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Crow555
970 posts
63 months
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School boy said: Ok Finland where a 19 year old had his escort cosworth featured in performance ford and they commented that they have cheap insurance. Hold on while I counter with an example of 17/18/19 year old from Glasgow/Peckham/Timbuktu with a Skyline/Ferrari/Space shuttle paying only £200/300/pouch of magic beans for their insurance. You'll always have the exception to the rule. Not everyone in the states drives old muscle cars. They drive boggo spec Toyotas and VWs just like the rest of us.
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Hellbound
1,942 posts
45 months
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Hmmm...I just figured something out.
There's only one way to offset the unfair increases in insurance premiums; Go out and make a couple of bogus claims yourself!
At least one whiplash claim a year should do it. If you've got your wits about you, you could probably cover the entire cost of insuring the car in the first place.
Bazinga!
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Loplop
1,312 posts
54 months
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School boy said: Ok Finland where a 19 year old had his escort cosworth featured in performance ford and they commented that they have cheap insurance. It's far harder to get a drivers license in Finland, I think there's a mandatory minimum of 2 years of lessons before you're even allowed to take your test, the lessons themselves are far more in-depth and intensive, such as skid pads and ice driving and as previously stated, cars are far more expensive. As for insurance over here, it's ridiculous. Being a 17 year old lad I've been the victim of outrageous quotes for many many months now, £7k for a 1 litre 106? No thank you. £9k to be a named driver on a Nissan Micra? I don't think so. The weirdest thing is the lack of consistency, I had a £6k quote on a BMW 525i out of curiosity, my Triumph 2000 would've been cheaper to insure than my Morris 1100 by £250, though that still was £2400. Yet I have friends who live a short walk away with Zetec S Fiestas and 2 Litre Turbo Meganes, my age and paying under 2 grand?! It's making it near enough impossible for me to get on the ladder and build up my no claims, which is soul destroying as a petrol head. As for outrageous claims, try this: My Dad is at a set of lights, on a hill in a customers Range Rover (Overfinch - nice.) behind a learner driver, so with his 20+ years of experience, he leaves more room than usual behind the learner to compensate for the fact they're on a hill. The lights change green, my Dad doesn't even take his foot off the brakes. The learner rolls into the front of the Range Rover. They pull into a car park, my Dad exchanges details with the instructor (who should've been on the dual controls!!! :@) whilst the learner sits in the drivers seat sobbing. There's a tiny ding on the tailgate of the 207, however there is NOTHING to be seen on the Range Rover, it hit the number plate. Nearly 12 months go by, renewal time is coming up for my Dad, insurance company quotes him 3 times what he had paid the year previous on his trade policy. Outraged, my Dad informs them of the added years NCB he should have been awarded "Oh, no sir, due to that accident you had in Jelember..." What accident? "When you rear ended the learner driver." What?! Turns out once the instructor had returned to the HQ of his well established driving school, his boss told him to claim even though the instructor insisted both were fine, insurers get involved and my Dads decide to pay up, outright. They never even bothered to bloody ring my Dad an enquire. Ridiculous.
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Crow555
970 posts
63 months
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Roadster25 said: I have a work colleague who took a few weeks off and claimed or whiplash last year after being rear-ended. Oddly his car didn't need any repairs... My fiancé was stopped at traffic on a motorway (accident further up) and was rear-ended at low speed by some dozy bint in a Golf who realised late on that traffic in front had stopped. Now the impact was so slight that the bumper of the Ibiza was unmarked. Not so much as a scratch. My fiancé said it was fine and both went on their way. However, that night her neck got very stiff and for about 3 or 4 nights she had trouble sleeping. Obviously she didn't claim but it is possible to get whiplash and not have damage to the car.
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Brighton Speed
177 posts
63 months
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A guy reversed into me very slowly a couple of years ago, he admitted liability and the car went in for a simple front bumper respray.
Of course the whiplash claim firms then started hassling me but I fobbed them off as I was fine.
This was the killer though: I'd informed my insurer of the accident and, despite the fact that the other guy had admitted liability and the repairs were taken care of by his insurer, when it came to my premium for the next year my insurer (who I'd been with for five years) inflated it by 40% because I'd "had a non-fault accident and was now twice as likely to have another accident in the next 12 months."
After calling round many insurers and first asking whether they would penalise me for 'a non-fault' I eventually found one that didn't (Adrian Flux as it happens) and paid the same premium as the previous year.
The British insurance cartel, they'll get you in the end!
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MrGman
435 posts
75 months
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I think just as bigger problem is these companies pestering people to claim.
I'm very careful with my phone number but just recently I've been getting a few calls/texts a week about 'the recent accident i had" and the £0000's i could be owed"!! Shouldn't be allowed in my opinion, the same as these companies that think i could be owed thousands for miss sold 'PPI' and keep ringing and text!!
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mark3man
221 posts
80 months
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driftingphil said: It's not the people that have the accidents to blame it, somehow these claim company automatically have your address and contact number after an accident, who else would contact them if it wasn't your insurance company releasing your details.
My brother was rear ended while turning into a pub car park, he never contacted anyone but his insurance company to report he had been in an accident, the next day he had claim advisor asking if he had any pains in which he said he had a sore neck for a day, they processed the claim automatically and he was sent a cheque a few months later for £600, a friend was also in the car and they were trying to get contact details to contact him so they could submit a claim for him, but he asked my brother not to give his details. I wonder how much the claim company got. He still gets phone and text messages two years later asking if he had any accidents.
So it's either the insurance company to blame or these claim advisors!
It wouldn't surprise me if it wasn't the insurance companies owning these claim advisor companies so they can have an excuse to put insurance premiums up. How much do they actually pay out? against how much they make for increasing insurance premiums year on year?
Sounds like fraud to me!
if the government request we have insurance, we should all pay into a government insurance policy and be done with rip off insurance.
plus 1 to insurance being added to Road Fund Tax plus 1 to swingeing fines for driving without insurance - crush the damn car for a start. and plus 10 for telling the insurers that our details are NOT commodities to be hawked about. I was rear-ended at lights, immediately asked to claim for whiplash by the claims management firm the insurers bosses have decided they should use. No, don't have it. Really, are you insane ? It's 'free' money. The case went to Court as it happens (the other insurer queried the car hire bill - happens all the time.) Barrister said to me 'why no whiplash claim ?' 'Because I don't have it' ' You must be joking - everyone claims'. No wonder if the whole system is so corrupt do we pay through the nose. o+
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mark3man
221 posts
80 months
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mickydoo said: Have you ever tried to get a complaint about a lawyer taken seriously by his "Trade Union" which the Law Society is ? It should be called a Code of Misconduct It will put years on you and get precisely nowhere. Masters of stonewall. Complaints should be to an independent body.
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G21
63 posts
122 months
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It's all the lawyers fault.
Actually it's not. I'm a personal injury lawyer and I'd never assist a client with a bogus claim.
The insurance companies love trotting out this line but as it has been said the insurance companies are just covering their unfair increases.
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NGK210
361 posts
14 months
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James Dalton, ABI's head of motor and liability: "...Whiplash is virtually impossible to disprove..." Huh?? Cobblers! A few years ago, I had an 'off' while racing that caused a whiplash injury. The damage was visible from an MRI scan and every physio/osteopath who treated the injury could detect the damage via feel/touch. Conversely, after a period of therapy the bone-crackers' diagnoses and an MRI determined the injury had responded to treatment. In other words, the injury was no longer detectable  because it was not present. So, if in my experience, a whiplash injury was clearly detectable and quantifiable, how can it be "virtually impossible to disprove"??  Might be useful if the insurance industry was a tad more diligent re proper diagnoses to check if injuries are genuine? 
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kingb
885 posts
95 months
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Insurance companies seem scared of the whiplash claim so just pay out. I had a crash, which was my fault, into the back of an old mini. 4 people got out all were a bit shaken but seemed fine. However i accept they were in an old car and had a claim for whiplash.
What i didnt accept was the 5 people claimed for whiplash! It way my understanding that the original mini only had 4 seats. I informed my insurance company of this and they agreed, yes minis were only insured for 4 passengers. I therefore asked what action they were planning to take against this obviously fraudulant claim. they said nothing as it was unlikely they would ever get any money back and it wasnt work chasing.
Now i pay my insurance in installments and if i cancel after 8 months i have to pay the rest of the premium as a cancelation fee. im fairly sure if i just said no and stopped paying they would feel that it was worth chasing!
At the end of the day your never going to beat them so you just have to laugh!
And as a result if I rear ended ill take the payout. its not something i agree with but you cant been the 95% who will take it so you might as well join them!
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dandarez
4,476 posts
152 months
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Put it all into context. Tomorrow all claims for whiplash are ended.
What are the chances of your car insurance premiums coming down or being reduced?
Zilch!
Just the same as if they got every non-insured driver off the road. Fall in premiums?
Not a chance. Once on a roll, it has ever gone only in one direction: up.
All you can do is shop around. Or when your annual premium comes in, don't just pay it, contest it.
I do every year, and every year it get's reduced (quite considerably sometimes!) cos they don't want to lose you.
They simply pass the increase the next gullible person to counter it.
Most people I know, their renewal comes in (increased naturally!) and the suckers just pay, then moan.
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otolith
19,389 posts
73 months
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suffolk009 said: "Whiplash claims are costing the average motorist £90 per year in insurance premiums, according to the Association of British Insurers (ABI), contributing to a near doubling in the cost of car insurance"
Unless I'm misreading that, that implies the average car insurance premium is £180 per annum. That can't be true. You're misreading it. It says that insurance has nearly doubled and on average the part of that doubling down to whiplash claims amounts to £90.
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otolith
19,389 posts
73 months
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The insurance industry is pretty competitive, if you can be bothered to shop around. I don't think it would be possible for insurers to absorb a decrease in claims costs with an increase in profit, because any company which did so would find itself undercut and rejected on the comparison sites.
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heightswitch
3,413 posts
119 months
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Its simple we just need to close the door to Parasitic insurers and claims companies??? Their is something wrong with the world when 2hrs after you notify your own insurance company of an accident you have a totally unknown to you claims company hounding you to sign a contract to allow them to pursue a claim on your behalf when you don't even want to make a claim... So how is a paid referral from your own insurance company legal?? It shouldnt' be Insurance company refers, pays referral fee to claims company getting business...Insurance settles then puts the premium up to recover the monies they are all paying out to themselves.... Fly's on s  t comes to mind....Parasites the lot of them... Having said that you would then think the 3rd parties insurers would be glad to settle with a genuine claimant that didn't go to a clams company or submit a claim for whiplash...instead they pissed around and took 3 months to pay up £900 !!! No wonder people are taken in by the promise of no win no fee settlements.... Its all endemic..Nobody seems to understand the concept of doing a days work anymore Its all much easier to feed of the back of some unsuspecting host animal??? As for competition don't kid yourself...Insurance seems to be the only industry where a cartel arrangement isn't frowned upon or it seems ilegal!! N.
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Glosphil
2,069 posts
103 months
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suffolk009 said: "Whiplash claims are costing the average motorist £90 per year in insurance premiums, according to the Association of British Insurers (ABI), contributing to a near doubling in the cost of car insurance"
Unless I'm misreading that, that implies the average car insurance premium is £180 per annum. That can't be true. So without the £90 'added' to cover the cost of whiplash accidents my 2-litre Civic would cost me £82/annum to insure. I somehow doubt that.
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driftingphil
16 posts
16 months
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Insurance companies are the cause of the claim culture, It's just one big excuse to make a shed load of cash, they play the game and we all look like fools blaming each other!
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Pip1968
219 posts
73 months
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heightswitch said: Having said that you would then think the 3rd parties insurers would be glad to settle with a genuine claimant that didn't go to a clams company or submit a claim for whiplash...instead they pissed around and took 3 months to pay up £900 !!! No wonder people are taken in by the promise of no win no fee settlements....
Its all endemic..Nobody seems to understand the concept of doing a days work anymore Its all much easier to feed of the back of some unsuspecting host animal???
If only that was the case. My daughter put in for what I think was a dubious whiplash claim although this time against some gypsy immigrant who was not insured. A barrister turns up to assist as he was shouting at her like it was her fault he rear ended her. He rings the police (station 500m away through precinct) as address given is false and guess what - they cannot be arsed to turn up - "nobody is injured". Anyway rant over and back to the point. Her claim took about 18 months through the Motor Insrance Bureau - for unisured drivers. In short if you claim for something not visible it should come out of your own insurance that would put claim chasers off. Pip
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redgriff500
6,952 posts
132 months
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My wife had a genuine claim and 3yrs later her shoulder is still much weaker and she can't do many things she used to and it looks like it's a life long injury.
Payout £3k - whoopee do she'd pay ten times that to get her health back.
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Chriz
14 posts
80 months
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mickydoo said: Indeed and thank you for the advice. The issue is that at no point was I instructed to make a false claim and I dare say that all of the advice would be described as potentially helpful. You, I and the solicitor all know what the solicitor wanted but all of the actions could be explained away without recourse. What is needed here are very firm & precise laws to exactly govern what can and cannot be said or written in such circumstances: These guys are clever and practised so it would be tricky to catch them on just one incidence of dodgy practice. Is the government capable of making such an effective law within the current framework?
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