of age, but doesn’t my driving record count for anything?

The sad truth is that in the insurance algorithms, your spotless record is completely outweighed by your age. Once you pass retirement age (i.e. mid-60's) premiums start to climb.

As far as I'm aware, there is no test you can do either, to prove your physical and mental fitness to insurance companies.

So I wonder when the insurance criteria changed on over 60s and why it was felt to hike premiums. What happened to the older driver being more cautious and responsible in their driving and the lower premiums that afforded this position?

An unblemished driving record should be rewarded and in doing so it encourages others to do the same. Many drivers can go decades without accident or claim so they are being penalised for market conditions.

Why hasn't any of these companies decided to switch to low premium age related schemes? A major market is out there with the increasing ageing population.

Of course accidents or incidents will happen but would income not outway the payout as the majority are less likely to claim based on their driving record?

Maybe the older drivers are considered a greater risk due to deteriorating eyesight, hearing etc with ageing, and reactions slowing down.

Well that's the theory put forward by by a younger relative who was driving me to pick up a new bike in 2004, just prior to him pulling into the car park at the bank on the way.

Well he was looking in one direction, while moving in another,of course another car was reversing out of a space without looking just at the same time, I could see what was going to happen, and even warned him.

The inevitable bang and arm waving, and not accepting any responsibility ensued.

Oh well I thought, I'd best be careful riding home on my new bike, what with being old and slow.

Hi Paul.   Your post reminds me of when, quite a number of years ago now, we had an apprentice working with us who “knew all there was to know about driving”, and was always banging on that older drivers got in the way and should be taken off the roads.

One day he arrived in work with his leg in plaster - yep, he had argued with a Land Rover and came off worst.  Not his fault, of course - the other driver should not have been on the road (😃), ha-ha!

Obviously, we taunted him about his accident, and never missed the opportunity to rib him about it.

We now have several grandchildren, and nearly all of them have managed to get involved in a scrape.  I have ridden with them - they are not careless drivers, but they still need to learn the art of trying to second guess what slip-ups other drivers are likely to make.  It’s the little nuances that indicate a driver is about to do something out of the ordinary that might involve oneself, and it takes time and alertness to develop these skills.

Oh

1 hour ago, Haliotis said:

It’s the little nuances that indicate a driver is about to do something out of the ordinary that might involve oneself, and it takes time and alertness to develop these skills.

Oh so true Albert.

I don't do the daily cut and thrust of commuting anymore, thank goodness.

So maybe I have lost some of the skills of motorway and longer distance driving.

But I do still notice even in town driving at lower speeds those tell tale signs that another driver is going to do something stupid, and dangerous.

Tailgating, number 1 hate of just about every driver, I would imagine.

Edging forward at traffic lights and junctions, you just know they are going to pull out in front of you.

Dithering, and lane swapping,if they don't know where they are going,no one else does.

( Exceptions for out of town drivers, easy to see the difference)

Looking in your rear view mirror when stood in traffic, you see someone titivating their hair,or touching up their lipstick,the ladies are nearly as bad at this, they are going to roll into the back of your car.

All one can do is drive defensively, and keep as big a " bubble" around your car or bike as possible.

7 hours ago, Haliotis said:

We now have several grandchildren, and nearly all of them have managed to get involved in a scrape.  I have ridden with them - they are not careless drivers, but they still need to learn the art of trying to second guess what slip-ups other drivers are likely to make.  It’s the little nuances that indicate a driver is about to do something out of the ordinary that might involve oneself, and it takes time and alertness to develop these skills.

Ahh the training of the psychic powers! A difficult path indeed - Just make them drive around London a few days; They'll either develop psychic powers or be so traumatised they won't want to drive any more  

But more seriously, the advice I give people when they passed is always leave a bit more space than you think you'll need, and assume everyone else is a deaf blind idiot - That is a good place to start  

I passed my test in 1953 - first time after 9 hours tuition.  I learned with a motor school, and was fortunate enough to have a strict tutor - he was firm but fair, although the dressing down you got if you did something daft ensured you didn’t do it again.

After I passed, he told me that I had the rest of my life to continually improve - I’ve never forgot that.  My test was basic compared to today’s standards, and I did expect to find younger drivers to put me to shame.  But instead I daily see many of them driving badly.  I think their main problems are aggressive driving and impatience.  These two factors alone are a positive step towards trouble.  And why, if they do encounter a problem, is their first action to use the horn?  As far as I am aware, this instrument has never got a vehicle out of a fix.  I use the horn so little I occasionally have to give it a toot, just to check it is still working.

Paul, your comment about keeping as big a bubble as possible around the car is definitely a good approach - this in turn ensures that you have room to manoeuvre out of trouble when another driver commits an error.

1 hour ago, Haliotis said:

I think their main problems are aggressive driving and impatience.  These two factors alone are a positive step towards trouble.

This is so true. Many people seem to be in such a hurry nowadays, and seem to think they are the only car on the road. Common courtesy seems to have disappeared.