Car Insurance Shock!

[Christian]

February is my car insurance renewal month and I thought I'd look into it today....shocked by the price increases! I renew every two years (alternating between my wife and I)...a crappy Ford Fiesta, 16 years NCD. My renewal 2022-2023 was £270 with Churchill. This year all the major providers (Churchill, Aviva, Admiral etc)...between £1100 and £1400!

I'm forced to look at the cheaper end of compare the market...providers I haven't heard of (eg 'Yoga Insurance') or branded insurances underwritten by other companies (eg RAC), these are still about £600. Normally I'd avoid these based on the reviews when it comes to making a claim, but with a £600 difference, I'm starting to think about taking the calculated risk of ditching Churchill for RAC.

500% rise in two years beats general inflation, energy price rise etc....whats driving it?

[RLE]

Must admit I’m a little apprehensive about my renewal and will seriously consider selling what is effectively a second “summer” car, if there is a significant increase. Thought about it in the past, but insurance has been so cheap (less than £200) that it’s never been too much of a concern whether I used the car or not given the relative outlay. Doubt I will feel the same if there is a seismic change. Some would argue less than 1000 miles in three years warrants keeping anyway……..

[TaketheCannoli]

Got my renewal quote from the company I’ve been with for a few years and it’s £60 more than last year. I used comparison sites last night and disappointingly couldn’t get it any cheaper. It’s an absolute racket.

[RLE]

Got my renewal quote from the company I’ve been with for a few years and it’s £60 more than last year. I used comparison sites last night and disappointingly couldn’t get it any cheaper. It’s an absolute racket.

Slightly more reassuring. I’ll stop drafting that PistonHeads ad…………

As an aside, for those changing providers, don’t forget to use TopCashback or similar through the comparison sites. Usually circa £45 cash back.

[Suds]

Seems to be a ‘perfect storm’ with all variables costing more - parts, labour, and an increase in EV cars I guess means an ICE car is more likely to be in an accident with an EV or hybrid?

[Tooks]

Seems to be a ‘perfect storm’ with all variables costing more - parts, labour, and an increase in EV cars I guess means an ICE car is more likely to be in an accident with an EV or hybrid?

I almost posted that it’ll all be the fault of EVs… :-D

My 2015 Golf GTE was damaged in a crash back in 2016, other than needing to go to a workshop that had the trained personnel to work on it, it was the same as repairing any other car.

I think it’s just as you say, the mad cost increases in anything and everything to do with cars and services. Ambulance chasing ‘claims management companies’ inserting themselves into the process for even minor traffic shunts must be part of the problem as well.

A friend of mine had a no fault crash a few months ago, her insurer handed her off to a claims handling company who promptly wanted to put her in a £400 a day hire car and were keen to pursue her injury claim, even though she told them many times nobody had been injured.

She went back to her insurer and said she didn’t want a BMW 3 Series courtesy car, just a Corsa or something like the one that was being repaired.

If she hadn’t done that, the hire car bill would have been around £6k, the car repair was around £2.8k…

[jukeboxs]

My monthly renewal premium hasn't changed in over 5 years (One Call, 5-series estate, £30pm). Maybe I'm just lucky.

[Christian]

My monthly renewal premium hasn't changed in over 5 years (One Call, 5-series estate, £30pm). Maybe I'm just lucky.

I guess there are a lot of personal factors in it. I'm in greater London and live amongst the Range Rovers etc that I see almost see weekly posts on local facebook groups about them being stolen from the driveway. Even though comparitively, that makes my car even less desireable to steal than a neigbour's car, I'm probably penalised heavily for living in this area. I suspect vehicle theft increase is probably a big factor in the last couple of years rather than accidents.

[reggie747]

My 2015 Golf GTE was damaged in a crash back in 2016, other than needing to go to a workshop that had the trained personnel to work on it, it was the same as repairing any other car.

How relevant is that from 7 years ago ??

[adrianw]

There are going to be a lot of uninsured cars on fake plates driving around,

[TheTigerUK]

There are going to be a lot of uninsured cars on fake plates driving around,

Or even more on electric scooters :)

[Mj2k]

There are going to be a lot of uninsured cars on fake plates driving around,

Unfortunately this is going to be the new reality & drive premiums higher from uninsured driver costs.

[Tooks]

How relevant is that from 7 years ago ??

It was a Hybrid with a HV system, there were even fewer places that would work on them back then, so I was just saying it shouldn’t be a factor in insurance increases, that’s all.

I was replying to a post suggesting hybrids and EVs being a factor.

[Onelasttime]

It was a Hybrid with a HV system, there were even fewer places that would work on them back then, so I was just saying it shouldn’t be a factor in insurance increases, that’s all.

I was replying to a post suggesting hybrids and EVs being a factor.

I have a vague recollection about a Tesla costing £££££s to repair for relatively minor sill damage due to the extra protection needed for the battery pack, or something?

Also, components still scarce + inflation x lack of workforce = stupid price hikes

[noTAGlove]

https://forum.tz-uk.com/showthread.p...surance!/page2

[bomberman]

Insurance due early Jan (paid 633 in 2023) No claims or changes to cover, renewal is 864 with Aviva!

[awright101]

You must live in a high risk area. I’m looking at a 2020 mini JCW and it was £350 with aviva - £300 excess

[bomberman]

You must live in a high risk area. I’m looking at a 2020 mini JCW and it was £350 with aviva - £300 excess

I’m in Essex and drive a dirty diesel. Value of car approximately 8k according to We Buy Anycar. Parked on drive overnight and car is standard no mods with 9 years NCB.

[Pathtower]

I was reading recently (on Money Saving Expert) that the timing of the quote is key to determining the cost - apparently 21 days before renewal or thereabouts is the sweet spot. Earlier or later than that will deliver higher figures apparently. As I just had my home insurance quote in (33% increase) I tested this and found that I could get near last year’s cost.

[noTAGlove]

My car insurance premium last year on a Volvo V70 was £145.

Even though I have now sold the car, they emailed me with this years premium of £395, or 2.7 times the cost of last year.

This was without shopping around as I don’t own the car anymore.

[bwest76]

Someone mentioned somewhere top cash back,thank you.

I got a better quote even if I dont get the cash back (not sure how it works)

AVIVA was £500 with £250 total excess, legal protection was free the first year ,other stuff like a hire car was included etc.etc.

Its online only, but as no one answers the phone anymore it maybe less stress.

It said cashback was £45,if I get it then I will have paid about £200 less than most quotes.


I also tried the excess ins. thanks for the tip,but it didnt work for me this time.



Clever ploys insurance companys use.

You see a low,low quote but nothing is covered you add the essential bits you need and the low quote is now the highest quote.

[snowman]

Many (not all, I'm sure) EVs do seem to be hellishly expensive to repair.

I remember we were all told that they'd be cheaper, because they had so few moving parts...

It seems, though, we're all paying to make the likes of Elon Musk EVEN richer - How wonderful.

I wouldn't have a Tesla now if someone gave it to me.

M

[bwest76]

Many (not all, I'm sure) EVs do seem to be hellishly expensive to repair.

I remember we were all told that they'd be cheaper, because they had so few moving parts...

It seems, though, we're all paying to make the likes of Elon Musk EVEN richer - How wonderful.

I wouldn't have a Tesla now if someone gave it to me.

M

EV repairs are on the long list of things that have raised prices.

[Tooks]

Many (not all, I'm sure) EVs do seem to be hellishly expensive to repair.

I remember we were all told that they'd be cheaper, because they had so few moving parts...

It seems, though, we're all paying to make the likes of Elon Musk EVEN richer - How wonderful.

I wouldn't have a Tesla now if someone gave it to me.

M

Everything has got more expensive, it’s like the inflation numbers we’ve all been seeing and experiencing the last couple of years haven’t applied to car insurance for some reason?

[snowman]

Everything has got more expensive, it’s like the inflation numbers we’ve all been seeing and experiencing the last couple of years haven’t applied to car insurance for some reason?

If everything had gone up as much as car insurance, you'd be seeing MPs on lamp posts in Parliament Square.

M

[Tooks]

If everything had gone up as much as car insurance, you'd be seeing MPs on lamp posts in Parliament Square.

M

Ha ha! :-D

There’s sometimes a lag with car insurance though, all the inflationary pressure is applied, but it can be up to a year before that reality hits people.

I’m not getting a violin out for insurers here, don’t get me wrong.

I last renewed car insurance in May last year, I shopped around and got similar to what I’d paid the year before, it will be interesting to see what happens this May.

My wife renewed her insurance (yes, we have a weird household where she does stuff for herself) 2 weeks ago, by changing insurer she limited the damage to around +10%.

[Qatar-wol]

Hmm, my MX-5 insurance is due for renewal in May, and I'm not looking forward to that. Last year it was £350-ish, fully comp (2016 2.0 ND1). Any guesses what it'll go up to? Last year my renewal for my other car, a Dacia Jogger, was 40% up on the previous year. Reading this thread, I think I might have gotten away with it a bit...

[Mr Curta]

Just renewed with LV. Two vehicles insured, the 2021 EV went up by 20%, the 2015 diesel Octavia by 47%. Go figure. Combined total just short of a grand now, feels like I got off lightly.

[Onelasttime]

Just renewed with LV. Two vehicles insured, the 2021 EV went up by 20%, the 2015 diesel Octavia by 47%. Go figure. Combined total just short of a grand now, feels like I got off lightly.

A mate got lightly bumped in the rear (oooh, Matron!) of his 2015 Octavia a few days ago. The 3rd party offered to pay cash instead of insurance, so mate got a quote to fix the dented bumper. Bearing in mind the boot still closes and locks, and the bump was at about 10mph, leaving a bit of a dent and scrape on top of the bumper.

The quote was £1,000+ for a new bumper. Can it be repaired? Nope, needs a new bumper. He's now gone through his insurance and if it's anything like my experience, he'll be waiting a long time to get it fixed, assuming Skoda can even get a new bumper.

The whole insurance/repair/car hire business is a huge legal scam. No wonder there are so many uninsured drivers.

I'm dreading the renewal in June.

[bwest76]

The Mini Metro was the most stolen car so insurance was high for it back in the day.

Even if it was not desirable.

[JonRA]

Seven cars were stolen off driveways overnight in Hertfordshire ( https://www.hertsad.co.uk/news/24117...-spate-thefts/ )

1 Land Rover
1 Range Rover
1 Volvo XC90
2 Jags
1 BMW X5
and.... a Ford Focus (maybe a tasty one?)

Most/all were keyless entry and police are encouraging the use of Faraday pouches

My cars isn't especially desirable but I'm not looking forward to insurance renewal time in a month or so

[M1011]

Seems entirely stupid that the manufacturers don’t account for this type of theft. They can have keys deactivate based on being stationary etc, but instead we’re left exposed or having to faff about with pouches for a supposed ‘convenience’ feature.

[funkstar]

Seven cars were stolen off driveways overnight in Hertfordshire ( https://www.hertsad.co.uk/news/24117...-spate-thefts/ )

1 Land Rover
1 Range Rover
1 Volvo XC90
2 Jags
1 BMW X5
and.... a Ford Focus (maybe a tasty one?)

Most/all were keyless entry and police are encouraging the use of Faraday pouches

My cars isn't especially desirable but I'm not looking forward to insurance renewal time in a month or so

Same in our part of Essex. Neighbours Discovery was stolen and police refused to turn up.

[Mr Curta]

I'd take the dosh and buy one from an online breaker

[Onelasttime]

I'd take the dosh and buy one from an online breaker

I did mention this to him but it's a hassle he doesn't need.

It's this kind of thing that makes a mockery of the premiums we're all forced to pay. If I pay a company £500 a year for a service I'll probably only use once every 10 years, I want that service to do what it says on the expensive tin.

[paw3001]

Below is what is written about being offered a speed awareness course from Uswitch. https://www.uswitch.com/car-insuranc...reness-course/

“To be offered the option of going on a speed awareness course rather than paying a fine and getting points on your licence, you must fit the following criteria:

1) It must be your first offence in the last three years

2) You've been caught driving over 10% plus 2mph of the limit, but below 10% plus 9mph. In other words, if you were in a 30mph zone, this means anything between 35mph and 42mph, while for those driving in a 70mph zone, it means anything between 79mph and 86mph.

Otherwise, you’ll have no choice but to receive a fixed penalty notice and a minimum of three points on your licence.”

[Omegamanic]

Following a young friend trying to get insurance on a Supercar, I thought I’d check how much my 50+ self could insure something similar for, and was quite surprised!

Mclaren 570s, now over £2000, when I had quotes a couple of years ago for around £600:

however a Ferrari California, or a 911 GTS were both only around £400!

[awright101]

I’ve had a quote for an Alfa Stelvio quadrofolio of £450. Very surprised as I’d heard they were easy to steal

[snowman]

Following a young friend trying to get insurance on a Supercar, I thought I’d check how much my 50+ self could insure something similar for, and was quite surprised!

Mclaren 570s, now over £2000, when I had quotes a couple of years ago for around £600:

however a Ferrari California, or a 911 GTS were both only around £400!

I wonder if the carbon tub makes the McLaren more expensive to repair?

M

[Omegamanic]

I wonder if the carbon tub makes the McLaren more expensive to repair?

M

Possibly. When I was getting quotes of around £550-£600 for a McLaren, the BMW i8 was coming in at £800+

I’m just a little surprised that the McLaren is coming in at almost 4 times the price of quotes from only 2-3 years ago. The only other brand I’ve seen climb as much has been JLR due to the number of Range Rovers being far too easily stolen.

[chicaneuk]

Done a requote with the same insurer I am currently with on my old 5 series.. last year's renewal (May 2023) was £320... They are telling me this year £800! I haven't made any claims, no points, got years worth of no claims... It's ridiculous.

[guli]

I wonder if the carbon tub makes the McLaren more expensive to repair?

M

I thought carbon tubs are not repairable if damaged?

[RobDad]

Insurance is hammering the young. My son was working as an estate agent for an upmarket company in North Norfolk, on a very low basic salary that was topped up by commission. He had to run a car with business insurance and the cost last year was close to £3000. He had to resign as he couldn’t afford or justify a combination of huge costs just to do his job - (the bosses all had company EV’s but no doubt they can’t insure anyone on those under 25) - plus the loss of commission due to the property market. He now works a 4 day week in hospitality (opposed to usually 6 days a week in estate agency) and his disposable income is almost double now his insurance has dropped to £900 and he drives considerably fewer miles. In rural areas no car = no job or massively reduced options, and for many kids it’s just not an option. My son spent about 2 years savings from Saturday jobs to pay for his lessons and I topped that up. Sadly not every youngster - even those like my son with a solid work ethic - can rely on the bank of mum and dad.

[J3w3ll3r]

A friend has an Audi RS6, and we where out 1 night and a lady reversed into the front bumper cracking the headlight and scraping the paintwork

The repair took 19 days, the insurance company paid for him to have an RSQ7 for the whole time

£19,797 just for the hire car, the insurance company may pay less but that what was on the paperwork he saw

All for a cracked headlamp and a touch up

*sorry it was actually 25 days not 19

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Tooks]

A friend has an Audi RS6, and we where out 1 night and a lady reversed into the front bumper cracking the headlight and scraping the paintwork

The repair took 19 days, the insurance company paid for him to have an RSQ7 for the whole time

£19,797 just for the hire car, the insurance company may pay less but that what was on the paperwork he saw

All for a cracked headlamp and a touch up

*sorry it was actually 25 days not 19

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Insurers are only too happy to hand over no fault claims to ‘claims handling companies’ and they’re really in the ‘charge the at fault clients insurers as much as they can for the hire car’ business.

Massively increasing costs for everybody.

I posted about my friends experience earlier in the thread.

[brigant]

Insurers are only too happy to hand over no fault claims to ‘claims handling companies’ and they’re really in the ‘charge the at fault clients insurers as much as they can for the hire car’ business.

Massively increasing costs for everybody.

I posted about my friends experience earlier in the thread.

Yup, I had a light bump with an Audi SUV and I reckon costs would be,maybe, £1000 between the twwo. It finished up at £8000 after the pirates got their hands in the pot.

My insurance company have just tried a massive increase on cars and home. After a bit of diligent searching I reinsured at £400 less than this year.

[Dave+63]

My van has recently been written off after a tiny bump on the offside rear whilst I was parked up.

The damage was a dented bumper which I have pushed out by removing the bumper and getting behind it with a hot air gun, a broken tail light (replaced for £220), a small dent in the rear door and some damage to the rear three quarters (neither of which I’ve bothered with).

When paintwork, sign writing, labour and the potential cost of a courtesy vehicle were added, the cost was deemed uneconomical.

I got paid out just shy of £5800 (£7300 less £1500 salvage value).

It doesn’t take much for the costs to add up and render a vehicle a non economical repair after even a small bump.

I’ve also had to replace a leaf spring on the same corner but I’m not relating that to the accident. At £420 plus fitting, the parts prices really don’t help matters either.

[bwest76]

I noticed they changed the excess as well, not ony higher but higher still if you dont use the repairer they reccomend.

[RustyBin5]

Systemic coordinated scalping of customers. Thats not inflation it’s just using the current economic situation as a chance to fill the coffers to pay for storm damage claims. Took me a good 2 hours shopping around to find an alternative to my previous insurer but finally found one that only put my premium up by around inflation.

[TKH]

They do it because they can..

I’ve just been hit for £79 by Santander for pre paying direct for a hoilday in Spain ‘foreign transaction fee’ Spanish bank go figure, problem being who do you argue to and how far do you get ?

Seems we are well and truly hooked into the Matrix insert in back of head and drained.

As we have little if any alternative but to pay , I tried to call Esure ‘sorry we don’t do calls you need a webchat’

I think they are all working on basis we will all just suck it up and if we go elsewhere ‘meh’ for every fed up customer they lose they gain someone else’s irrate customer, zero loyalty and that’s how it is.

Your utilities go up - you use less if you can but still stay and pay as they all charge the same.
Insurance goes up - hours online if you have the time or pay and stay.
Groceries up - eat less , use less or head to the value retailers. (Tesco we now price match Aldi so you don’t have to) what a dreadful way to promote your business by telling you the competition are cheaper and we’ve been scewing you, Sainsburys just started identical campaign.
Council tax in Birmingham to go up 10% this year and 10% next year - what do they do move ? Refuse to pay ? Have a French style riot ? Nah they’ll pay and it’ll never come back down screwing the residents twice as it kill’s properly values.

But at least we’re all helping raise tax revenues with all the inflation increases.

I fear we’re living in a society where the pain threshold is known and we are being squeezed until the new bench mark is reached then let off just a touch like being on the rack.

Once that drain gets inserted into the back of your head your part of the giant charging machine.