Tag: cheap van insurance

This is why you can’t have nice things – like low rates

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VAN INSURANCE NEWS ROUNDUP: 7 DAYS ENDING 5 SEPT 2014:

If you’re wondering why you can’t get a cheap van insurance quote, it could be you’re in the wrong line of work – or you’re a moron and auto-renew your cover.

Did I get your attention? Good. There’s a bloody epidemic when it comes to paying through the nose for van or car insurance in this country, and this month is one of the worst for its spread. You might not be able to do much about your chosen profession but there is something you can do about automatically renewing your cover for next year: just don’t do it, you bloody pillock.

September is one of those months where a large proportion of vehicle owners renew their annual cover, and it turns out that simply auto-renewing your cover with your existing provider is one of the worst things you can do. Well it is if you’re trying to save money; if you enjoy paying an arm and a leg for your van insurance go ahead and auto-renew if you like, but most sane Brits don’t like paying more than they have to.

Don’t believe me? Well new research found last year that Brits auto-renewing lost out on a collective £2 billion by not shopping around for more affordable cover. It doesn’t matter if you’re looking for third party cover for your Vauxhall Astra or you need commercial van insurance for your Ford Galaxy – no one has ever saved money by not switching insurers. In other words, do yourself a favour and shop around if your insurance is due to renew this month.

And if you’re in the medical field, you might think about changing professions. Independent research this week also discovered that, from a statistical standpoint surgeons and other medical professionals are the most accident-prone out of all British professionals. This means your insurance is likely to be higher if you’re one of the lucky few that get to save lives all day. What a lovely reward for all your hard work and sleepless nights, isn’t it?

Well if you’re interested you can always become a clerk somewhere instead. Sure you might not be able to afford that BMW any more but at least the insurance on your secondhand Nissan Micra will be quite affordable!

Finding cheap van insurance soon to be least of our problems

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VAN INSURANCE NEWS ROUNDUP: 7 DAYS ENDING 4 APRIL 2014:

Everyone knows how hard it is to find cheap van insurance nowadays, but if the rumours are true it looks like that’s going to be the least of our problems soon!

In fact, I know this is going to sound absolutely mad but I swear I’m not trying to take the piss out of you: there are new fears amongst car insurance and van insurance providers that the development of driverless vehicles is going to completely destroy the insurance industry. That’s right, that new self-driving Google or GM-powered car is going to bankrupt insurance providers, based on, well, pure speculation really.

Insurers are declaring the sky is falling because regions in the UK like Milton Keynes are setting aside specialised roadways for testing driverless vehicles in the coming years. Apparently this is just the first domino to fall that will spell the end of motorists driving their own cars, as far as insurers are concerned – and this means human error will be taken out of the picture when it comes to calculating insurance premiums. No more will it matter if you’re a certain age or live in a particular postcode, as you won’t be doing the driving any more – and this apparently fills insurers with terrible fear that they’ll go out of business for lack of funds.

This is of course incredibly stupid. The idea that driverless cars are going to completely replace vehicles that require human interaction – and that it will happen overnight – is daft. You’re telling me the white van man is going to be replaced by a robotic lorry driver? Pull the other one!

Meanwhile, if you’re in the business of landscaping and you’ve already got a large van with a trailer that you motor about to different homes in order to trim the verge and cut the lawn, you might be shaking your head at this bit of unrelated news: a new EU ruling could end up making you responsible for keeping motor insurance on any ride-on mowers you might have.

This isn’t just limited to commercial landscapers and gardeners, either – apparently anyone who owns a ride-on mower to keep their garden looking nicely trimmed could have to take out a policy as well, even if the bloody thing never even does anything but barely kisses the pavement as you back it into your garage or garden shed. All because of a court case going on in Luxembourg right now involving some daft bastard who was driving his ride-on mower on a motorway and who ended up in an accident. Lucky us, eh?

Postcode prejudice and redlining here and across the pond

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VAN INSURANCE NEWS ROUNDUP: 7 DAYS ENDING 25 JULY 2014:

If you’re looking for cheap van insurance, guess what: you could end up paying through the nose just because you’re in the wrong postcode, my friend.

Rumours have been swirling forever about how insurers use arbitrary reasons such as your postcode to decide if you’re going to be offered affordable van insurance or car insurance or if you’re going to be slapped with a massive premium price. Well, new research has revealed that postcode prejudice is real and factual: the worst postcodes for high rates just happen to be grouped in Birmingham.

Did you happen to see that Channel Four documentary called Benefits Street? It was about how the number of Brits living on or near James Turner Street on the dole are through the roof – and it turns out that living in close proximity to Benefits Street, whether or not you’re receiving benefits, practically guarantees you insurance premium pricing so high as to be eye-watering. More than 20 per cent of the worst 100 British postcodes for high car and commercial van insurance premiums are within a stone’s throw of James Turner Street, so it doesn’t matter how conscientious a driver you may be: your postcode has sealed your fate.

For what it’s worth, I find a practice like this completely reprehensible on the part of insurers. Sadly it’s all too common – and not just here at home. American insurers do exactly the same thing. When it comes to US postcodes – known as zipcodes across the pond – American insurers intentionally carve out high rate areas by grouping zipcodes with a high concentration of lower socioeconomic classes together and charging them rates that are much higher. It’s known as redlining within the industry, and it’s akin to institutionalised discrimination, especially since so many of these zipcodes are home to not just low-income Americans but minority populations as well.

Yet somehow all of this is legal and accepted, both in the US and at home in the UK. I don’t see how this could possibly be just, but I also don’t see anyone else drawing attention to it or complaining about it. Who’s going to stand up to these insurers and tell them they can’t victimise people in this manner?

Not even new DVLA database will save the white van man

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VAN INSURANCE NEWS ROUNDUP: 7 DAYS ENDING 18 JULY 2014:

The DVLA’s new database, which goes live next month, is rumoured to save every motorist as much as £15 on their insurance, but will it help the white van man?

When it comes to paying for car insurance or commercial van insurance, whatever drops premium prices is a good deal. Finding discount car insurance or cheap van insurance is always a challenge, and thanks to the new database linking to insurers directly, now a provider doesn’t have to take the word of drivers for granted when it comes to how many points they have on their licence – the information will be furnished to them directly. It will lead to more accurate premium pricing, and the average driver will save modestly on the cost of their cover.

However, whilst this new programme may have an overall positive effect on motorists’ wallets, cash for crash fraud is still a major problem in the UK – especially because van drivers are increasingly being targeted. New research released this week revealed how Birmingham is one of the worst places for car insurance fraud, and criminals have developed an insidious way to trick van drivers into getting into accidents deliberately.

The fraudsters are allegedly causing vehicles of all types to enter into a junction by flashing their headlights at them, ostensibly to give a silent signal to go ahead, only to then speed into them and orchestrate an accident they will then say was caused by the other driver. The scammer claims they never flashed their headlights, and when it’s one person’s word against another, most of those innocent drivers that end up getting tricked also end up getting the short end of the stick.

The result is a costly insurance claim against the innocent driver’s insurance company. This hikes rates for the van driver specifically and also ends up impacting all of us, as the more this fraud occurs the more insurers end up paying out to these criminals – and that leads to higher operating costs that need to be recuperated by raising rates across the board. Suddenly that £15 price drop from the new DVLA database seems less than useless doesn’t it?

At any rate, if you’re a van driver in Birmingham – or really anywhere, take it with a grain of salt if someone flashes their headlights at you whilst waiting at a junction. Like Admiral Ackbar likes to say, ‘it’s a trap!’

Cheap van insurance? Not if you live in Birmingham

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VAN INSURANCE NEWS ROUNDUP: 7 DAYS ENDING 4 JULY 2014:

Birmingham has been declared the worst place to get a good deal on your motor cover, whether it be car insurance or commercial van insurance.

If you think you’ll be able to buck the trend and get cheap van insurance if you live in or near Birmingham city centre, think again – new research has revealed the city is one of the absolute worst spots in the UK when it comes to car accident claims. Things have gotten so bad that the gap between Birmingham and Aberdeen  – the city with the cheapest insurance overall – is more like a yawning gulf; insurance is seven times cheaper in the northern city in comparison, and that’s no laughing matter in the least!

Things are so bad in Birmingham that it’s actually become bizarre and surreal. In fact just this week a news story broke about how police pulled over a very strange car on the M42, right near junction 4, after they saw its rear window was missing. It wasn’t just missing though – it had actually been replaced with a superhero-style cape that had been left to flap heroically in the breeze as the rather ratty-looking Peugeot 106 motored by.

Things got even more strange when the police actually stopped the vehicle, though. It turns out both the driver and the passenger were dressed up in Superman costumes. Yes, the Man of Steel and apparently his stunt double had decided to take a nice drive in a particularly conspicuous vehicle. It turns out that neither of the two blokes had proper insurance for the vehicle, so that was the end of that particular adventure for that pair of jokers.

It may seem like a harmless prank but driving without insurance is one of those things that drives up insurance prices for everyone – especially if these two pillocks would have ended up getting into a road traffic accident. Insurers have to shoulder the cost of uninsured drivers themselves, and that means increased costs for them; the knock-on effect is of course higher premiums for everyone. With Birmingham being the epicentre for this kind of behaviour it’s only natural that the city is the worst place to keep a vehicle when it comes to insurance costs.

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!

Cut your costs however you can – fraud is driving prices up

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VAN INSURANCE NEWS ROUNDUP: 7 DAYS ENDING 19 june 2013:

If you’re looking for cheap van insurance, good luck to you: with fraud running rampant, your best bet to reduce your motoring costs is to find a cheap vehicle!

In fact, there’s been a movement lately in the news towards alerting consumers to ways in which they can save money by not necessarily finding cheaper insurance cover but by finding instead ways to reduce the cost of keeping a vehicle overall such as keeping your tyres inflated to increase your fuel efficiency. Honestly that will work but if you’re really looking to save cash, I think your best bet is to look instead for vehicles that are otherwise cheap to own and operate.

There are plenty of good choices when it comes to commercial vehicles as well as personal cars. With commercial van insurance being so damned expensive, choosing a vehicle such as a Vauxhall Combo Crew or a Fiat Fiorino will result in much less costs while still providing plenty of cargo space; for example the Fiorino has an ultra-low £20 annual road tax thanks to its minuscule CO2 emissions, and while the Vauxhall’s road tax might be much higher the vehicle boasts an incredibly high 58 mpg fuel efficiency, which means you’ll make fewer trips to the garage and feel less pain at the pump!

You really do need to make smart choices like this when it comes to your van, especially because everyone else in the UK seems to be making absolutely horrid ones. Can you believe that a new survey just revealed as many as 60 per cent of the whiplash claims made against insurance companies are made up or completely fraudulent?

Well, it’s true – the study found that if you’re not exaggerating how injured you were in a road traffic accident – especially one where whiplash is being claimed – you’re likely to be making it up altogether. There’s 1,500 or so whiplash claims made every single day in the UK – an eye-watering figure if you ask me – and if more than half of them are even slightly exaggerated, the nation’s insurers are over-paying on their injury claims; this generates shedloads of extra costs that the honest motorist has to end up eating in the form of higher and higher premium prices every year at renewal.

It makes me so cross to think these selfish bastards are ruining it for the rest of us. Yes I understand that the economy is in a shambles, but trying to extort extra cash from an insurer is the farthest thing from a victimless crime when my own premiums keep going up year on year!

Van seized in police check on the A24

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Van insurance news roundup: 7 days ending 17 Feb 2013:

Hold on to your hats, ladies and gentlemen: this week saw the A24 slow to a crawl thanks to a random police check that saw cars pulled over and one van seized!

The fun and games began this past Thursday in Ashtead, where police flagged down a total of 40 drivers for so-called ‘suspicious’ vehicles. I don’t know what police say when they say suspicious, but it seemed to have worked as nearly half of those pulled over left with traffic offences, while two vehicles were in such bad repair that their drivers were told to not put them back on the road until their faults were taken care of.

The star of the show was the white Ford transit van that was told to pulled over after authorities spied that the passenger wasn’t wearing their seat belt, besides the fact that they were an adult and should know better. Things got even more hilarious once it was discovered that the vehicle’s van insurance didn’t cover the driver.

The driver, a Lithuanian national whose name wasn’t released to the press – perhaps because most Brits can’t quite master the spelling and pronouncing a foreign name – now has a record for driving without proper insurance cover. He most likely got off rather easily, considering the owner of the van now has to cope with his vehicle being seized until the whole situation is sorted, so let that be a warning to anyone who thinks you can get one over on the police: they’re watching, and you’re going to end up walking if you’re not going to get yourself at least a cheap van insurance policy for your vehicle.

In related news – and the whole reason the cops are out in force and able to catch those that are a bit thick and think that ‘compulsory’ car insurance doesn’t apply to them – is that Continuous Enforcement rules have been in effect for quite some time. Not only that, but there are new technological advances that have been brought forward specifically to help local police forces catch those who are flouting the new law.

In fact, new automated licence plate readers can scan thousands of cars in very little time, even while they’re in motion, and then query a new centralised insurance database to cross-check for vehicles that are registered but aren’t legally permitted to be on the nation’s roads. It’s just one more reason to follow the law, as you can’t hide any longer even if you tried to!

Don’t think police are targeting van drivers? Think again.

Posted on by News Desk

One 40 year old woman caught driving her van without valid insurance recently had her vehicle seized right out from under her for violating continuous enforcement laws.

Last week we warned that you’d better get your ducks in a row when it comes to securing commercial van insurance or risk your vehicle being seized, but apparently the message hasn’t sunk in yet.  Well, here’s proof that we know what we’re talking about: a Coxheath woman was caught driving without van insurance, was issued a £200 fixed penalty, given six points on her licence… and had her van yanked out from under her for her sins.

The whole incident occurred on 3 August, where Joanna Watts, local Police Community Support Officer, received a report of a ‘suspicious vehicle’ in Coxheath Village Hall’s car park. PSCO Watts investigated and the rest is history.

Obviously the driver of the van wasn’t a loyal reader of this website – otherwise she would have known that getting behind the wheel of her van without the proper insurance cover was not a particularly bright thing to do. Still, it doesn’t matter how many times British van owners are warned, as there’s always someone out there who thinks they won’t be caught and can avoid having to pay for even cheap van insurance; go ahead and see how well that plan will work.

The bottom line is a very simple one: sort out your insurance requirements before you’re stuck having to take public transport everywhere because you couldn’t be bothered to do it.

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