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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Car insurance

27 replies

joanslegs · 12/04/2017 23:28

Just tried a quote with LV, me as main driver, business use plus my mum domestic use - 15000 miles a year.

Except the first quote I ticked partner for my mum's relationship by mistake.

Redid quote with corrected relationship - quote was £400 more! Why??? Same DOB, same driver history, just a change to an incestuous relationship...

OP posts:

BackforGood · 12/04/2017 23:48

Insurance companies are a law unto themselves. The just give the most random quotes.
You just have to spend a few tedious hours finding one where your combination of details gives you a sensible quote.

SantanicoPandemonium · 13/04/2017 00:00

My last insurance company tried to charge me double the previous years premiums at renewal with the same car and all the same details, only difference was I had another years no claims. The woman in the call centre seemed pretty miffed that I wanted to cancel even when she though she offered me £50 of high street vouchers

Darla21 · 13/04/2017 01:07

Yes I've just renewed mine, and got loads of funny quotes until I got all my details correct. I read that women are getting a better deal on car insurance now they are not allowed to discriminate based on sex as women were paying too much before. Now they use very clever technology to guess whether you are male and female and it's not by your name or title.

steff13 · 13/04/2017 02:59

Here, married people tend to get better rates than single people. Also, women get better rates than men, good students get better rates, etc.

Andrewofgg · 13/04/2017 07:40

I'm a Bremainer but I hope we can in due course wave goodbye to that preposterous rule that insurance companies cannot charge women less for car and life insurance and more for annuities and let them do it openly.

WaxyBean · 13/04/2017 07:52

Bizarre isn't it! I am on dh's insurance even though I haven't driven in almost 8 years. It saves almost £100 per year. (And DH has over 20 years no claims and drives less than 5k pa so isn't exactly a huge risk).

peukpokicuzo · 13/04/2017 08:15

Actually I was reading that the EU rule hasn't actually made premiums go up for women and down for men on average. Instead of lazily assuming that ones chromosomes dictate behaviour the insurance companies have had to instead rely on other measures that are a better predictor of driving behaviour (eg choice of sporty car type vs uncool mum-mobile car type) and the upshot is that on average the gap between women's premiums and men's premiums has widened slightly, not shrunk. But the men who make safer choices aren't being penalised for having a penis and the women who treat the road like they are playing mariokart aren't protected by virtue of their sex either. I think it's a good change and I hope it doesn't get abolished.

problembottom · 13/04/2017 10:06

I'm a journalist as is DP and car insurers do NOT like us. I popped my older DSis, a teacher, on for two weeks last year and they refunded me a fiver!

flyingaspidistra · 13/04/2017 10:48

I'm not with the allegedly cheapest (as advertised by the mafia guy) and I've just tried to get better car insurance quotes from rival companies and failed, even though DH is with one of them and no circumstances have changed. It like they are all in cahoots

bruffin · 13/04/2017 11:03

Instead of lazily assuming that ones chromosomes dictate behaviour the insurance companies have had to instead rely on other measures that are a better predictor of driving behaviour

Its not lazily predicting, though its acctuaries working out what pool of people are the least risk, being a woman is just part of the calculation, type of cars, age etc have always been part of the calculation as well.

Andrewofgg · 13/04/2017 12:17

And unisex rates for life insurance and annuities were and are absurd.

FanaticalFox · 13/04/2017 13:55

Its because kids used to add their parents onto their policies to make their own policies cheaper. So they now increase the price if you add a parent on regardless of age. LV are hideously expensive anyway, try confused.com, compare the market etc etc.

BackforGood · 13/04/2017 20:32

No they don't FanaticalFox - speaking as the parent of an 18 yr old dd who has just (yesterday) put us on her policy and brought down the quotes considerably.

Wando1986 · 13/04/2017 20:38

BackforGood, I hope you're not already on another policy of your own otherwise that would be illegal

TeenAndTween · 13/04/2017 20:45

Wando No that's not true. DH and I each have our own policies but have the other as named drivers on ours.
What would be wrong would be if Back's DD has said that Back was the main driver.

BackforGood · 13/04/2017 20:51

Exactly Teen and Tween.
It's not illegal at all - you are talking rubbish Wando. Indeed, one insurer she was on to wanted to speak to me so I could move my policy to them as well and have a 'multiple driver discount'. Surely a pretty high % of drivers in a 2 or more car household are named drivers on the others policies? It's just common sense.
Believe me, this household has spent a lot of hours on the phone and hours on the internet to insurance companies over the last couple of weeks.

nocake · 13/04/2017 21:02

Insurance is all about calculating risk using whatever information the insurance company can get. The calculations might not make sense to you but they are based on data and are certainly not random.

The other thing to remember is that different companies have different risk profiles so will want to attract different sorts of customer. That's why you might get a ridiculous quote from some companies, because you don't fit their risk profile so they don't want you as a customer.

FairfaxAikman · 13/04/2017 21:09

Problembottom I'm a journalist as well.

I found simply using a marginally different title which still accurately reflects what I do helped bring my premium down - I put "writer" rather than journalist now.

Secretsweets · 13/04/2017 21:15

I'm named on both my DH and my 18year old daughter policies as well as having my own, it made both of theirs cheaper to have me named on it too for some reason. Although my daughter has just had a bad accident and written her new car off so dread to think what her premium will be when she renews with a new car 😫

FanaticalFox · 13/04/2017 21:36

Yes it makes it cheaper than going it alone but not as cheap as husband and wife etc etc.

bigbluebus · 13/04/2017 21:41

I thought it was standard practice to add parents to their children's policies. Both me and DH are on DS's (I actually own his car, not him). I rarely drive DS's car but need to on occasions eg: moving cars around on and off the drive.

I recently advised a friend to get her and her husband added to their DDs policy to bring the premium down - which it did.

I don't know why your Mum is more expensive as your Mum than she would be as your DP - there's still only one vehicle which can only be driven by one of you at a time.

LurkingHusband · 13/04/2017 21:53

Its not lazily predicting, though its actuaries

Actuaries are people who find accountancy too racy .

topcat2014 · 13/04/2017 21:57

Dsis is insurance actuary - uber maths geek!

(and I'm the accountant)

HeddaGarbled · 13/04/2017 22:16

I think it's just categories of drivers: cheapest is one driver, next up is driver plus spouse, then additional named drivers and the most expensive is any driver. They have to allocate prices to categories or how would they ever make the calculation. It can't be £351 for person A and their unique individual circumstances, £351.50 for person B, £352 for person C etc. Or you'd be paying extra for the more sophisticated computer program.

BackforGood · 13/04/2017 23:08

No Hedda - as people have said, it doesn't add to the Premium if you have additional drivers on it, if those additional drivers are low risk. In many cases it brings it down.

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