Tag: van insurance

Do yourself a favour and stay off the roadways!

Posted on by News Desk

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

Posted on by News Desk

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

Posted on by News Desk

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!

You’re officially paying too much for your van insurance

Posted on by News Desk

Van insurance news roundup: 7 days ending 20 Dec 2013:

Well, it’s finally a matter of the official record: you are literally paying more than you should be for van insurance, even if you somehow got a good quote.

How can I say that with so much certainty? Well I mean everyone knows that van and car insurance companies charge you an arm and a leg, but most of the time this has meant just impotent complaining. However, this time things are different: the Competition Commission itself has finally weighed in, declaring that we’re all being taken to the cleaners by the insurance industry – and the methods insurers use to crank up the prices may come as a bit of a shock.

The Commission discovered that whether it’s a car insurance or commercial van insurance provider, they have probably been ratcheting up their premium prices in order to cover the costs they incur in over-charging their customers when it comes to car hire and repair bills.

It’s more or less a scam if you ask me, and it works brilliantly: insurers have substandard parts and shoddy workmanship to repair damaged cars and then charge full-price to whomever was at fault in the accident. The same goes for car hire costs as well – insurers inflate these costs in order to line their own pockets – and the end result is massive rate hikes for unsuspecting drivers.

The Competition Commission was quick to condemn the practice – as they should have – but the insurance industry responded to the publication of the report as well. Unsurprisingly the industry tried to spin the results to make them appear more favourable or to garner some sympathy; while the Commission recommended regulatory action be taken in order to stamp out this price-gouging behaviour on the part of the industry, repair service and car hire firms have been quick to say that any new regulations may endanger the ability of these companies to make a living!.

This is of course patently ridiculous. Only in the insurance industry can you catch a company with their hand in the cookie jar and have them vehemently deny any wrongdoing. Typical if you ask me!

Nothing like a little moral turpitude amongst insurers

Posted on by News Desk

Van insurance news roundup: 7 days ending 13 Dec 2013:

Now I’ll be the first person to say that most car insurance and van insurance companies aren’t pillars of the community, but there are at least some standards.

Or there were at one time, but now they’re gone. I’m not namig names here, but apparently there’s been some insurance comparison website going around Tweeting responses to news of the death of actor Paul Walker in an horrific car crash. The tasteless Tweets are replying by asking questions like ‘I wonder if he had insurance?’ with a link to the car insurance comparison company’s website.

Can you imagine the absolute insanity of whatever marketing and advertising bigwig thought that such an advert campaign would be considered a good idea? It’s absolutely disgusting on so many levels I can’t even begin to comprehend it. Bravo, you nameless insurance company, for capitalising on the tragic death of a movie star in a way that would make even the Daily Mail blush!

Of course not every campaign is so heavy-handed and outright offensive. There’s a god counterpoint to all this horror, and that’s how insurance providers in the UK have been pushing hard for the adoption of new legislation to make British roads safer, especially for younger Brits.

Yes, it’s true that there’s some self-interest here, as the more accidents that occur in the UK the more these insurers would have to pay out to injured victims, but with new information coming to light that 25 per cent of Brits have been involved in some sort of an accident, this figure is just too high – and insurers are justified in reducing the number of car crashes that occur on motorways in the UK.

Notice the difference, though – there’s no crass commercialisaiton here, is there? What a pleasant change from riding the coattails of a flaming wreck of a car where two men tragically lost their lives. And yes, I’m sure that vehicle was insured, you smug bastards.

Who do you trust when insurers work to defraud customers?

Posted on by News Desk

Van insurance news roundup: 7 days ending 6 Dec 2013:

So I’m not going to sit here and say that customers never defraud car and van insurance companies, but when insurers try to trick customers? Game over, man.

So yes, I’ll readily admit that it’s not a surprise at all that London police broke up a car insurance fraud ring recently. I didn’t even bat an eye when I found up that cars worth nearly £1 million were confiscated either, as it’s sad but true that the kind of highly organised fraud involving car hire firms and invalid fleet insurance is something that happens quite often. I am a bit surprised that these bastards got caught, but I’m also glad to know that they’re finally off the street inflating insurance costs for everyone.

However, what did grab my attention this week is was a story out of Northern Ireland where it seems that large-scale insurance companies might be trying to get one over on their customers by trying the whole bait and switch when it comes to repairing damaged vehicles. Reports are rolling in that some garage mechanics have been approached clandestinely by major insurers like Axa and asked if they wouldn’t mind replacing a piece of damaged car or van equipment with a cheaper – and lower-quality – replica part without telling the customer.

Now naturally any mechanic that’s worth his salt would tell an insurer asking them this to jog on, and that’s exactly what’s happening, though mechanics are being polite about it. Usually they’ll say ‘oh I’d be happy to, let me just check with the owner first,’ and then the insurer says, ‘oh, never mind then’ and slinks off somewhere, presumably to twirl its long, rakish mustache in the dark.

What’s the big deal about replica parts? Well it’s common knowledge that they’re much cheaper than an replacement part manufactured by the vehicle’s original equipment manufacturer, but it’s also a widely held belief that replica parts are often absolute rubbish. Insurers are simply trying to save money in any way they can – something I can appreciate – but trying to do it without their customers finding out is absolutely infuriating. Well, hopefully dragging these wriggling worms out into the light of day like this will prevent the behaviour from recurring in the future, but I wouldn’t hold my breath – would you?

Can you trust comparison sites?

Posted on by News Desk

Van insurance news roundup: 7 days ending 29 Nov 2013:

If you’re looking for a deal on your van insurance or car insurance, comparison websites are the way to go – or are they?

Well, according to the Financial Conduct Authority, there could be evidence out there that comparison sites are taking us all for a ride. To that end the FCA is going to conduct a thorough investigation into the sector, making sure that we’re not being taken advantage of by the insurance industry.

Is it just me or is the FCA completely missing the point? We’re already being taken advantage of by insurers – that’s exactly why we use comparison sites to try to reclaim some of our independence! Comparison sites allow us to hold up all these awful, overpriced deals from all sorts of insurers; whether you’re looking for commercial van insurance or you’re trying to find good home insurance cover, there’s a comparison site out there that can aid you in picking the best option out of even the worst choices.

It’s not a perfect arrangement, and sure there could be comparison sites out there looking to pull the wool over the eyes of their customers, but it’s go with the devil you know instead of risking the unknown. Besides, insurance comparison sites do more good than harm, especially at times of the year like now when winter is approaching, according to a new report released by Asda Money.

The report urged drivers to winterise their vehicles before the weather turns absolutely horrid, and it’s a good idea to get those winter weather tyres fitted now rather than when there’s already a foot and a half of snow on the ground. The report also pointed out how it can be helpful to check your insurance cover to see if it offers breakdown cover – something that you usually have to get from an organisation like the AA or the RAC otherwise.

Having cover like that included in your policy means not having to pay out of pocket for additional cover through a motoring organisation. It saves you money. It’s a good thing. And using a comparison site will make it easy to choose an insurer that offers breakdown cover. So get off the industry’s back, already, FCA; you’re not doing anyone any favours.

Good luck finding lowered rates even now

Posted on by News Desk

Van insurance news roundup: 7 days ending 22 Nov 2013:

So here’s the irony of the century: insurance rates are finally dropping, but if you’re a younger driver you’re still up the creek without a paddle.

It’s bloody frustrating, isn’t it? Heavens forbid you scrimp and save and decide to go into business for yourself as a white van man – you’re going to be hard pressed to not have to pay out through the nose on commercial van insurance. If you were a bit older, it wouldn’t be that much of a problem, but younger Brits are are left absolutely gutted when it was revealed that their older counterparts pay, proportionately, one third of what they end up paying for the same level of cover.

Pretty bad, right? Well don’t worry, it gets worse – much, much worse. Car insurance scammers are targeting younger Brits in droves by tricking them into throwing away their money on what turns out to be fake insurance. In other words, younger Brits are paying way too much for insurance cover and are also shelling out thousands to criminals that are tricking them into doing so.

Welcome to the wonderful world of ghost brokers, those criminals that pretend to be an actual car or van insurance broker in order to defraud innocent customers. Ghost brokers take the cash of their targets and then supply them with forged insurance paperwork, all before melting into the shadows with their ill-gotten gains.

Do you have any idea what happens to you if you’re caught driving without proper cover? It doesn’t matter if you were fooled by a ghost broker and you thought you were just fine – you’re so well buggered that you might as well be living in ancient Greece. It’s even worse if you only found out about this after being involved in an accident, as not only do you have to face the facts that you’re going to be penalised for driving without proper insurance but you’re also going to have no recourse for getting your vehicle repaired without paying out of pocket. Not only that, but if there are any injuries that arose from your accident, you don’t have the security of knowing that your insurer will take care of any compensation there. No sir, you are well and truly screwed, all because of these sneaky little ghost broking bastards.

Make sure your drivers toe the line, experts say

Posted on by News Desk

Van insurance news roundup: 7 days ending 15 Nov 2013:

This week van insurance experts have pointed out how important it is to keep your commercial fleets safe; to do that, you may need to keep your drivers in line.

No one likes the idea of their bosses spying on them all the time, but sometimes it’s for the best. Or at least that’s what commercial van insurance experts are saying this week, as they pointed out that any firm that neglects to keep a close eye on the behaviour of their drivers is going to end up in hot water sometime down the road.

Industry experts predict that telematics-based car insurance technology and dashboard-mounted camera systems are gaining so much traction that it’s going to be a foregone conclusion soon that you’re being deliberately ignorant by not fitting your fleet vehicles with the technology.

Honestly I can see what they’re getting at – the last thing a delivery company needs is to have to fend off lawsuits where there’s physical evidence of negligence on the part of their drivers. It does seem like a bit of an invasion of privacy, but at the same time if you don’t like working for that firm I suppose you can jog on and find a different job elsewhere, eh?

Of course there’s more than just the prevention of legal bills that experts say telematics surveillance systems can accomplish. In fact, one chauffeur company’s 460-vehicle fleet that’s been fitted with dash cams, is set to save as much as £60,000 in just 12 short months following the installation.

The new initiative was started this past May, according to its fleet manager, and the man has already seen some market improvements to things like their liability in the case of fraudulent road traffic accident claims brought against them.

For what it’s worth, £60,000 in savings is no small bit of change. I know that I may not be making any friends within the white van man community for saying this, but it could be worth the inconvenience and violation of privacy to fit as many vehicles as possible with dash cams if it means we can help to stamp out car insurance fraud. It’s a major problem, but it could virtually disappear overnight – and you’ll be singing its praises when it gets you out of a costly accident that could see your insurance rates go up!

New insurance products coming, yet fleets may be in trouble

Posted on by News Desk

Van insurance news roundup: 7 days ending 8 Nov 2013:

Companies with large fleets of commercial vehicles may be in trouble, even as there are new van insurance products on the horizon that could make lives easier.

If you’re a business that has its own fleet of vans or other commercial vehicles, there’s a new car insurance product on the horizon that’s going to be of interest to you. A new telematics-based fleet management system, which would include commercial van insurance cover, is in the works thanks to a joint development project between Masternaut and KPN.

Telematics is all the rage right now when it comes to insurance products – especially car and van insurance – because it offers detailed feedback on driver behaviour and it can lead to deep premium discounts for van drivers that can prove their actions behind the wheel are safe and responsible. This helps to keep costs for business owners down in a major way, and with a more over-arching approach to telematics data gathering, especially in the realm of large fleets, will help employers organise their businesses much more efficiently if you ask me.

So that’s the good news, but there’s some bad as well – especially for these same commercial vehicle fleets that might benefit from this new telematics initiative. It turns out that new vehicle deliveries to many fleets may be delayed, simply because some leasing firms aren’t keeping up with the newly-revamped rules that permit vehicles to be driven for up to a fortnight without having a valid tax disc displayed.

It’s been more than three months since this 14 day window was put into place alongside a raft of changes dealing with licensing and registration of fleet vehicles. It was part of the Government’s plan to modernise and streamline DVLA services – a plan that included the shuttering of nearly 40 DVLA offices.

Meanwhile there are leasing companies out there that aren’t allowing franchised dealers to deliver vehicles to them without having that tax disc affixed, despite the fact that there’s a two-week grace period. Why is this happening? Well, nobody truly knows at the moment – apparently it’s some big mystery. The leasing company industry hasn’t responded to any enquiries as of yet, but it’s only a matter of time before someone just goes up to them and asks them what they’re on about. If you ask me, this better happen sooner rather than later!

Step 1

Complete your quick and easy quote

Step 2

Reveal your van insurance policies

Step 3

Pick your favourite and get instant cover