DM is so frustrating with insurance renewals. HELP!!

[EasterRose24]

My DM is 87 and lives alone. She still drives, and is generally in good health. She's also not in bad shape financially. She has a decent amount of savings. And her pensions easily cover her monthly outgoings. I set her up with a regular savings account from her current account, and each month money is paid into this account (over and above her lumpsum savings) for the purpose of paying larger bills.

Every May she get renewal notices for her car and home insurances. They are a few hundred pounds each. .

Every year at renewal time she tells me she wants to pay by direct debit because the insurance premium will leave her short for her regular monthly expenses from her current account.
I've explained over and over that paying this way is more expensive. By as much as £80 for both policies. Every year she gets all stroppy on me and says she doesn't care, she's rather pay by installments, because she doesn't want to be short in her current account.
I've explained she has a regular savings account for this purpose, and lump sum savings as well. She says she doesn't want to use her savings for insurance!!!

I've suggested she use the money saved and give it instead to a charity rather than to an insurance company. She just won't have it.

I know it's her money her choice, but my god I hate insurance renewals now with a vengeance!!!

How can I persuade her that insurance companies do not need her hard earned cash?

I’m sure you’re talking sense and I absolutely know where you’re coming from but …

You can’t make her do what doesn’t sit right with her so stop trying. She’s 87 and in reasonable health. Be glad she’s got all her marbles at that great age.

It’s her money to do with as she pleases.
Would you let her tell you how to spend your money?

My mum is much older than yours. She too has all her faculties but is stubborn about some things when it comes to finances. I have to respect her way of doing things and let her get on with it.

Pick your battles. Let it go.

@PashaMinaMio Thank you. I've been telling myself this. It's just so frustrating when on one have she's willing to throw money away, on the other she's talking about how she's concerned about the cost is living increases!!
Its good to vent. Thank you 😊

Do what makes her happy…,why cause her grief? …not your money

I know and I agree. But then I have to listen to her worry about the cost of living etc.

Its just frustrating 😑

Are you sure she isn’t thinking that she might not need a full year of insurance ?

Do it, then when she grumbles about being short mention overpaying insurance! 🤣

Are you shopping around for the insurance, because auto renew is usually the bigger waste.

I’d refuse to do a DD because of needing to redo it every year, but say she’s welcome to sort it out at the bank if she wants!

Frustrating. PIL have lived a frugal life for many years. Think staying in a youth hostel instead of a hotel in their 70's. £30 for their GC 21st birthdays...
FIL has just died and we have found they are paying ridiculous amounts on bills including insurance covering items they don't even own, and have nearly a million pounds in assets.

Bonkers.

It's not always more expensive these days, I usually pay lump sum but this year the car insurance was exactly the same amount either way so I opted for monthly

She's an adult with capacity and it's her money. Why are you trying to micromanage her finances?

Well, had to delete my first words, as they were a bit strong.

Saw your thread title, assumed it was going to be a difficulty with an elderly person not keeping up, or being difficult about renewing insurance.

Cause that's definitely a thing, as ageing DPs become a bit forgetful or confused.
If that's not a problem you have to contend with, thank your lucky stars!

If it makes your DM feel happier to have insurance paid on a DD, BUTT OUT. It's her money, her life, at least this way if she gets ill or forgetful or confused, it's definitely paid.

Yes she could save a bit of money paying in one go, but if she chooses not to, she's an adult who has the right to make her own choices.Have some respect for that.

Do you often tell her what to do?

I've checked, it's more expensive!

For goodness sake. The woman is clearly capable, she just has different priorities from you.

It's more important to her to have a regular budget every month, without the stress of having large bills come in annually. That's a fair point and she's clearly more comfortable with managing her monthly spend that way. It's not your money. You've explained that it costs more, but to her it's worth it not to have a big bill arrive through the door.

Given that you're talking about insurance bills, they're likely to auto-renew. Of course Martin Lewis will tell you that you should never do this. But she's 87 and her priorities are different. She's going to prefer having financial stuff going on in the background without her having to do anything that she finds stressful. Which might include having to deal with you telling her what she should do every time these bills land.

Thats definitely unusual! my car insurance was nearly £80 more!

I get it's frustrating OP but you've tried, she won't listen so not a lot more you can do unfortunately.

As I've said, I absolutely know it's her money. I just need to vent! I made that clear at the start.

Do I always tell her what to do? Not sure I like your inference, and the comment was entirely unnecessary. But for more context, I'm one of 3 children. My siblings died a few years ago. My mum's partner died a while back too.

She leans on me alot. She says she doesn't understand money and finance, so she sends it all to me.
I'm not telling her what to do, she's asking my advice.

This.

She has decided how she wants to pay for insurance. That's her choice.

She asks me to do all the shopping around and to get the best quotes. She doesn't want to pay over the odds.
She won't do this herself because she says she doesn't understand finance ( she does, she's just always relied on someone else to do it). I'm trying my best to help her.

And as I've said, I KNOW it's her money. I just wanted to vent because I find this situation frustrating.

They may well have been saving it for your DH. I’m very upset at the prospect of not being able to leave money for my DC and DGC. Bonkers to be wasting money on insurances, paying more than you need for fuel, but not bonkers to be abstemious in your own life for the benefit of the younger generations.

She wants/expects me to get her the best quotes and arrange it all.

I'd love it if she did sorted it herself without reference . But that nit what's happening here.
Sorry you think so badly if me.

It seems daft that insurance is cheaper paid annually, whereas the biggest fuel saving you can make is when you first move to monthly DD. Though I guess that’s because insurance is paid in advance and fuel in arrears.

Could you adjust the SO so that in the months leading up to the insurance renewals, less would go into the savings account, so that there would be enough left in the current account to pay the premium? Or would she spend it on something else?

I can fully get where the OP is coming from. My mother in law has tens of thousands in the bank (probably close to or just over £100k) yet inflicts a miserable austere life on herself and it's so annoying, especially as her sole topic of conversation is how badly done to she is, how she can't last the week on her state pension without scrimping/saving, etc (conveniently ignoring her ex husband's occupational pensions which are paid into a different account which she just adds to her savings!). Then whinging that her income is to high for pension credits. It's maddening.

Her latest wheeze is to keep cancelling newspapers. She used to have the paper delivered every day, but over the past couple of years, she's been knocking a day off every time something has gone up as she's obsessed with keeping the weekly paper bill at the same figure and refuses to pay more - she's now down to just 3 days per week and spends the other 4 days whingeing that she's bored and has nothing to read!

Some old folk have really weird ideas about money and just seem incapable of looking at the bigger picture nor changing what they do and how they do things.

Such as she still uses the same insurance firm she's been using for decades - I can see she's grossly overpaying for it as comparison sites with her details come out at about a third of the price she's paying, but she can't be bothered to change and won't let me/won't trust me to do it for her. Her garden is a right state because she "can't afford" a gardener, her curtains are threadbare because she "can't afford" new, she's just wearing the same clothes as 20 years ago. I think she's just read and watched too much news about "poor pensioners", the cost of living crisis, etc., and it's somehow turned her brain into believing it, when in reality, her income far exceeds her costs and she's loads of savings to fall back on if anything big needed to be done, i.e. replace the roof, etc.

I really despair. My own mother was very similar, salting away cash in numerous bank accounts and also around the house - after she died, we kept finding rolls of bank notes in the strangest of places, but she always maintained she couldn't afford this, couldn't afford that, etc. But at the same time, she kept saying things like "you'll appreciate me more when I'm gone". Very strange! We'd have appreciated her more if she'd have helped us out when we had genuinely no money ourselves and were living on credit card debt when we had our first child and made redundant, but all we got back then was "you should live within your means" and other unhelpful stealth boasts making out it was our fault, despite her having constantly whinged for years about wanting grandchildren and how awful it was that me and my brother had left it late to have kids (mostly because we had no money!! Doh!!).

Other way round really. Most people on DD are in advance with payments, especially over Summer when most will be in considerable credit in anticipation of the high usage winter months. Insurance is paid in arrears - if not paid monthly, it's due on the start date, so if paid monthly, you (or the insurance firm) take on credit.

Would she go for an online account like Starling or Monzo where you can have lots of little savings pots for different expenses? You could then have one for 'insurance, one for 'car repairs', one for 'holidays' etc etc so she can see that she has the money set aside specifically for that thing.

It does sound frustrating. I get irritated by my parents who are normally financially astute (but anxious about money) parents, who are paying an absolute fortune for TV and internet, won't downgrade their package because they refuse to watch BBC or ITV news and won't consider switching because of the hassle.

Was she used to the really old way of paying for insurance where you paid weekly (or monthly?) and someone even came to the door for it?! If she grew up with that then it's difficult to get past the idea of that's how you pay for it and an annual sum must seem huge!

My DM is 94 and I have the opposite problem, she prefers to pay the yearly sum for insurance etc. Won’t have any monthly standing orders or direct debits coming out of her bank account “in case the money shouldn’t be there to cover it”. It would, she has sufficient but has a fear of being overdrawn at the bank. So she pays a higher rate for gas and electric as she is on a pay quarterly on receipt of bill tariff and it really annoys me that she won’t switch and save some money. I’ve decided that the most I can do now though is just to ask each time the bill comes is “ are you sure that you’d rather stick to paying this way when there’s a cheaper tariff?”. It’s frustrating to see extra money being handed out to these institutions but I feel that in old age, you do lose some of your autonomy as you become more dependent on people to help you. Almost like they need to dig their heels in when they can - just to show that they are still our parents and in charge!