Do you think that it is fair?

[Dicky Ticker]

When you get points on your license which after three years are removed, and a clean license issued if you wish, but insurance companies carry them on for a further 2 years so although not being penalised by the legal system,you are by the insurance companies by increases in premium for a further 2 years?

[DarrenSV650S]

Yes

[Bibio]

but its a clean licence how can they do that. i know by law that have to keep records for 5 years but if there are no points there are no points. so in the event of an accident you have a clean licence by law.

[DarrenSV650S]

No!

Sorry, I meant no

[maviczap]

Yes because you are an evil speeder ;)



I'm only joking, not fair in my book

[xXBADGERXx]

Cynical Mode On : "It`s just another way for them to bend you over and get 2 more years worth of money from you"

[-Ralph-]

They are providing the insurance cover, they are hedging their bets in doing so, and they are setting the price, so they can take an indication of an increase in their risks, such as a speeding conviction, and make it valid to their policy for as long as they like. They could put it at 10 years and give really low cost policies to those people who have ten years with a clean license, but everyone with points would buy their insurance somewhere else. It's no different to Sheila's wheels dealing only with women, Saga dealing only with over 50's, and other insurers saying we only insure people with 4 years no claims. The insurance company could reduce it to the three years, but your annual policy would have to go up. It's all a financial calculation, fair doesn't come into it.

[Ed]

It's all a financial calculation, fair doesn't come into it.

Financial calculation? - er no. They will rip you off for as much as they can. There's calculation involved certainly, but it's not financial calculation IMHO:rolleyes:

Fair doesn't come into it - er yes. I agree with you there.

[-Ralph-]

Financial calculation? - er no. They will rip you off for as much as they can. There's calculation involved certainly, but it's not financial calculation IMHO:rolleyes:

Fair doesn't come into it - er yes. I agree with you there.

It may feel that way for a consumer, but a good friend of mine used to work as the Financial Controller for Royal Sun Alliance (Esure, etc), he would disagree with you.

Motor insurance is a highly competitive marketplace and the insurers are working on margins of only a few percent. There is no such thing brand loyalty and very little competitive advantage as a result of having a "better" product. People will buy motor insurance from the insurer that gives them the cheapest quote, and is a provider that they believe to be reputable, it is as simple as that. If you are already a "reputable" brand, then the business model is all about price.

You may argue that they are not 'ethical' at times, but they are operating in that manner because they are forced to reduce cost or go bust. They work on a business model where they sell at a price, but have unpredictable costs. I have customers who do nothing but re-insurance, underwriting the underwriters, in case they get a really big claim that bankrupts them. If the competitor takes 5 years convictions into account and manages to reduce their premiums accordingly, then all the competitors must do the same as they cannot afford to be more expensive. The likes of confused.com has really changed the market.

Running a motor insurance business is nothing but financial calculations, unfortunately the conclusion from those calculations is sometimes "we have to screw the customer".

[CheGuevara]

There is no such thing brand loyalty and very little competitive advantage as a result of having a "better" product. People will buy motor insurance from the insurer that gives them the cheapest quote, and is a provider that they believe to be reputable, it is as simple as that.

-1 on this.

I despise having to shop around for a new insurer each year. Unfortunately they seem to give you a great introductory rate, then jack it up in the subsequent years - presumably either hoping that you're not going to notice, or assuming that you'll be moving elsewhere anyhow.

I have a flawless driving record, I'm nearly 40, and I drive a slow vehicle. This year I spent nearly 3 days searching for a better rate as my insurer nearly doubled my rate for renewal. I had one company quote me £1000 to drive a 16yo low-powered SUV <10k miles in a year!

I have better things to do with my time than entering details on endless comparison sites and making countless phonecalls. Back home we had a crown-corp mandatory (for 3rd party) insurance company. Everyone complained about the monopoly, but I'd be thrilled to have it here as it was (by far) cheaper on average, less hassle, clearer, and more consistently fair.

[-Ralph-]

People will buy motor insurance from the insurer that gives them the cheapest quote, and is a provider that they believe to be reputable, it is as simple as that.

-1 on this.

I despise having to shop around for a new insurer each year. Unfortunately they seem to give you a great introductory rate, then jack it up in the subsequent years - presumably either hoping that you're not going to notice, or assuming that you'll be moving elsewhere anyhow.

This year I spent nearly 3 days searching for a better rate

I don't understand the minus 1? Did you mean +1?

You are correct that your rate was 'introductory', because of exactly what I said, people will buy from the company with the cheapest quote, and most shop around every year, so might as well try and make some money on a renewal if possible, and most of those are now automatic renewals to catch out the disorganised. The insurers are not expecting to keep your business for more than a year, as next year there is very likely to be another insurer that gives your circumstances a better price.

You don't like shopping around, but you spent 3 days doing it, and I assume bought from a new provider.

You are doing exactly what I said people will do? I misunderstood maybe.

[-Ralph-]

Anyway, I don't expect my views on this to be popular, it's a biking forum and nobody likes insurance companies.

[Berlin]

"Motor insurance is a highly competitive marketplace and the insurers are working on margins of only a few percent. "

Erm, thats clearly roobish. Just go to Compare and Go etc and type your details in. There's clearly 100% difference in price just on the first page.

If they were working on "Just a few percent" There's be a fiver difference in every company's quote and I wouldn't have been able to save hundreds of pounds for switching...


C

[L3nny]

I tell you what isn't fair is the insurance premium tax the grubby little government add to the policy. Even though having insurance is a legal requirement so you are basically paying road tax twice.

[TamSV]

Getting back to the original question, your points (for all the minor offences) are not taken into account by DVLA for totting up after 3 years but remain on your licence for 4 years. Under the Rehabilition of Offenders Act the rehabilition period for the fine (not the endorsement) is 5 years. So insurers can still take them into account although, in practice, most of them won't load the premium after 3 or 4 years for a single speeding offence.

There is widespread confusion on this subject and most people don't disclose convictions once they are off the licence after 4 years (and plenty of people still think it's 3 years). This is technically non-disclosure but it's usually of the innocent variety and I've never seen it cause a problem.

[timwilky]

Insurance is all about assessing risk and charging according to that assessment. To be honest they can ask whatever questions they want if the answer to that question goes into the equation. Yes having had a driving offence such as an SP30 does impact upon the your risk assessment. It shows you have been proven to speed and in their weird logic this must make you more liable to have an accident and therefore claim.

We all know this is ********, especially when you may have had 20+ years of being claim free yet you have a blot on your driving (Not insurance) record as a result of driving safely but not in accordance with some bureaucrats concept of a safe speed on a road.

As for non disclosure. never do it. It is just giving them the opportunity to throw out your claim should the unfortunate ever happen. I can understand those companies that say we will not insure men under 30 or men over 45 without full no claims etc. It is their business decision. If they decide they can reduce their exposure to risk by not accepting certain market segments then it enables them by that reduced risk exposure to offer lower policy prices to the market sector they are interested in.

Thanks for the tip in this thread. Now off to SAGA to see what they can insure a car for me at.

[keith_d]

Insurance is a tough business and they want as much information as possible to understand the risks they are taking.

In the past, where speeding tickets were handed out by traffic police with a fair amount of discretion there was probably a strong correlation between crap driving and being given a ticket. But now they are handed out by a council employee in a white van photographing every vehicle in lane 3 on the motorway I'd expect it to be a very poor measure of accident risk.

So in theory the premium loading for a single SP30 or SP50 should be small unless you are already in a high risk category. But like all these things you may need to shop around.

Just my thoughts,

Keith.

[CheGuevara]

I don't understand the minus 1? Did you mean +1?

You are correct that your rate was 'introductory', because of exactly what I said, people will buy from the company with the cheapest quote, and most shop around every year, so might as well try and make some money on a renewal if possible, and most of those are now automatic renewals to catch out the disorganised. The insurers are not expecting to keep your business for more than a year, as next year there is very likely to be another insurer that gives your circumstances a better price.

You don't like shopping around, but you spent 3 days doing it, and I assume bought from a new provider.

You are doing exactly what I said people will do? I misunderstood maybe.


No I actually mean minus one as I disagreed. I spent three days shopping around because my insurer tried to nearly double the rate from my previous year. I ended up staying with my original insurer, but I had to work my backside off to beat them down to a rate similar to what I'd had in the first place.

All this was despite the fact that I make a real effort to keep a clean driving record. Call me naive, but I think I should be rewarded for driving safely and wanting to stick with one insurer. Clearly they could have originally offered to at least maintain my rate (if not lowering it) for me demonstrating that I'm low risk -they did this in the end, but only after I spent many hours of my own time working on it. If I attach a reasonable value to that time it cost me more than I saved in the end, but as I can't afford to actually pay double my insurance rate my hand is forced.

Now if the insurers treat me right in the first place then I'm not going to be looking to jump ship every year just to save £10 or £20 - as noted above it costs me more in my time than I'd save, and I'd rather avoid the hassle. I would be very happy to be loyal to the brand if they treated me like a customer they wanted to keep, rather than write me off under the assumption that I'm just going to relocate anyhow.

The insurers may be claiming that having a better product may not make them competetive, but I see that as an excuse for not having to make an effort at on-going customer service (and customer service is a significant component of the product from the consumer's persective). It then becomes a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, because of course customers will move if they're not happy at renewal time.

I think that most people understand that quality costs more, and would be happy to pay a few quid more to know that they'll be treated like a valued customer, both at renewal time and if they ever have the misfortune of having to make a claim.

[thulfi]

If you were insuring people, and you had the choice to take into account their last 3 years of driving or their last 5, 10, whatever, which would you go for?

Personally I'd like to have as much info as possible about the driver. When their points were wiped off is irrelevant.

[-Ralph-]

"Motor insurance is a highly competitive marketplace and the insurers are working on margins of only a few percent. "

Erm, thats clearly roobish. Just go to Compare and Go etc and type your details in. There's clearly 100% difference in price just on the first page.

If they were working on "Just a few percent" There's be a fiver difference in every company's quote and I wouldn't have been able to save hundreds of pounds for switching...


C

The fact that one company calculates your circumstances as higher risk than another company and charges you a few hundred quid more, has a dramatic impact on their overall margin does it? For as many policies as they are expensive on, they are cheap on others, or they tend to specialise in higher risk categories and therefore have higher costs, or specialise in low risk and see you as high risk so don't want your business and quote you a ridiculously high premium, or they are just plain expensive, so don't get enough customers to cover their costs, which forces them to be more expensive in a vicious circle. Do you seriously think because a particular company would charge YOU more, they are making more money overall? It's a bigger picture than that. It's expensive because you don't fit their business model, at that could be anything about their business model, it could be as simple as they have no authorised repairers in Scotland, so it increases their costs and increases your policy, or prices it silly because actually, they'd rather concentrate on English customers and don't want you business.

Stuff...

Still not sure which bit you disagreed with, but yes, unfortunately you are right that they are not so interested in retaining business. The likes of confused.com has made it so easy to search and buy a different policy, that they just concentrate on signing new customers, or resigning customers they lost last year.

[-Ralph-]

Also don't forget that on a comparison website, you are mixing brokers with direct insurers, and the brokers add whatever margin they want. 5 of the prices that you see could be exactly the same insurance policy, with different brokers, though in this case the prices won't usually be a million miles away from each other.

[MisterTommyH]

They're not asking if you have points on your license. They're asking if you've had any in the last however man years. They could ask for 7 if they wanted. Its their risk so they are entitled to ask what they want.

They discriminate over sex and age aswell - as your not complaining about that do I assume you're fine with that?