Author: News Desk

Bad week for insurance customers as fraud ramps up yet again

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Van insurance news roundup: 7 days ending 28 Feb 2014:

Car insurance and van insurance customers just can’t seem to win this week with the amount of fraud that just came to light once more, driving up costs for all.

New data indicates that more than 1,000 motorists are victimised every week by fraudsters staging crashes. In fact there have been around 300,000 ‘cash for crash’ saged road traffic accidents since 2008, ruining the day of countless drivers and giving insurers – and their customers – massive headaches in the form of hiked premium prices.

Fraudsters know who just to target, too, when it comes to their criminal pursuits. Turns out that women and younger Brits are a specific favourite, which turns into a case of chicken or the egg as these classes of drivers are often accused of being statistically more likely to be involved in an accident. Is it that scammers are targeting these motorists because of these statistics or if they’re causing these statistics in the first place? Can you even believe it?

Then again there’s even more to complain about when it comes to fraud levels this week. Just when you thought that the criminal behaviour is confined to gangs of fraudsters roaming the country’s motorways and crashing into lorries to drive up commercial van insurance premiums, it turns out that there was a positively massive security breach at major insurer Aviva.

Apparently two former Aviva employees – long since sacked, thanks goodness – stand accused of making off with tens of thousands of the personal records of policyholders that have been involved in an accident of some kind. They’ve taken these records and allegedly have sold them on to claims management companies who then have turned around and begun to solicit these accident victims to bring RTA claims

So yes, apparently there’s no honour amongst thieves – or those who profit from thievery. It’s one thing to have organised fraud rings smashing into you at roundabouts but now you’ve got ambulance-chasing claims management companies coming after you and pestering you to allow them to make claims on your behalf! All of this claims activity just drives up premiums even further of course, so don’t be surprised if your annual cover gets a lot more expensive any time soon.

 

Worst drivers in the UK revealed – guess who they aren’t?

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Van insurance news roundup: 7 days ending 21 Feb 2014:

This week, new research findings were revealed that will finally set the record straight as to who the worst drivers in the UK are – and where to find them.

Car insurance and van insurance companies simply love to charge you astronomical rates based on rather arbitrary things such as your postcode, with their twisted logic being that if you live in an area with statistically higher accident rates that immediately means you’re going to be a poor driver as well. Whether or not this is true, it’s undeniable that insurers aren’t going to let go of this criterion any time soon – and the DVLA has recently announced that there’s one particular place in the UK that has the highest concentration of terrible motorists.

The West Midlands seems to be the region with the biggest problem, the research data suggests, with the town of Smethwick holding the dubious honour of having the highest number of banned drivers on a percentage basis. Out of the more than 20,000 licence holders living nearby, 0.77 per cent of them have had their privileges stripped from them after repeated offences – and that’s the highest percentage in the entirety of the UK.

There’s even more shocking news this week as well though, where an independent research study discovered that there are certain kinds of Brits that are worse drivers than others. By profession, some of the safest motorists turn out to be people who drive a commercial van for a living – something that hopefully all those commercial van insurance companies will start taking into account!

This bit of information just chuffs me to bits. I enjoy any opportunity I can get to stick my thumb in the eye of anyone who swears up and down that van drivers are poor motorists, so this data quite simply fills me with unbridled glee. Meanwhile the professions most likely to be awful drivers are all in the medical field – in fact, a full 8 out of the 10 worst motorists in the UK by profession were all medical professionals like doctors, dentists, and other health workers.

This is simply vindicating to me, and I can’t wait to rub it in to everyone who trots out that old chestnut of the white van man being a terrible motorist. I wonder if this will lead to any higher rates for family doctors. Probably not, but it would be some nice poetic justice!

No reward for loyalty – what about good driving?

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Van insurance news roundup: 7 days ending 14 Feb 2014:

Brits know better than anyone that van and car insurance companies don’t reward loyalty – but there are some out there that recognise good motoring habits.

Car and van insurance companies are notorious for holding on to their cheapest rates for new customers, routinely throwing their older customers under the bus by hiking their premium prices year on year. As a result, Brits have learnt to jump ship every year in order to get the best quotes they can – and a new research study reinforces this fact, as 57 per cent of British drivers are giving serious thought to switching from one insurer to another this coming year. Even more telling is that the worldwide average is only 40 per cent, acknowledging that the UK has some very disloyal motorists – by the hand of the insurance industry itself!

So insurers don’t reward you for you for loyalty – that’s just a well-established fact at this point. However, there are some insurers that will actually reward you for good driving. Anyone that makes a living on the road and is in need of commercial van insurance is likely to be quite keen to check this out: it’s called telematics insurance, and it’s been growing in popularity because you can get around the normal insurance bollocks and get some deep discounts if you can prove you’re worthy of them.

The technology is simple, as it’s based on the tried-and-true satnav: a telematics device (or a smartphone with an appropriate app running) keeps track of your acceleration, turning, braking, and other motoring habits, then transmits the data to your insurer. It looks at your performance periodically and if the information reveals you’re a careful driver, your insurer drops your premiums to compensate. Of course, if you’re a crap driver you’ll see your rates go up, but you’ve earned that as well haven’t you?

But think about this: if you spend hours behind the wheel of y our van, you’re likely to be a very careful driver. Your vehicle is your livelihood after all, so it’s in your best interests to actually keep your wits about you, and you should be rewarded for that diligence! It’s also ideal for younger drivers as well, as you can throw off the yoke of statistical analysis and prove not all younger drivers are complete rubbish. Some younger Brits have saved upwards of £430 on their annual cover, and that’s no laughing matter is it?

Best insurance deals only for few, despite what insurers say

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Van insurance news roundup: 7 days ending 7 Feb 2014:

Car insurance companies love saying how cover is cheaper than ever, but let’s be honest: only for a select few customers. The rest of us pay big.

The latest load of bollocks from the car and van insurance industry has surfaced, courtesy of the Association of British Insurers. The ABI says that the average price of a comprehensive insurance policy is now only £370 – an amazing drop of 9 percentage points over last year. While on the face of it this sounds like cause to celebrate – and I’ll admit I felt some initial relief upon reading these new figures – but then I noticed one very important facet: it’s just an ‘average.’

Do you know what that means? There are people who supposedly pay less than this (though heavens knows where these people live) and there are also shedloads of people who pay more. Who pays more than the average amount of £370? Well ask yourself – how much did you pay for your insurance this year? I’ll wager it’s more than that – much more, if you happen to make a living driving a van or if you’re a younger driver. Heaven help you if you’re both!

Younger drivers are absolutely raked over the coals by insurers. In fact insurance companies charge younger Brits so much that they’re often priced right out of keeping a vehicle unless they get some help from their parents; unfortunately there’s a growing trend where well-meaning parents actually end up breaking the law by putting their children on their own policies as a secondary driver even when they’re not.

It’s called fronting, and it’s quite illegal. Apparently insurers don’t like it when you tell them a car is being driven only occasionally by a secondary driver and then in actuality is driven every day by them instead. Being caught fronting can invalidate the insurance for that car, and that could mean a big repair bill that you’ll have to pay out-of-pocket if you get into an accident. It could also complicate things down the line when you try to get insurance cover on your own – insurers take a bit of a dim view of the activity.

I know it’s illegal but what else are younger Brits supposed to do if their premiums are so high as to be completely unaffordable? No, I’m not condoning the behaviour, but I can say that I understand it implicitly.

Insurance rates down, while other costs threaten on horizon

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Van insurance news roundup: 7 days ending 31 Jan 2013:

It’s true that some motoring costs like car insurance and van insurance have eased this year, but unfortunately other costs are rising higher and higher.

The good news is that insurance rates have fallen by 14.1 per cent year-on-year according to the AA’s latest research. This is even more noteworthy because the motoring organisation has never seen such a drop ever; the source of the downward spiral has been linked to insurers both responding to a highly competitive environment and trying to stay ahead of the curve prior to new rules that could be going into effect soon that are specifically engineered to reduce the impact of fraudulent whiplash claims.

Now if this keeps up it will be fantastic, but shedloads of insurance experts say that there’s a danger of things dropping down so low that the market can’t support it, with the result of prices rebounding back up towards much more expensive rates. However, even if this doesn’t happen there are some ridiculous other costs that motorists have to worry about, and anyone who makes a living behind the wheel like a white van man has to worry about things like road fines, which have been rocketing upwards over the years.

In fact, new research discovered that motorists had to pay more than 1.3 million road fines during the 2011-2012 financial year, all for minor offences. This was found to be 16 per cent higher than the previous year – and represented a cost of £135 million to all the motorists that had to pay these fines! That’s a lot of money, and it’s most likely less about keeping the roads safe and more about generating revenue for local authorities. I mean let’s be serious here for a moment – do we really need all these traffic cameras set up in strange locations that aren’t necessarily high-accident areas just so the local council can generate some more money for their coffers?

Let’s get real – the nation’s roads are much safer then they’ve ever been, and I highly doubt that it’s the number of traffic cameras or motoring offences that are being handed out by police. Accident rates have been coming down consistently for years, and I’d like to know if there’s any research linking higher road offences to safer roads; somehow I sincerely doubt it though. Why are the roads safer than ever but local authorities are penalising drivers for this? We don’t need this kind of madness on our roads, as it’s hard enough to keep the fuel tank full with rising petrol costs and other things.

Van insurance rate drops shape up to be short lived indeed

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Van insurance news roundup: 7 days ending 24 Jan 2014:

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it looks like the latest round of car and van insurance rate drops are likely to be the last for quite some time.

Turns out that some research from a leading insurance comparison website discovered that the last quarter of 2013 saw year-on-year rate drops of 12.5 per cent. This is fantastic news of course – especially since now the average comprehensive car insurance policy is only £644 – but this could easily be the last large downward trend in insurance rates for the foreseeable future.

Now for some classes of motorists this isn’t necessarily anything new. Younger drivers are quite used to insurers taking the piss out of them whenever they can, especially since it’s easier to give up an arm and a leg than it is to secure cover at a reasonable price if you’re under the age of 25 or so. Still, there was some hope that rates would continue to decline, especially for any younger Brits that drove a van for a living, but these hopes have more or less been dashed all to pieces after an independent report revealed that the competition between insurers – which had been driving premiums down in a price war – has leveled off.

That’s right – insurers have called a truce on their price war, set aside their differences, and banded together against their real enemy: all of us. Now that prices won’t slide downwards any more, insurers are quite happy – and their investors are just chuffed to bits. In fact, once news broke about the end of the price wars, stock prices for the major British insurers all rose – some as high as 5.6 per cent!

So in the end what does this mean for you and me? Well I think that it’s a safe bet to say that prices are likely to remain flat for the time being, which is better than nothing – and certainly better than having rates climb higher again! Still it’s disappointing to see the downward slide come to an end, especially since rates were so close to being acceptable for the first time since the credit crisis and resultant economic downturn. We’ll all just have to grin and bear it, I suppose!

Is your van insurance is about to become more affordable?

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Van insurance news roundup: 7 days ending 17 Jan 2014:

The writing is on the wall this week – and if I’m reading it correctly it could mean that van insurance rates are about to drop like a stone for many drivers!

Now, I don’t want you to get all excited. True, the idea that you could save a few quid on that obnoxiously expensive commercial van insurance policy you have is thrilling news, but let’s keep a level head about us and go over the evidence pointing to it this week, shall we?

First of all there was a new report this week that switching from one van or car insurance company to another saves the average motorist shedloads of cash. How much is a shedload? Well It looks like the typical savings right now is around £137 – and let’s be honest, that’s nothing to sneeze at.

How are these amazing, almost unbelievable discounts coming into effect? Well researchers say that in addition to insurers reserving their best rates for new customers they’e been cleaning house when it comes to fraud, and the results have been that payouts on bogus claims have been reducing. This means less costs for insurers and lowered premiums for those of us who have to keep their vehicle insured year on year. In other words, don’t auto-renew on your insurance cover this year and you could save a bit more than you expected as long as this trend holds long-term.

Speaking of long term, there’s even more evidence pointing to a possible drop in expensive rates as well thanks to a new Government scheme to store licence information digitally in order to create a database insurers can search at the time of providing a customer with a quote. Since insurance providers simply assume no one tells the truth about how many points they might have on their licence when applying for cover they tend to simply raise rates for everyone to cover those berks that can’t be arsed to be honest – but this new system will let insurers see who has a clean driving record and who likes to do a bit speeding on the motorway. This could lead to even cheaper rates for motorists who keep their noses clean.

Of course this new programme probably won’t go into effect until next year, so you’ve got a bit to wait. Then again, if you renew your cover now there’s a good chance that by this time next year your rates will be even lower!

Do yourself a favour and stay off the roadways!

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Some days it just doesn’t seem like it’s safe to get out of bed in the morning, much less go out and take to the nation’s roadways. Today is one of those days.

Why is it so dangerous to go motoring about nowadays? Well apparently because the worst driver in the history of the UK – some magnificent bastard with 45 penalty points on his licence – is being allowed to drive about with relative impunity!

For most normal individuals, we can kiss our ability to drive goodbye if we accrue a measly 12 points, but not so for this Liverpool native. Apparently there’s a loophole where you’re allowed to keep driving if having your licence suspended would subject you to ‘extreme hardship’ or some other bollocks. Well that’s all fair and good but what about the rest of us who have to share the road with this madman? Furthermore, how does this bloke even afford car insurance at this point – and even more to the point, what insurance company is going to offer this madman cover with 45 bloody points on his licence? Did he have to remortgage his house in order to afford a year’s worth of insurance?

But there is one small bright light shining through such a morass of madness this week; in addition to the news of the worst Brit to ever climb behind the wheel comes some indication that insurance fraudsters are beginning to be rooted out by the authorities.

Truth be told, fraud hurts us all, not just car or van insurance companies, as the increased costs that an insurer pays out on fraudulent claims ends up being funneled back to its customers in the form of increased premium prices. However, since it’s in the best interest of insurers to strike back at fraudsters there has been a concerted effort to eradicate insurance scam activity – and one company recently announced that 2013 saw it avoiding having to pay more than £37 million in fraudulent claims.

It’s a good start, and as long as this kind of investigation is kept up I can’t see how we can’t start seeing some cheaper insurance rates sometime soon in the future. Well, cheaper rates for everyone except the lunatic with 45 points on his licence, I’m assuming. I swear how in the world do you get 45 bloody points on your licence?

Premium prices drop, fraud incidents go up; welcome to 2014

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Van insurance news roundup: 7 days ending 3 Jan 2014:

IThe New Year is upon us, and that means this week it’s nothing but new annual reports coming out; unfortunately it’s very much a mixed bag going into 2014.

First off, if you remember this time last year there was an absolute riot in the car insurance industry because the EU Gender Directive had just gone into effect a few weeks prior. The sky was definitely falling when it came to premium price predictions, as the new EU rules that forbade using gender as a determination for car or van insurance rates was supposedly going to ratchet up prices into the stratosphere for female.

Meanwhile, a major insurance comparison site released its annual price report this week, and it looks like that a year on from the gender directive has led to lowered premiums across the entire industry. Both women and men are paying less on average than they did just 12 short months ago, though there were some discrepancies when it came to young Brits – those unfortunates that are never going to get a good deal on their insurance just by virtue of their inexperience.

Meanwhile, even as the market improves overall these desperate younger Brits have found themselves targeted increasingly by shadow brokers – a particularly crafty and cruel subset of fraudsters that pose as legitimate insurance brokers but simply pocket a victim’s money and disappear. The worst part about these bastards is that they’ll not just shake down poor luckless younger Brits but they’ll actually supply their victims with documents that are completely bogus but are designed to trick them into thinking they’ve got valid cover.

Do you know what happens when you’re caught out without valid cover? You’re in deep trouble, that’s what. It doesn’t matter to insurers if you were hoodwinked by one of these ghost brokers – they just see you as someone who was motoring about with invalidated insurance, and that means you’re going to be hard-pressed to find any insurance provider that will offer you actual, real and valid cover for anything less than an arm and a leg. Of course, most insurers will simply refuse to even provide you a price quote. I think it’s unfair but what can we do?

Christmas season leaves coal in all our stockings

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Van insurance news roundup: 7 days ending 27 Dec 2013:

Ever have one of those Christmas seasons where nothing goes right and it doesn’t matter what you do to change it? That’s exactly what’s happened this week.

First up is how the fallout from the Competition Commission’s latest report positively ruined Christmas for the shareholders of one major car insurance provider. Admiral Group saw its stock price take a tumble earlier this week after the Commission revealed that many car and van insurance providers are wringing extra cash from their customers in the form of ratcheted up costs for car hire and repair services. Apparently investors take a dim view to their portfolio being made up of companies that are caught red-handed in padding their profit margins by charging over and above the fair market price for their services – especially when some of these general and commercial van insurance companies are insisting on shoddy repair work being done and then charging as if it was not substandard.

It’s absolutely horrid to discover your insurer isn’t just treating you like a cash cow but is content to beat the cow to death for the leather. Still, things go on unabated for many insurers – and all too many customers, which is where the other half of this week’s bad Christmas story comes in – it turns out that things are so bad in Northern Ireland when it comes to insurance costs that the Consumer Council is telling residents to dump their existing insurer and shop around for a better deal. In fact, motoring costs in NI are so high that it’s often impossible to get a good deal on things like petrol or insurance, despite best efforts – not exactly the kind of Christmas message you want to get!

Hopefully the report from the Competition Commission will shake things up enough that this kind of behaviour on the part of insurers will come to an abrupt end. For what it’s worth there’s all too much of this when it comes to insurance companies taking hard advantage of their customers, especially in markets like Northern Ireland! Enough is enough; it’s one thing to run a company to make a profit and it’s another one altogether to do whatever it takes to make as much profit as possible – it’s just bloody wrong if you ask me!

And this is exactly why we need the Competition Commission to step in and change things as far as the insurance market is concerned. If you ask me, there’s no way the industry itself will regulate itself, especially not when all these companies are in business to make a profit; you need to have an outside source ensure that everyone’s playing fair and that’s simply not happening. Until this does indeed happen, we’ll have instances like in Northern Ireland, where motorists are being urged to shop around as much as they can.

I can only hope that the Competition Commission positively throws the figurative book at the insurance industry. Let’s get some regulation in there to make sure we’re not all paying through the nose on overpriced replacement vehicles and substandard repair work!

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