Did they admit that there was no statistical evidence to justify the increase?
It's not even midday as we speak ... programme not aired until 12.00
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I was hoping you would listen and report back.
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Article based around a lady who was hit by a lorry on M25 and was free of any fault or responsibility for the accident. A Polish lorry driven by a Polish driver hit her car. The lady's insurer, Admiral, advised the lady it would be quicker for her if she claimed on her own policy and allowed Admiral to reclaim from the lorry diver's insurance. Which she did.
Her car was written off. When she renewed, some months later, her premium increased from, a previous, £300 ... to £800. However she had moved house (which may, or may not, have increased - or decreased - her premium) ...and she had to buy a replacemant car ... we don't know if this replacement would have been cheaper - or dearer - to insure.
When the Money Box radio programme staff approached Admiral they agreed the increase was unreasonable and refunded the lady £200.
I wonder if my mate, who's premium went up similarly, is due a refund from his insurer? Given that he hasn't had a radio programme like Money Box involved I doubt it.
The summary was that insurers should be more open and transparent when telling their customers when they have increased their premiums in circumstances such as those noted above. At the moment there's no requirement for them to do so therefore I'm not expecting such a change any time soon.
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I thought it was pretty well known that no-fault accidents can result in a premium increase. Rationale is that one accident indicates that, statistically, you're more likely to be involved in another. I guess subject is a case in point - if she's routinely using the M25 she's probably at greater risk of a sideswipe than somebody who does not.
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The problem with that rationale from the insurers is that the accident may have happened on a road you rarely use (or that was the first time driving on it), which could contribute to the accident even though it wasn't their fault.
A regular could, in theory, know about certain 'issues' on some roads and take preventative measures, e.g. overtaking HGVs as quickly as is legally possible and safe to do so, and not driving in their blind spot, especially on the opposite side to the driver's side. That being said, I've come across some atrocious driving by fellow regulars on commutes to work over the years, because these idiots take risks knowing what's ahead.
The insurer has no way of knowing which group the person falls into when they buy the policy or likely when describing the accident. I personally think it WOULD be reasonable for an insurer to ask perhaps where they work and how often, and perhaps is there any other destination you drive to often. Both of these could give far more useful information, regarding more dangerous areas to drive in, or those more or less susceptable to theft from/of or vandalism to the vehicle. Maybe even if they have any school age children and what ages they are.
The accident described in this instance may have been pure bad luck and chance, nothing more. Unless a pattern can be established of regular driving along a dangerous route, then I don't see why someone should be penalised.
Other than an accident being caused by a freak and unknown weather event or something similar like a building collapse, an unknown pet or wild animal, or vandalism that happened a short time ago but was no seen, there is, as far as I can see, always fault to be asigned, whether it be something that wasn't structurally sound, not maintained (including repaired in a timely manner) or sufficient precuations wren't taken (including driving defensively or cautiously enough) to avoid the accident.
I suspect that many cases involving foreign-registered vehicles in the UK are let go because the insurer cannot be bothered to pursue a foreign insurer (even a fellow EU one) because it's too much trouble, and most people grumble and put up with the increased premium. In such cases, as long as you can get reasonable evidence at the scene, then these cases should be immediately reported and to the Police, so that they are ONLY allowed to leave the country once they have given a statement and the process started.
If they can offer no evidence (e.g. photos, video, eye witnesses) to contradict the other party, then they should be deemed the at fault party and should by law the insurers go after them in full for the claim (whether it suceeds is another matter). Sorry to bring up the B word, but we'll need some kind of bilateral agreements after we leave the EU so that this can happen to any driver (including our own) when they drive abroad, including provisions made to stop false claims and/or authorities being biased towards home drivers.
I live near an industrial complex that regularly has foreign (mainly EU) HGVs visiting to pick up and deliver goods, and the standard of driving from quite a few of them is truly abysmal. They should not be allowed to get away with such behaviour if their errors or careless/reckless driving leads to accidents. I'm sure having more traffic coppers would go down well (we pay quite enough in vehicle taxes thank you), but that is a discussion for another thread.
I just wish that insurers would do their jobs properly and make sure the parties at fault in accidents pay up; when there is no fault (rare), then we all contribute a little via our premiums to a common fund to cover this sort of thing.
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The problem with that rationale from the insurers is that the accident may have happened on a road you rarely use (or that was the first time driving on it), which could contribute to the accident even though it wasn't their fault.
etc.
I think you are missing the point.
The insurer doesn't need to know why you have had an accident, just that you have had one, and that a history of accidents correlates with a greater risk in future.
These things work at the population level, not the individual level. Clearly some people will only ever have one accident. The technology does not even nearly exist to predict which ones of a large number that will be, why, and which ones will have another 1,2, or 3.
It's like credit scoring in that respect. A given score won't tell you that someone will default. What it will tell you is that if you have 1,000 people with that score, a given percentage will default, and that will be at a higher rate than another 1,000 people with a better score.
As to "the party at fault" paying up, it isn't always obvious whose fault it was. And we all know people who have never had an at-fault accident but seem very bad at avoiding the other kind.
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Apparently if you are in a no fault incident you are deemed to be driving in an area at greater risk of a crash so this justifies the increase...don't know how much credence to give this.
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Her car was written off. When she renewed, some months later, her premium increased from, a previous, £300 ... to £800. However she had moved house (which may, or may not, have increased - or decreased - her premium) ...and she had to buy a replacemant car ... we don't know if this replacement would have been cheaper - or dearer - to insure.
Why provide all the facts, it could spoil what appears to be a perfectly good story.
I thought it was pretty well known that no-fault accidents can result in a premium increase
Not in my recent experience with dad and the Mrs.
2013 dad demolished a barrier in a supermarket car park taking off the side of the car which required 2 x new doors, repairs to both front and rear wings and painting all the side and blowing into the bumpers, bonnet, tailgate and roof. In truth I expected the car to be written off (6 year old Micra) but they fixed it up fine. Considering he was mid 80's at the time with a recent diagnosis of dementia I expected his premium to increase despite his protected no claims taking him off the road. His premium fell. He stopped driving in 2014
The Mrs was hit up the rear by white van man October 2017. She had to make an emergency stop and he didn't bother using her instead (on the phone?). Initially he tried to blame her for not indicating but within a couple of hours he rang back to say he had been advised to cough up for the work personally. By then I had already reported it to the insurers and my uninsured loss policy people. Repairs cost almost £1600. On renewal her premium fell by £20 and when she swapped the Note for the quicker Fabia it fell by another £40.
Both cars insured by Aviva.
Edited by skidpan on 05/01/2019 at 13:46
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I wonder if these responses are insurance company specific?
I constantly hear great feedback from customers of NFU which are granted quite expensive but win hands down when a claim is involved.
Just paid out £3500 for an S Reg Hi lux which was written off. And another friend was delighted with the pay out on his daughters Citroen.
NFU regularly top the satisfaction ratings of the consumer reports, but most customers first concern is the renewal cost.
I have found LV through Boundless provide a good compromise.
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Bromptonaut said :-
"I thought it was pretty well known that no-fault accidents can result in a premium increase".
In which case I'm sorry to have raised the topic and taken your time and promise not to do so again.
skidpan said :-
"Why provide all the facts, it could spoil what appears to be a perfectly good story".
Because, in case you hadn't noticed, the previous contributor asked that I listen and report the gist of the programme. He said... "I was hoping you would listen and report back".
Clearly damned if you do and damned if you don.t. I apologise for spoiling the story for you, skidpan.
In fact, I rather regret bothering in the first place.
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I think the question of whether renewal premiums increase after a non-fault accident must be insurer specific. I have reported on another thread that my car was scraped in a car park by another driver who did the decent thing and left his details with the owner of the car park. His insurers, Hastings Direct, were very efficient and my car was repaired within a matter of weeks.
My insurers, Admiral, saw fit to increase my premium however. I couldn’t have been more innocent of any blame for the incident - I wasn’t even in the car and it was parked within the designated white lines of the particular space. My renewal came up just a few weeks after the car was repaired and so I duly reported that since last year’s renewal I had been involved in a non-fault accident, which led to an increase in premium.
I have previously worked in life insurance so I know that it all works on statistics and following that logic, I use a car park in which there is a heightened risk of accident damage. Totally irrational, but if you can justify it on a statistical basis, you can legitimately increase premiums.
Thinking about it, I have protected NCB, so if I had instead told the other driver not to bother and claimed on my own policy instead, it would have counted as one of my ‘lives’ and perhaps I wouldn’t have suffered an increase in premium at the next renewal. Is that right - or is that also likely to be insurer specific?
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Admiral have to pay for all those b***** awful television advertisements somehow.
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You would still have an increase of premium as you would have made a claim. It’s just your no claims discount that would be unaffected.
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Bromptonaut said :-
"I thought it was pretty well known that no-fault accidents can result in a premium increase".
In which case I'm sorry to have raised the topic and taken your time and promise not to do so again.
I'm sorry if I've hit a nerve there - it was just an observation. If my comment is a reflection on anybody, and it certainly was not meant to be, it's Paul Lewis and his team at Moneybox not you.
I try to catch the programme either live or on listen again because it usually has an item or two relevant to my professional role in the advice sector. Not yet had time to listen to yesterday's episode so I don't know full context of item on Admiral. I suspect though the point is the egregious nature of the increase.
My own experience involved a car park barrier that lowered prematurely and dinged the roof line on my Berlingo. No question as to blame; either the mechanism was faulty or the operator who'd raised the barrier dropped it too soon. LV premium raised by a few tens of pounds. Thirteen months later I sought a quote from Admiral. Initially much cheaper than LV but shot up when the barrier incident was mentioned. Similar a couple of years later when attendance at a Driver Improvement course following my inadvertently shooting a red light in Leicester was involved. Conclusion is that Admiral's MO is to offer very good premiums to drivers with unblemished records but to hit you hard when you acquire any sort of blemish.
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In my experience you only get penailsed if you are too lazy to shop around. Same for mobile contracts, utilities, house insurance.
LV tried it with me after a non fault claim, I just shopped around and other insurance companies weren't churlish about it. Insurance market is huge and open, use it to your advantage.
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When I had a premium hike after reporting a no fault no-claim accident (a mistake, I now realise, but I thought the other driver might make a claim) I changed insurers.
I can't now remember if I avoided the hike this way, but I might have changed anyway because they p***ed me off.
If theres a human in the loop, this might have some deterrent effect.
I think the big outfits are entirely algorithm-driven to keep costs down, but they aren't interested in my kind of customer anyway.
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Conclusion is that Admiral's MO is to offer very good premiums to drivers with unblemished records but to hit you hard when you acquire any sort of blemish.
That surely is normal practice. An insurer will target a specific group or groups of people, and then thoroughly research the risks so they can offer competitive rates. That is why as said above, you must shop around.
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<< An insurer will target a specific group or groups of people, and then thoroughly research the risks so they can offer competitive rates. >>
I presume you mean that the insurer's computer does an instant 'calculation' making no quantifiable allowance for extenuating circumstances. The implied assumption is that you now drive in places with enhanced risk. That's why you have to spend time on the phone talking to a real person whenever the renewal notice arrives.
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<< An insurer will target a specific group or groups of people, and then thoroughly research the risks so they can offer competitive rates. >>
I presume you mean that the insurer's computer does an instant 'calculation' making no quantifiable allowance for extenuating circumstances. The implied assumption is that you now drive in places with enhanced risk. That's why you have to spend time on the phone talking to a real person whenever the renewal notice arrives.
My understanding is that they have actuaries who work out the risks for their targeted groups, which are subsequently used to calculate premiums. Obviously it’s all statistical, so extenuating circumstances are ignored, as you suggest.
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Alternatively, they just use the accident as a means to up the premium without any statistical basis in the hope that the customer will simply accept this and not change insurers.
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