Archive for the 'General' Category

According to the AA, we are about to pay more for insurance than we did last year, in fact they claim that the insurance index is recording the biggest ever price increase ever.  There are several reasons for this, mainly the increased claims on personal injury and even though it is not mentioned on this AA insurance news item, there are now and abundance of solicitors advertising accident management policies on a no win no fee basis and to contact then before and insurance company.

In short claims have shot up and so our premiums, not great news as the UK comes out of a recession and money is not in abundance. The AA quote some figures suggesting the average comprehensive policy was just over £1000 where the average third party fire and theft policy was £1252, this should show and indication of what types of cars we are driving these days, clearly those with high insurance groups.

Car leasing which accounts for up to 50% of new registrations each year may also be keeping these figures high as they tend to be top end executive cars, doing higher mileages.  Young drivers are also as usual struggling to get cheap car insurance quotes, often opting to be on the parents policy for the first year and then taking advantage of that first year no claims with some polices.

For most of the 20th and 21st century it has been normal for the value of any car to depreciate over time until now that is. It seems that the scrappage scheme taking older cars off the road and many only buyinga new car if the deals are superb, has created a shortage of pre woned cars. This shortage has pushed the price of many used cars up for the first time in history.

In theory this could mean your car insurance policy is now invalid or you may only get the value you insured you car for not ther full value shown in the price books. Ironically the argurment would normally work the opposite way, when you thought your vehicle was insured for a full value only to be told, you will only get paid the trade market price, within the price books. However you at the figures, insurance companies should now replace you car like forlike, but you insurance premium would have assumed the car would depreciate in value and certainly wshould not be worth more this than last.

So we nned to make sure we revisit the value of our car when it comes to renewal time, t ensure there is no confusion over teh value you should get paid on if a claim should be made.

If there was an accident waiting to happen it is the heavy duty plant vehicles that go up and down our road at around 10mph each day. There is plenty of heavy building work going on around our area at the moment and to get to sites, some heavy plant machinery has to use the public roads. Unfortunately these machines were not designed to go on public roads, their rubber tracks leave huge marks against the pavements but more importantly they are very prone to causing an accident.

As cars queue up behind these vehicle, their impatience gets the better of then and so make silly calls trying to pass to get on their way. It was then pointed out that the insurance on these vehicles may be different to them normal car insurance we would have as a general motorist. Often is business insurance that covers these plant vehicles. Of course it still does cover the use on a public road, but the process of claiming against and accident may be different to normal insurers. Another issue is that even though driving at very slow speeds, by vehicles you can hardly see past, should an accident occur, these vehicles will not be deemed as responsible. If you choose to pass a vehicle and an accident then were to happen, do not try and blame the large vehicle, it is you that will be at fault and so you’re insurance that will be affected.

Some council ‘shave banned vehicles like this on their public roads at certain times of the day, when traffic is at its peak, but not alas in this case. So if you do find yourself behind a large rubber tracked vehicle, take you time and be safe.

(I’m married to her – a monstrous winged and scaly serpent with crested head and great claws – met my wife, the dragon! Yes, I love her dearly, honestly!)

Common sense doesn’t always rule in our house. Not when the dragon’s got a bee under her bonnet!

For heavens sake, who goes out spending more money when we’re in the worst recession for 25 years? Surely, now is not the time to increase the family’s expenditure. But if the dragon insists that family needs more financial protection, the family is destined to get more financial protection!

Specifically her instructions were to buy more life assurance cover which would repay our mortgage if I gave up the ghost (isn’t it nice for her to plan for that!). I also had to ensure that the family had sufficient income cover to provide £1,250 each month if I lost my admin job at John Lewis. And it didn’t finish there. The dragon also wanted mortgage insurance to pay our mortgage instalments if I lost my job.

So despite my reticence, I was distained to become a protection insurance shopper.

But I also had an agenda. Whilst I was obeying the dragon’s orders, I decided to check out health insurance. Two years ago year I had to wait seven months for an operation on my wrist, (a one handed admin man can’t work efficiently on his computer says my shift manager!). So without telling the dragon, I slipped health insurance into the shopping list.

I speculated that I’d be able to get everything through the internet. So being an efficient admin man, after the evening meal last Tuesday I sat down behind my PC. After a day behind a computer terminal at John Lewis’s, that surely makes me a glutton for punishment!

Now I’ve already got £90,000 of life assurance which my Mother persuaded me to have when I was 19 (Can anyone explain that? Why should a 19 year old with no family responsibilities, need life assurance?) However, when we bought our house I was rather dilatory in not having life assurance that was ear marked to repay our mortgage if I died. (Is the dragon acquainted with something I’m not? Possibly her reptilian powers enable her to foresee the future!) Anyway my starting point was life assurance.

My younger sister, having life assurance coming out of her ear holes, knowingly advised me to use a broker – she knows everything, or thinks she does! So on opening MSN Live, I ignored the web sites published by the big insurers such as Friends Provident, Royal Liver, Bupa, Legal & General until I came across a site called Brokers Online. Brokers Online sounded the right sort of name to my pea brain, but it was strange that their address was www.life-insurance-bureau.co.uk. It turned out they are part of an online co-operative with all the web sites inn the co-operative running with the Brokers Online branding. Never come across that before. Apparently, each Brokers Online site specialises in insurance and family finance generally. If my experience is anything to go by, they seem a pretty slick business.

Foe life assurance I used Brokers Online’s comparison service and within half an hour one an adviser from Click Financial phoned me up. He pointed out that since the dragon and I had a joint repayment mortgage, a Joint Decreasing Term Life Assurance policy would do the job. Click gave me three quotes and went through them with me. They seemed straight forward. In the end I went with a policy issued by an insurance company called Fortis. I hadn’t heard of them before but they were the cheapest and the adviser assured me that they were big and reputable. First job done!

Whilst their site, I saw that Brokers Online also had mortgage insurance to pay our monthly mortgage instalments. And they also had income cover. The web site explained that they worked alongside a company called British Insurance for both these types of insurance. Apparently British Insurance has received many industry and awards for their income cover and mortgage insurance plans. It took me just eleven minutes to get both insurances applied for - and they cost a lot less than I’d half expected. What’s more I wasn’t committed to either of these policies for a long time– they can be cancelled without penalty at any time. They would remain insurance remains in place as long as I continue to pay the premiums. The komodo was really impressed!

So that just left my pet concern, health insurance. A quick glance down Brokers Online’s navigation showed that they were in that market too! It turned out that health Insurance is very complicated. Brokers Online recognises this problem and provides a call back from a specialist health insurance consultant. The simple life is so much better. So I just completed some basic information online and waited for the consultant to phone back. That was a good move as left to my own devices I would most certainly have made a mistake. It was far easier to get advice from their adviser. In the end I went for a health insurance policy which covered all the family. Even provided a fire service to put out the dragon’s flames!

The entire shopping trip took me fifty five minutes online and forty five minutes on the phone. And not too painful - thanks Brokers Online!

There is no doubt about it; the heavy car insurance marketing is back. Everyone has a new improved website and of course there are the messages of getting cheaper car insurance and we all end up wondering, not every company can offer better value than everyone else, what are the insurance companies left that still sell expensive policies?
The recent heavy weather spell certainly would not have been good news for the insurance industry. Of course they plan for bad weather spells, but with the worst spell of weather in nearly 20 years and most insurance corporations associated with banks that are just about held together with tax payers’ money, the last thing they needed was to have to put their hands into their stretched piggy banks with unplanned pay outs.

The AA had claimed that roads were unnecessarily unsafe and the excess accidents were due to low levels of salt. They of course were talking about the human costs, but it is the car insurance companies that will pick up most of the financial costs. Many more roads were blocked or just too slippery to drive, but many tried anyway and accidents occurred. We bet the auto salvage auctions had a few more vehicles in this month.

Even the breakdown insurance companies found themselves extremely stretched and as many of these are owned by the car insurance companies, you can see the link.  It was predicted anyway at the beginning of the year that car insurance premiums would rise because of the current credit crisis, but you can’t help felling this weather bought and extra payouts, will take premiums even higher. Whether we will se higher breakdown insurance premiums also, we have yet to see, as it si possible that many are just choosing not to renew this year.

Ironically it was the unpopular vehicles that stole the show this week. We are talking about the 4 x 4 vehicles, that have become too expensive to drive because of fuel costs (although this has dropped now) high congestion charges and very soon high road tax charges. The only people who seemed to move last week, were those in 4×4s, we wonder if their value will start to come back.

The whole point of car insurance is to protect ourselves financially from accidents whether it be our fault or someone else’s depending if you have comprehensive or third part cover. But one way that insurance companies can keep the cost of car insurance premiums down is by dealing with the aftermath of an accident efficiently.

We are not talking about payouts here or medical care, but how they resell that damaged vehicle that probably is now has the title of a salvage car. By ensuring they get some sort of return from these insurance write offs can pump money back  into the company to protect their bottom line profits and so be able to offer cheaper motor insurance.

Take for example a typical that is insured for the value of £4000. This is then paid out as the event of an accident that repairable salvage item can then sold at special trade auctions up and down the UK. It is possible that this repairable salvage car can be sold for £1000, reducing that insurance loss by 25%. Of course every insurance write off has a different level of damage and so it is hard to gauge the direct return, but of it is averaged out over the year, it is possible that a sizable return can be made from these salvage vehicles and the level of return is based on the processes used to resell that vehicle.

However recovery costs can also be significant, so they often use third party companies to handle these salvage cars, including the sell off of these vehicles that normally happens as an online auction. Efficiency is the key to success here, as breakdown recovery, storage costs, further transport and then the fees by third party salvage yards can add up and a vehicle that had some value may now be worth less than the sum of all these services. Sometimes only effective insurance assessors can make the difference between a positive return or a negative one.

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