Car and van insurance premiums poised to increase yet again

VAN INSURANCE NEWS ROUNDUP: 7 DAYS ENDING 3 APRIL 2015:

Car insurance and van insurance premiums are poised to increase yet again thanks to a lack of competition between insurers, analysts say. Are we having fun yet?

According to some research from an insurance comparison site, the average premium price across every age group stood at £561.10 in February 2015. This is up by £21.90 from last year’s average – and once again the country’s youngest motorists are being hammered the hardest.

Whether it’s for a personal insurance policy or one for commercial van insurance, drivers under the age of 21 pay an average of more than £1,420. This is an increase of nearly £20 in and of itself from January to February – and it’s something close to 376 per cent higher than the under £300 someone between the ages of 50 and 64 would end up paying.

So what in the world is causing these insane increases? Well on a yearly basis December is usually the point in the year when competition drops to its lowest point. This recovers in both January and February, but bounce back in 2015 has been abysmal compared to years past – with lowered competition, insurance companies don’t really have any reason to provide good rates because well to hell with you if you’re a customer.

Believe it or not, many analysts say that dropping petrol prices naturally lead to premium increases as well. This seems patently unfair, as pain at the pump has been widespread for far too long and it’s nice to finally see a litre of petrol not costing you an arm and a leg when you pull in to your local garage, but insurers feel that cheaper petrol means drivers feel comfortable driving more since it’s no longer as expensive to fill the tank. More drivers on the road for longer leads to more potential accidents, so insurers hedge their bets against that. So much for that nice country drive this spring, eh?

 

 

Google gets into the insurance comparison business

VAN INSURANCE NEWS ROUNDUP: 7 DAYS ENDING 6 MARCH 2015:

Well here’s something that certainly took long enough: Internet giant Google has finally poked its head into the car and van insurance comparison business.

Using a comparison site to look into getting discount insurance is nothing new here in the UK of course, as you can’t swing a cat without hitting an aggregator site that promises to pull quotes from tens of insurers all at once so you don’t have to do it on your own the old-fashioned way. Apparently though it’s not the same across the pond, as the United States doesn’t really have anything similar for their own personal or commercial van insurance needs. This is likely because each US state, from Alabama to Washington, all have different insurance laws that aren’t interchangeable.

Still, nothing was necessarily preventing a firm from setting up a comparison website on a state-by-state basis, and this is exactly what Google has done. Its new Google Compare service is focused on its home state of California for now, but the firm promises to expand its offerings to additional states down the road; the service works more or less identically to a comparison site here at home, with the added benefit that it’s not actually owned by an insurance company itself.

Honestly if Google wanted to get into the insurance comparison business, it should have started over here in the UK. We could always use more competition, especially considering how rates seem to be heading up once again. Still, it’s nice to think that we were ahead of those bloody colonists for once, though I suppose it was only a matter of time before those enterprising little bastards caught up to us.

Still, we did it first – we can at least rest assured that we have the top spot there. We also don’t have to renew our cover twice a year like most Americans do either – could you believe that most insurance policies in the US need to be renewed every six months? Not only that, but almost all Americans prefer to pay their premiums on instalment instead of all at once – don’t they know that it’s more expensive to do it that way?

Well, they wanted to be their own country. I’m washing my hands of the whole thing.

Prepare for a 10 per cent premium hike this year, AA says

VAN INSURANCE NEWS ROUNDUP: 7 DAYS ENDING 23 JAN 2015:

Brace yourselves, blokes: the AA says drivers can see car insurance and van insurance premiums go up by around 10 per cent over the coming year.

The slow creep upwards for premium prices – even those found on insurance comparison sites – has already begun. In fact, the motoring organisation says that the last three months of 2014 saw an 0.2 per cent increase, with the price of the average motorist’s cover rising to a cost of £540.

On the one hand, this is around £200 lower than the high-water mark in 2011, certainly a bad year for more or less anyone and everyone who had to get behind the wheel. Still, the AA says that this year’s going to see some substantial price increases nevertheless, even with the mount of competition within the insurance provision sector

Meanwhile, to add insult to injury petrol prices keep coming down – something that makes it worse for motorists as insurers assume everyone will be driving about more. This means the number of accidents is likely to increase, which leads to more insurance payouts – so your favourite neighbourhood insurance company has been preparing to jack up its rates to counteract the supposed effect.

Is it fair? Of course not. At the same time, is there anything you can do about it? Well you can stop auto-renewing like a pillock every year, considering how much insurers hike up premiums on ‘loyal’ customers who hang about for more than 12 months. Of course doing that isn’t going to guarantee you get fantastic cut-rate insurance cover – just that you won’t be so buggered as the next bloke who just keeps renewing with one of the big insurers year in and year out.

Other than that? Well it’s pretty much suffer in silence. Switch to telematics, if you think it will help – unless you’re rubbish behind the wheel, as you’ll end up paying more instead of paying less. Or just sell the Astra and take public transport like the rest of us, you spoiled bastard. Think of the money you’ll save on petrol and insurance premiums! So what if you have to ride the bus with the rest of the unwashed masses?

2014 in review: enjoy it while it lasts

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

New data for 2014 in total shows that car and van insurance rates fell for the year – but experts say don’t get used to the phenomenon.

The cost of motoring seems to go up and down like a child’s yo-yo toy, doesn’t it? Between the price of a litre of petrol and the constantly fluctuating car insurance premium prices we’re all subject to, it’s a wonder anyone has any money left over for anything else at the end of the year. Still, there’s good news for drivers, as an insurance comparison site just did some maths and came up with some cheerful figures: the average premium price dropped by more than 6 per cent over the course of 2014. Not only back, but that builds on the back of 2013’s 3.2 per cent drop and 2012’s 2.6 per cent decrease as well. Combine that with petrol prices trending downwards and there are some happy chappies out there when it comes to motoring costs!

Of course, nothing lasts forever – and industry analysts are already raining on our parade by warning how things are likely to take a turn for the worse in the New Year. Those premium prices might have bottomed out this December, as data shows averages were some 0.7 per cent higher than they were 12 months before that. In other words, it looks like the costs of annual cover is likely to begin trending upwards at least, though petrol prices are likely to remain low for a bit longer.

So why the roller coaster? The casualties of a price war amongst insurance companies, analysts say. Everyone’s been jockeying for position, and they’ve all been slashing their prices precipitously, only to suddenly realise they’ve cut back so far that they can’t sustain their business this way. This means prices are going to come up, up, up in the New Year.

However, you’ll still be likely to get a good deal if you switch providers soon. Insurers will likely leave their cut-rate premium prices for last and simply jack up the rates for their existing customers, as is their wont. When you start seeing higher prices for new customers, then you know we’ve arrived in the thick of it.

Do you want the good news first or the bad news?

VAN INSURANCE NEWS ROUNDUP: 7 DAYS ENDING 19 DEC 2014:

Well, it looks like there’s good news and there’s bad news when it comes to car insurance and van insurance costs in the UK. I hope you’re sitting down!

So here’s the bad news: a insurance comparison site recently found that comprehensive insurance costs went up last month. It wasn’t much – maybe around 0.3 per cent in the end – but it’s just one more nail in the coffin when it comes to the idea of dropping insurance costs. In fact, this is the third month in a row prices have gone up to the tune of around 2.1 per cent.

Again this is truly a drop in the bucket when it comes to the last three years of insurance price cuts that saw the industry shed 32.5 per cent of prices. So it’s kind of like the beginning of the end; have you ever been right atop a roller coaster before it plummets down at breakneck speed? It’s kind of like that right now, only with the amount of money you’ll have left over after prices start creeping up and not anything to deal with adrenaline or having a pleasant time.

So that’s the bad news; now for the good news. Oil prices, that have been in freefall for quite some time, could drive petrol prices under the £1 per litre threshold in the coming New Year. If you’re keeping score at home, the last time we had that kind of action on petrol was May of 2009!

So yes, the bad news is that we’re likely to see some insurance prices continue to ratchet up further and further as time goes on over the next few months or even years. However, with the price of petrol set to drop below £1 we could all see a bit less pain at the pump when we pull into the garage to top off our fuel tanks. It’s not the best alternative – especially since petrol prices do fluctuate that badly – but truly it’s better than nothing, isn’t it?

Well, most likely not. However, if you keep telling yourself that perhaps you’ll start believing it sooner or later, eh? I know it sounds cynical and bitter; what can I say besides ‘guilty as charged?’

Consumer laziness costs when it comes to insurance costs

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!

So which way are insurance premiums actually going?

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

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

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

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.

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