IAM / RoSPA benefits

[watchnut]

"Some say....." (sounds like an ex top Gear presenter) that having Rospa/Iam qualifications helps you get cheaper insurance.....not in my experience.

Our 16 year old Volvo came up for re insuring last week, and Suriety wanted £60 more than last year (this on a £259 quote.....% increase was massive. I shopped around a bit, and managed to get it down by £25 by calling them back after quotes to other companies were around the £200 mark.

I am a driving instructor/Fleet registered driver trainer, and my wife a "standard" police driver, and I have found that almost no insurance company gives a flying F*** at what further driving courses you have had or bothered to get trained in to help reduce premiums.......Oh one once said they would give me a discount if i did "Pass Plus".....I pointed out that I did pass plus courses, but never "done one".......so didn't qualify.....the insurance industry wants to look at it's self, and reward those drivers that DO bother to take further training/courses/tests, and on top of that reward properly NCD....rant over

[vonhosen]

Is there evidence that those who take further training/tests make fewer/smaller claims & are involved in fewer collisions?
Are there enough for statistical significance?

[R0G]

vonhosen said:

Is there evidence that those who take further training/tests make fewer/smaller claims & are involved in fewer collisions?
Are there enough for statistical significance?

Logical to say there must be or why else would some insurers offer discounts ?

[Bigends]

I was initially trained to drive by Police and was later advanced Police driver for 25 odd years - didnt make any difference to my premiums despite asking at renewal time.

[MC Bodge]

Bigends said:

I was initially trained to drive by Police and was later advanced Police driver for 25 odd years - didnt make any difference to my premiums despite asking at renewal time.

That is surprising.
I thought it would probably have increased your premium

[Rick101]

watchnut said:

I am a driving instructor/Fleet registered driver trainer, and my wife a "standard" police driver, and I have found that almost no insurance company gives a flying F*** at what further driving courses you have had or bothered to get trained in to help reduce premiums.......Oh one once said they would give me a discount if i did "Pass Plus".....I pointed out that I did pass plus courses, but never "done one".......so didn't qualify.....

Thats hilarious! Have to remember that one for LoonR1

[vonhosen]

R0G said:

vonhosen said:

Is there evidence that those who take further training/tests make fewer/smaller claims & are involved in fewer collisions?
Are there enough for statistical significance?

Logical to say there must be or why else would some insurers offer discounts ?

Then what's the problem if they are already doing so to the value of that training in insurance terms?
Their business model surely isn't to offer larger discounts than the drop in claims the statistics show.

Edited by vonhosen on Sunday 22 November 23:15

[SVS]

vonhosen said:

Is there evidence that those who take further training/tests make fewer/smaller claims & are involved in fewer collisions?
Are there enough for statistical significance?

Yes. There are a few studies that show this. It's an interesting subject.

There's an old TRL study which showed that those who've passed an IAM test have significantly fewer accidents. (It was quite a big reduction in accident risk, maybe half, but it's a while since I read it.) More recent findings are that IAM members claim less (£) than non-IAM members, i.e. IAM members are much less likely to have big/costly accidents, but still have those minor car parking prangs. Interestingly, the same is true for IAM riders: no fewer low speed drops, but far fewer big crashes.

It's an interesting subject. Greater car control skills alone seem to increase accident propensity. Skid training for new drivers in Scandinavia was associated with more accidents, attributed to over confidence. Also, I think there's research showing that race drivers have more road accidents, despite greater car control skills.

[Glosphil]

In answer to an early post that suggested that 10-15 1½ hour drives were necessary to prepare for the IAM test. Over the past 3 years and more than 80 tests the local group, for which until recently I was the Membership Secretary, has averaged just over 8 drives to obtain a pass. Since the introduction of the F1rst 'higher grade' pass the group has seen over a 1/3 of associates obtain such a pass. 3 test fails in that time and all passed at the second attempt.

I have been insured via the IAM Surety scheme for the past 3 years and it has given me cheaper insurance as well as a policy that is also more comprehensive (as in more cover) than most. It insures my Octavia vRS cheaper than my wife can get cover elsewhere for her Clio 1.2TCE.

If you enjoy driving then you should enjoy doing the IAM Skill For Life, although I agree that much can depend on the observer allocated to you. We have one observer who is a real enthusiast and we have difficulty stopping him doing extra drives just for the fun of it. I used to allocate to him the associates with fast cars - Focus RS, Alfa 3.2, 5.2-litre Jag, etc.

[vonhosen]

SVS said:

vonhosen said:

Is there evidence that those who take further training/tests make fewer/smaller claims & are involved in fewer collisions?
Are there enough for statistical significance?

Yes. There are a few studies that show this. It's an interesting subject.

There's an old TRL study which showed that those who've passed an IAM test have significantly fewer accidents. (It was quite a big reduction in accident risk, maybe half, but it's a while since I read it.) More recent findings are that IAM members claim less (£) than non-IAM members, i.e. IAM members are much less likely to have big/costly accidents, but still have those minor car parking prangs. Interestingly, the same is true for IAM riders: no fewer low speed drops, but far fewer big crashes.

It's an interesting subject. Greater car control skills alone seem to increase accident propensity. Skid training for new drivers in Scandinavia was associated with more accidents, attributed to over confidence. Also, I think there's research showing that race drivers have more road accidents, despite greater car control skills.

But won't the insurers say these just fall in with those others who haven't had that extra training but have still amassed 9+ years NCB, with those being far more numerous than those who have had the training?
In other words the numbers of those who have had the training & the effects of it are fairly insignificant in insurance terms & don't warrant any other significant decrease in premiums.
You get the benefit of reduced premiums however you come to it by not making claims, so there is no benefit to the insurance companies in double discounting the small number who came to it via extra training, when a far larger number came to it without that training.

Edited by vonhosen on Monday 23 November 18:01

[SVS]

If I remember rightly, the research was done well, in that it compared like-for-like by adjusting for confounding factors. E.g. drivers of similar experience were compared in terms of accidents per mile.

[vonhosen]

SVS said:

If I remember rightly, the research was done well, in that it compared like-for-like by adjusting for confounding factors. E.g. drivers of similar experience were compared in terms of accidents per mile.

But why offer a driver with training but no claims a greater discount than a driver with no training but no claims?
I see more reports of there being no real discount for further training being given than any appreciable discount. If that's the case the insurance data can't be showing much appreciable benefit.

Have you a link to this research because I've heard the claims but never seen the evidence.

Edited by vonhosen on Monday 23 November 20:48

[johnao]

vonhosen said:

I see more reports of there being no real discount for further training being given than any appreciable discount. If that's the case the insurance data can't be showing much appreciable benefit.

There isn't any insurance data. Firstly, the insurers have no record of policy holders who have had further training. Secondly, even if they did, the population would be too small to be of any value upon which to base underwriting decisions.

[vonhosen]

johnao said:

There isn't any insurance data. Firstly, the insurers have no record of policy holders who have had further training.

There is, a lot of them ask whether you've done advanced training (even if they don't appear to offer much discount for it) & they'll know which of those make claims or not like any other group from a criteria they assess.

johnao said:

Secondly, even if they did, the population would be too small to be of any value upon which to base underwriting decisions.

Which is what I said earlier.
The number having arrived at a high NCB via training being small compared to the number arriving at it through no such training.

[johnao]

vonhosen said:

There is, a lot of them ask whether you've done advanced training (even if they don't appear to offer much discount for it) & they'll know which of those make claims or not like any other group from a criteria they assess.

The insurance companies/underwriters are simply not interested in evaluating the risk inherent in a population that probably comprises less than 0.1% of their policy holders. We're talking about multi-million pound commercial operations here each of which will be assessing their strategic position in the market place, not evaluating risk based on research in connection with a miniscule proportion of their policyholders. Each insurance company will have access only to its own policyholders, of which, individuals with further training, even if the insurer knows about it, will amount to a few tens of thousands amongst millions of other policyholders. they're just not interested, because the population is statistically not significant.

[SoupAnxiety]

Thanks all for the replies. Going to sign up for the £150 IAM Skills For Life course in the new year after a chat with my local IAM branch (Crewe) in the next few weeks!

[vonhosen]

johnao said:

vonhosen said:

There is, a lot of them ask whether you've done advanced training (even if they don't appear to offer much discount for it) & they'll know which of those make claims or not like any other group from a criteria they assess.

The insurance companies/underwriters are simply not interested in evaluating the risk inherent in a population that probably comprises less than 0.1% of their policy holders. We're talking about multi-million pound commercial operations here each of which will be assessing their strategic position in the market place, not evaluating risk based on research in connection with a miniscule proportion of their policyholders. Each insurance company will have access only to its own policyholders, of which, individuals with further training, even if the insurer knows about it, will amount to a few tens of thousands amongst millions of other policyholders. they're just not interested, because the population is statistically not significant.

Each company will only have access to it's own policy holders on a number of criteria.
They have the data whether they choose to use it or not, after all they've recorded the answer to the question they asked & they have claims history.
What we are agreed on is that advanced driving is pretty insignificant as far as insurance is concerned & that's not likely to change.

[watchnut]

yes

[waremark]

I think it is unusual for insurance applications to ask about further driver training.

If there is insurance evidence of a better record from advanced training it is from the IAM Select scheme. This scheme generally beats the best other quote for applicants and then allegedly achieves a better than industry average claims ratio for car policies.

[vonhosen]

waremark said:

I think it is unusual for insurance applications to ask about further driver training.

Not in my experience.

waremark said:

If there is insurance evidence of a better record from advanced training it is from the IAM Select scheme. This scheme generally beats the best other quote for applicants and then allegedly achieves a better than industry average claims ratio for car policies.

Yet we often see members claiming here they don't see any insurance benefit from it. Yes there's a reduction but the policy started from a higher price in the first place & an overall cheaper policy can be got elsewhere.
That's also results from IAM membership (a cost that needs to be added to the insurance cost) rather than advanced training itself isn't it?
Are IAM select going to give you a discount for a Rospa Gold if you don't have an IAM pass?

Edited by vonhosen on Wednesday 25th November 06:49