Tag: car insurance

Brits call for in-car CCTV to foil fraudsters

Posted on by News Desk

VAN INSURANCE NEWS ROUNDUP: 7 DAYS ENDING 12DEC 2014:

Brits tired of watching their car insurance and van insurance premiums increase thanks to fraud are calling for in-car CCTV systems to keep an eye on things.

Nobody, and I mean nobody, wants to see insurance rates keep creeping upwards. Whether it’s just to keep your Vauxhall Astra on the road of you’ve got a fleet of Ford Transit vans that need commercial van insurance, the cost of annual cover is one of the biggest sticking point for personal and business insurance customers everywhere.

When it comes to car insurance fraud, scammers have been driving up insurance costs for a while thanks to their making bogus claims left and right, but new research says that if it means stopping fraudsters right in their tracks and keeping premium costs down, 71 per cent of British motorists would be chuffed to bits to have a CCTV camera fixed to their dash.

Now, truth be told that’s an enormous number of Brits willing to turn themselves into little spies for the insurance industry. I know it sounds a bit cynical but isn’t that exactly what’s going on here? You’re willing to trade cheap insurance rates in exchange for acting like the eyes and ears of your insurer, making sure that they don’t end up getting victimised by scammers and fraudsters in the process. I suppose it sounds like a good quid-pro-quo, but there must be some people that are a bit concerned about the constant surveillance we’re all under in today’s day and age – or is it just me?

Yes, yes, I know the old chestnuts – you don’t have any expectation of privacy if you’re out in public, and that you don’t have anything to worry about if you have nothing to hide. Still, it just sticks in my craw about how much surveillance there actually is going on everywhere, even if it does come at a bonus of cheaper insurance rates. It still seems more than a little invasive to me. It just smacks of George Orwell’s dystopian novel a bit too much, with the idea that Big Brother is watching over you to record every little action you undertake that it might not approve of.

Then again, maybe it’s just that I don’t want people to see me scratching my arse in public. That could be it as well, after all.

 

 

Consumer laziness costs when it comes to insurance costs

Posted on by News Desk

VAN INSURANCE NEWS ROUNDUP: 7 DAYS ENDING 28 NOV 2014:

If you’re not a big fan of shopping around for car insurance or van insurance every year, guess what: your laziness is costing you – likely more than you think.

For what it’s worth, nobody enjoys having to deal with insurance companies, especially when it comes to those parasitic little bastards that you have to, by law, associate yourselves with in order to keep your car or van on the road. Plenty of people just find the cheapest deal they can initially find – usually by checking an insurance comparison site – and then just mindlessly auto-renew every 12 months, but did you know that this costs motorists an extra £2 billion every year?

I know that sounds like a completely made up figure, but I’m not trying to take the piss out of you. The truth is that insurers almost always increase your premium cost from one year to the next, relying on laziness and apathy on the part of policyholders to not actually investigate how much they could save by switching to another provider. It’s a tactic that’s worked wonderfully well for insurers – but not so well for cash-strapped Brits trying to make ends meet, or ones that think their loyalty with a certain insurance firm will be rewarded.

Now I know what you’re probably thinking: but everyone keeps saying that the cost of annual cover is going down on average! Well that may be true for new customers, but it certainly isn’t for existing ones. Insurers need to attract new policyholders after all, and the best way to do that is to offer an attractive headline rate for the first year; at the same time insurers need to keep paying the bills, so the rates these new customers are charged are subsidised, by and large, by hapless policyholders who see their insurance costs ratcheted up year on year.

So how do you avoid being victimised by this business practice on the part of insurers? It’s easy, mate – just don’t auto-renew like a pillock every year and you’ll be right as rain. Yes, it takes a bit of extra work on your part but the savings alone are worth it. Do you want to be part of that £2 billion? I know that I sure don’t want to!

Need we worry about driverless vehicles getting hacked now?

Posted on by News Desk

VAN INSURANCE NEWS ROUNDUP: 7 DAYS ENDING 21 NOV 2014:

So here’s one more thing to worry about during your daily commute: terrorists could wrest control of the nation’s roadways if driverless vehicles become common.

I know it sounds like the plot of a particularly cheeky Doctor Who episode – maybe one from the Tom Baker days – but it’s true; the Institution of Engineering and Technology says that within the next 15 years we’re likely to have driverless vehicles on roads worldwide. While this spells good news for anyone who worries about rising car insurance or van insurance premiums, the Chicken Littles of the world are convinced that the sky will be falling.

How so, do you ask? Well apparently terrorists could hack into the control systems of driverless cars and cause bedlam on the roadways. Grinding traffic to a halt, causing massive road traffic accidents, driving Vauxhall Astras right off the Dover cliffs – you name it, almost anything is possible. Or at least according to the cyber security boffins at the IET.

So yes, there’s apparently all sorts of things to be worried about when it comes to driverless vehicles. Not only are all the White Van Men in the UK going to be automated right out of business, now we’ll all be at the mercy of some Skynet-like malevolence when it comes to cyber terrorists holding us all hostage for heaven knows what. Does anyone besides me feel that people are just afraid of pretty much everything nowadays? I mean we’re not even anywhere near having advanced enough technology to have driverless cars roaming the world’s roadways, but I’m pretty sure that auto manufacturers will have mechanical failsafes built into these vehicles that can either disable them or allow their human occupants to assume control.

Or at least I hope they will. I mean I can’t put it past the hubris of engineers to deliberately omit such kinds of failsafes, but most government regulations are likely to make sure there are ways for drivers to take control of driverless vehicles that run amok in some way or another. Think about the personal injury lawsuits that would arise otherwise!

Drivers flee telematics insurance by the shedload

Posted on by News Desk

VAN INSURANCE NEWS ROUNDUP: 7 DAYS ENDING 14 NOV 2014:

With the new revelation that police can seize telematics records car insurance and van insurance companies, drivers are abandoning the black box in droves.

It’s just one more example of this whole Big Brother mentality that’s been gripping the UK for decades now, if you ask me: news broke this week how at least three separate insurance providers in the UK have made black box records available to the police after a court order. In other words, insurers can and will toss you to the wolves if the police need some information on your driving patterns for whatever reason – and anyone that uses telematics insurance is more or less just asking for the authorities to be able to track your every bloody move.

Now, I know what you’re going to say: if you’re not up to no good, what do you have to hide? Well bollocks to that – my private life is private, and I don’t need anyone knowing what I’m doing and where I’m going if I don’t want them to. Believe it or not but being in charge of who knows where you’ve been and what you’ve done isn’t a privilege, it’s a bloody right; I don’t want anyone knowing what I’m doing unless I’m comfortable with it.

Meanwhile, most insurers have finally admitted that telematics customers are likely to end up getting ugly surprises in the post when it comes to renewal time, thanks to the very detailed records these little black boxes keep track of. Every time you go over the speed limit – even by just a few mph – gets recorded, and if you do that consistently enough your insurer will raise your rates because you’re an “unsafe” driver. Insurers say some ten million motorists routinely break the 30mph speed limit in fact, and while I’m not advocating that you travel 50mph in a 30mph zone, even if you’re cruising by at a still relatively safe 35mph you’re still technically breaking the law – and guess who has a big fat premium payment they would like you to pay for your sins?

Honestly though, who thought telematics was a good idea? I can understand that it has a role in commercial fleets; it’s easy to keep your commercial van insurance down if you tell your drivers that they’ll get binned if they’re caught driving like pillocks I suppose, but what’s the benefit to everyone else, eh?

So which way are insurance premiums actually going?

Posted on by News Desk

VAN INSURANCE NEWS ROUNDUP: 7 DAYS ENDING 7 NOV 2014:

So here’s one that will stretch your mind: one insurer says car insurance and van insurance is going down in price whilst another says it’s rising.

In news that squarely falls into the category of one hand not knowing what the other is doing, car insurance provider Esure swears up and down that the price of cover is still on the decline, yet the AA insists that it’s going up. So what in the world is going on here, and which of these insurance organisations is telling the truth?

Esure, the driving force behind Sheila’s Wheels and the operator of one of the major insurance comparison sites out there, says that it’s simply too early to say that premium prices have stabilised or not. The insurer has been reporting drops in its insurance premiums to the point where its share price has tumbled some 6 per cent after it reported its third quarter premium pricing went down by around 7.4 per cent.

Meanwhile, the AA says that average comprehensive costs have gone up 1.2 per cent – or around £6 – over the same period of time. So what’s the deal?

Well, for what it’s worth, the AA takes a wider look at the insurance industry as a whole. The motoring organisation takes a long, hard look at a number of insurers before averaging the price changes together – and that means that its figures incorporate price drops and price increases. Meanwhile, Esure is only one firm; sure, it may incorporate more than one insurance provider, and it may be pulling data from a number of other insurers in its comparison website, but it’s not taking as large a picture of the industry as a whole as the AA may be getting.

In other words, both the AA and Esure might very well be right. It’s one of the problems with statistics – you can really say anything you like and have figures to back it up. Whatever the end result is, prices are most definitely still in flux in the insurance industry. THe AA didn’t exactly exhibit a massive jump in prices over the last quarter with only 1.2 per cent average increases; while Esure’s more weighty 6 per cent drop may be frightening its investors, there’s nothing to say that the insurance provider might end up trending up over the next three months.

Insurance rates are up – and male motorists bear the brunt

Posted on by News Desk

VAN INSURANCE NEWS ROUNDUP: 7 DAYS ENDING 31 OCT 2014:

Rates on car insurance and van insurance are creeping upwards – and if you’re a male motorist you’re likely to bear the brunt of the new price increases.

The party is most definitely over. The mad competition between insurers and brokers has finally resulted in an insurance marketplace that’s collapsing under its own attenuated weight, and now we’ve all got to deal with personal car insurance and commercial van insurance rates going up, up up into the stratosphere.

The AA has confirmed it; this week the venerable motoring organisation says that its latest price index shows rising prices. To be sure the AA only saw a measly £6 increase, but don’t forget that’s an average. In fact, there’s plenty of evidence out there that some classes of drivers – males especially – are getting the short and pointy end of the stick when it comes to rate increases.

A major insurance comparison site found that insurance prices for men have one up at almost double the rate of their female counterparts year-on-year. Research found an overall 3.2 per cent increase for male motorists, while females got away with a much more modest 1.8 per cent rate hike. So much for genderless insurance quotes, eh? It looks like the furore the European Court of Justice raised by banning the use of gender as a metric for determining insurance pricing has fallen flat on its face. Why am I not surprised in the least?

Honestly I don’t know what’s going to save the insurance industry. Whether it’s cracking down on fraud from insurance claims, the implementation of widespread telematics-based cover, or simply better regulation of an industry that’s best interests usually run at cross purposes to their customers, your guess is as good as mine. A combination of all three might do well to get insurance prices under control, but there’s always going to be a fly in the ointment or a spanner in the works somewhere or another. Insurers are out to make money, consumers are out to save as much as possible, and nothing is going to change that dynamic for a good, long time.

Well, maybe the advent of the driverless car. That might change things. Then again, what would the lads at Top Gear say about such an abomination? Not only that, but what would the White Van Man say about having his likelihood taken away from him thanks to a robotic Ford Transit making deliveries instead of him?

Hold on to your keys before you no longer need them

Posted on by News Desk

VAN INSURANCE NEWS ROUNDUP: 7 DAYS ENDING 24 OCT 2014:

Take car of your car keys, gents; most insurance policies don’t cover their loss. Then again, your keys might not be needed all that soon anyway.

Normally losing your car keys is a mild to moderate inconvenience, or at least it used to be before the advent of things like immobilisers and interlocks. Nowadays if you lose your key – and all those integrated circuits that go with it – you could end up having to shell out shedloads of cash to get new specialised keys made, just so you can get back in your car or van.

What makes matters worse is that car insurance and van insurance companies routinely don’t cover replacement of these expensive little pieces of kit. In fact, one insurance comparison site recently looked into the problem, discovering that out of some 230 policies only half provided replacement cover. An additional 28 per cent offer the cover as an extra – one that carries an additional price tag – and the last 22 per cent leave you high and dry completely.

Then again, you might not need to worry about needing your keys much longer anyway. At least according to Transport Minister Claire Perry who thinks that the advent of the driverless car is going to revolutionise the UK.

Soon we’ll all just be sitting in the back seat whilst our cars ferry us about from point A to point B in impotent peace, according to Ms Perry. What this means for the white van man can be anybody’s guess; I can’t imagine that driverless vehicles are going to replace delivery drivers any time soon, especially since it’s a rather complex job for a glorified satnav to do on its own without any help.

Still, the Transport Minister is sticking to her guns, pointing out that a new research study found that many Brits would welcome the robo-cars on or nation’s roadways. Me, I’m not so sure – while I like the pure science-fiction of having an advanced computer capable of driving about in traffic, I’ve also seen all too many movies where the inevitable robot uprising occurs when artificially intelligent machines decide to murder or enslave the human race. I think I’d rather just have a few burly blokes motoring about in Ford Transits and getting into accidents than having to bend the knee to my new robotic overlords, don’t you?

The party’s over: insurance rates are going back up

Posted on by News Desk

VAN INSURANCE NEWS ROUNDUP: 7 DAYS ENDING 17 OCT 2014:

So much for good times: it looks like cheap insurance rates are coming to an end, thanks to a number of ‘perfect storm’ issues in the industry.

When it comes to car insurance costs, they’ve been down lately for the most part – and that’s a good thing. Whether you’re just commuting to and from the office every day or you get behind the wheel of a van to make deliveries or travel to work locations, you’ve got to keep your vehicle on the road. Paying your car insurance or van insurance is just one of those things you’ve got to do, and thankfully it’s been rather cheap lately – but now an insurance comparison sit says that the cost of comprehensive cover increased by £56 last month alone.

That might not seem like much, but keep in mind this rise took place over the a very short period of time. This could easily mean more steep rises in the future, and that means we’ll all be feeling the heat soon enough. So what caused the rate hike? Well industry experts say that insurers got themselves embroiled in a price war that ended up slashing premium prices unsustainably low – though insurers themselves like to blame fraud activity instead.

Insurance companies absolutely love to point the finger at scammers trying to get away with murder, and there’s some evidence of that this week as well. Apparently there was a spate of fraud perpetrated in County Tyrone that victimized some 40 people.

What happened? Well someone was selling false insurance certificates to area residents in order to turn a tidy profit. This is particularly egregious because there could be countless motorists driving around without proper insurance – and guess what happens to you if they end up pranging your Ford Transit whilst you’re trying to make a delivery!

I hear that someone’s been arrested under suspicion of being involved in the widespread scam, which makes me happy. If it turns out that he was the bastard behind the scam, there are about two score County Tyrone residents that would like a piece of him – and I don’t mean that figuratively. I’ll wager the fraudster will get torn limb-from-limb, and I honestly can’t say that I would feel bad for the bloke.

Insurers venture online – but is that a good thing or not?

Posted on by News Desk

VAN INSURANCE NEWS ROUNDUP: 7 DAYS ENDING 10 OCT 2014:

Shedloads of car and van insurance providers are moving towards more online-centric products and services, but how positive a move is this really in the end?

I know I sound like a bit of a Luddite in running down the Internet, especially when it comes to car insurance. I mean how many of us have used insurance comparison sites to get the best deals, right? Well more insurers are going online-only; the latest to do so has been Axa’s commercial insurance branch. We’re talking things like commercial van insurance and other business-centric types of cover here.

Axa says the idea is to keep its business line fit for purpose, especially since so many SMEs prefer to do things online instead of face-to-face. I can understand that I suppose, but the downside is that the insurer is making 31 of its staff members redundant in order to do so. Bad luck for them, isn’t it?

Meanwhile, another insurer with a big online presence was actually hacked recently. Asda Car Insurance suffered a pretty serious security breach, and whilst it turns out that sensitive personal details of Asda customers remained intact and unmolested, the company took the insurer’s website down in order to plug the security holes.

Obviously I’m relieved that nobody ended up with their identity being stolen or anything like that, but it’s one of those things that we have to worry about now; are the security features of your financial service providers up to date, or are they susceptible to criminals hacking into their databases and absconding with your name, address and heaven knows what else? I suppose the danger is unavoidable in the very interconnected day and age we live in, but at the same time it makes me feel that maybe all this digital-only, online cloud computing nonsense is just more trouble than its worth if firms can’t provide enough safeguards to keep consumers safe.

No, I’m not advocating a return to the old, offline way of doing things where there were shedloads of paper records kept in some centralised location, as that’s just inefficient and expensive. Still, I can’t quell that tremor deep in my soul whenever I hear about an insurer or other supposedly ‘secure’ financial services company getting hacked into by ne’er-do-wells looking for a few identities to usurp.

The insurance times, they are a-changing

Posted on by News Desk

VAN INSURANCE NEWS ROUNDUP: 7 DAYS ENDING 3 OCT 2014:

It’s time to start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone: the van insurance market landscape is changing drastically, both in the future and today as well.

With apologies to Bob Dylan, the truth is that the van and car insurance landscape is facing the kind of upheaval usually reserved for volcanic eruptions: not only has the venerable paper tax disc become a thing of the past, but there’s a good chance so will exclusive deals between insurance companies and insurance comparison sites.

Why are car and van insurance comparison sites getting an overhaul? Well it all has to do with the Competition and Markets Authority and how it’s finally chewed through all that data it’s been looking through over the past year or so. The CMA says that having insurers and comparison sites can’t be permitted to continue striking exclusive deals with one another any more. This is supposed to level the competition landscape with comparison sites, but I’m not entirely sure what it’s going to actually do for consumers like you and me.

Meanwhile the paper tax disc is no more in the UK as of this week. Once your existing tax disc is done you’re going to not get a new one when you pay your tax next; instead the fact that you paid will be stored electronically and will be passed on to the authorities whenever your license is looked up in their computerised systems. In other words you’re going to be spied upon by these little cameras that are being fitted to police cars that will scan your license plate while you’re in a car park or perhaps even waiting at a traffic light.

That’s right, you don’t have any privacy anymore anywhere in the UK. Yes, yes I know what you’re going to say: if you’ve got nothing to hide why worry? Listen, I’m not saying I’m planning on not paying my tax and will be trying to get away with it – I just don’t like authority figures looking up my personal details all higgelty piggelty. I suppose I just like my privacy.

Do we still have a right to privacy in the UK? I don’t know – I think the Tories might have taken that away. Not that the Lib Dems stopped them. What a bloody mess.

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