amnesia

[QUOTE=amnesia;3854084]I've worked in the general insurance industry for around 20 years... there is no one reason why insurers decide to increase prices - every company has their own pricing strategy and is free to price risk how they deem fit, within the regulations outlined by the FCA etc.

Gone are the days where insurers simply rate the risk... that's way too simplistic and there is MASSES of data available that can be used to rate on.

HOWEVER... there are a few things that you should know when 'shopping around' at renewal time.


[LIST][*]A lot of insurers have complex algorithms to detect things like quote manipulation - if you constantly 'play around' selecting and deselecting options on a quote you may find that eventually your quotes slowly increase and you can't get back to your original quote as you're deemed to be 'gaming' (even if you have a genuine reason to swap options etc).[*]Most insurers now perform credit-scoring and person verification... if you don't use your correct details (eg name / DOB / postcode etc) then you could be given a 'poor' credit score for that quote, which may be preserved across multiple quotes even if you do use your correct details on a subsequent quote.[*]Most insurers share data with other companies about claims, convictions, incidents, NCD etc. If you 'accidentally' omit a conviction on a quote the insurer may deem you a bad risk as they know about the conviction you 'forgot' to tell them. This will increase your premium. It it almost impossible to reverse this 'bad view' once you've created it, so DON'T DO IT ![*]There are numerous sources of useful data that can be used to influence a premium. I've seen companies use mobile phone location data to generate a 'driving' score and determine annual mileage, which is then compared with the declared mileage on the quote and used to 'validate' the honesty of a customer.[*]Some insurers will return your renewal price if you go online and do a new quote even if your 'new business' quote would have been cheaper as a totally new customer with identical risk. You can't get around this. This feels unethical to me, but it is happening now.[/LIST]


The most important thing is to BE HONEST, give FULL disclosure of ALL incidents / claims / convictions / endorsements etc because if you get found out as non-disclosing by an insurer it will invalidate your policy and is also likely to be shared with other companies making it very difficult to get a sensible quote even if you tell the truth in the future.

Oh, one last thing... renewal retention is massively important to insurers, so if you're not happy with your renewal quote the first thing to do is to call them (if they have that option - some don't) and try and negotiate

I will probably write a book or something on how this all works one day, but I would need to leave the industry first :unconscious:

Daniel.[/QUOTE]