VAN INSURANCE NEWS ROUNDUP: 7 DAYS ENDING 2 JAN 2015:

Think dodging car insurance or van insurance is a low-profile crime? Think again – police forces around the UK are dealing with it in a public, humiliating way.

Sooner or later you’re going to run into some genius who thinks they can get away with not having their car or van insured. It’s a victimless crime, they might say, or that it’s such a private matter that no one will know. Well, if you’re thinking of following in their footsteps with your own car or commercial van insurance cover, think again – the police will find you, seize your vehicle, and shame you by putting it on display for all the world to see.

Or at least that’s what’s happening in Cheshire. The police in the town of Widnes have kicked off a campaign to raise awareness about what happens if you don’t pay your insurance premiums, and it involves putting seized vehicles on display for the world to see right outside Widnes Police Station.

For what it’s worth, I hope a programme like this spreads not just across Cheshire but the entirety of the UK. A nice, high profile reminder of how you can get your vehicle taken away from you if you think you’re above the law? It’s brilliant, and I can’t even begin to tell you how much I’ll relish licking the salty tears off the cheeks of all those numptys who think they were getting one over on all of us only to have their precious cars and vans forcibly taken from them.

Honestly now, you can’t say that you don’t know what happens to you if you wander off without bothering to pay for proper insurance on your vehicle. It’s bloody mandatory, for pity’s sake – and not only that, police have specialised equipment now to determine if you’re motoring about without proper cover now. There are databases that are linked with the insurance industry that the police have access to without even having to step out of their own vehicles. In other words, you will be found out and if you keep up with it you will end up getting your own vehicle seized. On top of that, you’ll have some hefty fines to pay – and now everyone will know what a skiving bastard you are.

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.

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?

VAN INSURANCE NEWS ROUNDUP: 7 DAYS ENDING 26 SEPT 2014:

Criminals are increasing their activity against van owners, especially when it comes to fraudulent van insurance claims – but that’s not all they’re up to.

The Freight Transport Association has put out the warning for the white van man to be on the lookout for commercial van insurance scammers. Criminals are apparently targeting van drivers in crash for cash fraud, and there’s evidence to back this up – official figures say that this type of car insurance fraud has gone up by 50 per cent over the last 12 months.

These criminals target van drivers in particular because they’re thought of as ‘easy prey,’ the FTA says. The trade industry body said the best way to combat against these bastards is to get your fleet fitted with dashboard cameras so these criminals can be caught in the act, and it sounds like a good idea for me – it’s hard to claim injury against an insurer when there’s video evidence of you slamming on your brakes to purposefully cause a rear-end shunt with the van behind you!

Meanwhile, not every criminal out there is a devious mastermind. In fact, some are absolutely thick. If you haven’t heard this next story yet, you’re going to be flummoxed: apparently a teenager nicked someone’s Transit van and went for a joyride on the M11.

Not entirely newsworthy on the face of it, is it? Well hold on to your knickers: this little bastard went the wrong way down the motorway, and not just for a few hundred feet, either – he went 40 bloody miles before he was finally caught by the authorities.

Yes, you read that right: 40 miles. This fine specimen of humanity, a 19 year old who’s been working as a labourer since the age of 13 when he left school, didn’t even have a proper driving license. It’s more than obvious that he wasn’t insured either, of course, but the good news is this pillock is now behind bars for the next 15 months.

Just goes to show you, boys and girls: stay in school. And don’t do drugs, either. Well that last bit is speculation on my part, but you know this fine upstanding citizen wasn’t in his right mind at the time – would it surprise anyone to discover he was a bit out of his mind on pharmaceuticals as well?

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

Van insurance and car insurance firms love to point the finger at high claims volume when it comes to rising rates, but how accurate is that really?

There’s nothing quite so depressing as hearing from a major provider of car insurance and commercial van insurance that it’s going to be come much more expensive soon to insure your vehicle. And this is exactly what some major insurers have said, which means the low rates we’re experiencing right now are likely at an end – but the reasons these rates are rising might surprise you.

Most insurers will say that it’s because their outgoings are outstripping their incomes. In fact, insurance giant Aviva recently said this week that a full 74 per cent of premiums collected from its customers go right back out the door to pay for insurance claims. This is also, not so coincidentally, why insurers constantly whinge about how claims fraud drives them mad because it increases the amount of money they have to spend on claims overall – and Aviva just reiterated this. They also said that if anyone is going to complain about increasing rates they should point the finger at road traffic accidents instead.

Meanwhile another major insurer said that it might be the industry’s fault itself that rates are about to rocket upwards. In a rare flash of honesty, large-scale British insurer Admiral said that the rampant price war that’s been driving premiums down over the past few years is likely playing a serious role in why rates are about to get pricier.

Apparently Admiral says that it’s simply not pulling in enough cash to pay for its operating costs, even though it’s been growing its market share rather considerably. The driving force behind this is the cut-rate premiums it’s been offering to new customers, and since every other insurer is trying to remain competitive it means that the majority of firms are likely in the same boat.

So there you have it – it might not just be the fault of claims activity and fraud. It’s really the fault of the industry as a whole, as their greed outstripped their common sense when it came to market share. Apparently none of these insurance providers have anyone working for them that took a bloody economics class in university.

VAN INSURANCE NEWS ROUNDUP: 7 DAYS ENDING 22 AUG 2014:

One major car insurance provider recently rained on everyone’s parade recently, remarking that the good times are nearly over when it comes to cheaper rates.

Industry juggernaut Admiral, infamous for cornering the market for car and van insurance, said recently that despite the fact that insurance rates have reached amazing lows lately the party could be over before we know it. Whilst a more conspiratorially-minded individual might interpret this as a threat that Admiral is going to choose to increase their rates, I don’t think this is the case – I simply think that the insurance giant is remarking that the industry in general is likely to have no choice but to raise rates in order to remain profitable.

Yes, there may be stories of other car and commercial van insurance providers such as Direct Line turning a profit even as rates decline, but in instances like this their steady income growth is more due to cutting their costs by a wide margin than anything else. And let’s be honest here – rates are almost ludicrously low on average. In fact a new press release from the British Insurance Brokers’ Association claims that there’s been an overall 5.6 per cent drop in insurance pricing – or if you take inflation into account, an even 7 per cent drop. This is of course a fantastic bit of news, considering we haven’t seen rates like this for vehicle insurance since 2010 or so, but unfortunately the news is overshadowed by Admiral’s dire portents.

So what’s a responsible vehicle owner to do? Well there’s not much to do, honestly, except ensure that you lock in your premium pricing for the year as soon as possible. If you ask me, if you don’t shop around when your renewal comes up this year you’re going to be sorely disappointed a year from now when your rates go up by an eye-watering margin and you find out you missed out on some significant savings. This could be your last chance for many insurance cycles to come, so don’t do something – or fail to do something – you’re gong to regret later on. It’s expensive enough to keep a vehicle on the road as it is without having to pay through the nose for insurance as well!