Massive Insurance Quote Jump Overnight!

[Big News]

So I've been looking at getting hold of an E36 or E39 Touring sometime soon after Christmas, and running insurance quotes through Admiral for a past week or so, I've been getting result of about £1.3k/year for a 323i or 523i. I run another one through today for a different car (same engine) and was surprised to find it coming out at just short of £1.7k!

I thought this must just be due to technicalities of spec (it was a Sport rather than an SE), but just to make sure, I go and check two of the cars I had my eye on...yep, same story - a £450 increase in premium quotation overnight!

Gah

[DaveH23]

When did you tell the policy to start?

Maybe its because of the freezing conditions that have started today.

Maybe not....

[ZOLLAR]

Big News said:

So I've been looking at getting hold of an E36 or E39 Touring sometime soon after Christmas, and running insurance quotes through Admiral for a past week or so, I've been getting result of about £1.3k/year for a 323i or 523i. I run another one through today for a different car (same engine) and was surprised to find it coming out at just short of £1.7k!

I thought this must just be due to technicalities of spec (it was a Sport rather than an SE), but just to make sure, I go and check two of the cars I had my eye on...yep, same story - a £450 increase in premium quotation overnight!

Gah

When did you do your last quotes (the lower ones)?, they're still valid for about 30 days so if you can get the car before the quote expires you'll be fine.

[mmm-five]

Maybe they've got new underwriting/risk profiles for December?

[Rawwr]

The OP's username is misleading at best.

[Meoricin]

ZOLLAR said:

When did you do your last quotes (the lower ones)?, they're still valid for about 30 days so if you can get the car before the quote expires you'll be fine.

This - I had a similar issue when I was last getting quotes, in that the friendly lady on the phone from Admiral changed my quote from Elephant rather than matching it (to the tune of £300~). Fortunately I had 4/5 quotes with virtually identical details lined up, from the past week+, so I just went back to one of them and accepted it rather than trying to improve it.

[Mr Dave]

They can charge whatever they want and you have to pay it if you want to drive a car.

That is why the insurance companies are making so much money.

[U T]

Mr Dave said:

They can charge whatever they want and you have to pay it if you want to drive a car.

That is why the insurance companies are making so much money.

There are loads of insurance companies. If one of them is charging you too much, then find one that's cheaper. If you can't find one that's cheaper, then the first one wasn't charging you too much after all.

Free market capatalism. They can't charge you what they like, because you can buy the same product elsewhere.

[smiffy220]

Mr Dave said:

They can charge whatever they want and you have to pay it if you want to drive a car.

That is why the insurance companies are making so much money.

If you can tell me a motor insurance company that is making loads of money, I'd like to see them. I work for a Lloyds Syndicate (not in motor insurance mind), and we lost 500,000,000 last year on motor insurance! That's 1/2 billion!! Insurers lose millions due to price comparison sites, fraud and claims lawyers! You have a rear shunt these days, likely claim cost will be circa £30k or more by the time everyone has put in their whiplash claims and the lawyers fee's triple that.
So I'm afraid your statement is misleading and wrong mate. We have to have insurance yes, you don't have to pay through the nose, go to a broker and get them to do the work for you. But until people stop ripping off insurers, the rest of us have to pay for it mate I'm afraid. It's a business same as any other, it's not possible to sustain these loses and these fraudulent claimants won't be getting away with it much longer.

Edited by smiffy220 on Friday 2nd December 16:29

[costsmonkey]

smiffy220 said:

If you can tell me a motor insurance company that is making loads of money, I'd like to see them. I work for Equity Red Star (not in motor insurance mind), and we lost 500,000,000 last year on motor insurance! That's 1/2 billion!! Insurers lose millions due to price comparison sites, fraud and claims lawyers! You have a rear shunt these days, likely claim cost will be circa £30k or more by the time everyone has put in their whiplash claims and the lawyers fee's triple that.
So I'm afraid your statement is misleading and wrong mate. We have to have insurance yes, you don't have to pay through the nose, go to a broker and get them to do the work for you. But until people stop ripping off insurers, the rest of us have to pay for it mate I'm afraid. It's a business same as any other, it's not possible to sustain these loses and these fraudulent claimants won't be getting away with it much longer.

I cannot comment on any loss Equity Red Star may have sustained on its' motor book last year but, beyond that, that is absolutely spot on I am afraid.

[EK993]

Motor Insurance is generally a loss leader (I say generally because there are some Insurers that do make a profit on the book, although it rarely happens).

Insurers work on the premise that the motor book will lead to other business (corporate usually) that is profitable - property / casualty business for example.

There is also the investment income on premiums earnt which in good stock market years will make up for the losses made on the Underwriting / Claims side. Unfortunately we haven't had good stock market conditions for a while now...

Sure Insurance companies can make big profits in good years, however they can also make huge losses in bad years. The current combination we have at the moment with an almost unprecedented amount of natural disasters (earthquakes in New Zealand, Japan, Europe), high levels of property damage in the US due to hurricanes / storms combined with poor investment returns means conditions for Insurers are bad at the moment.

[U T]

It does make me laugh..." insurance companies are making a fortune."

Any quick look thru the business pages and share prices proves this isn't the case.

Just the sort of rubbish people churn out because believing it enhances their argument.

[costsmonkey]

EK993 said:

Motor Insurance is generally a loss leader (I say generally because there are some Insurers that do make a profit on the book, although it rarely happens).

Insurers work on the premise that the motor book will lead to other business (corporate usually) that is profitable - property / casualty business for example.

A loss leader? I am surprised. Certainly on personal business (as opposed to fleet business), which I suspect accounts for the majority of motor risks, I would not have thought that there are many people who place other risks with the same insurer. I don't. Having said that, it is not because I object in principle, it is just that they rarely make any effort to cross sell (as one might expect if motor is regarded as a loss leader) and on the occasions I have checked, they have not been able to compete on price.

EK993 said:

There is also the investment income on premiums earnt which in good stock market years will make up for the losses made on the Underwriting / Claims side. Unfortunately we haven't had good stock market conditions for a while now...

Agreed

EK993 said:

Sure Insurance companies can make big profits in good years, however they can also make huge losses in bad years. The current combination we have at the moment with an almost unprecedented amount of natural disasters (earthquakes in New Zealand, Japan, Europe), high levels of property damage in the US due to hurricanes / storms combined with poor investment returns means conditions for Insurers are bad at the moment.

Also agreed


Whilst I also feel the pain of increasing motor premiums, I actually think that, on the whole, they do provide good value for money (I appreciate, of course, that that is not likely to be a popular view, particularly on a motoring forum).

If you look at household insurance, average premiums for buildings and contents cover is probably somewhere in the region of £400/500. I suspect that the claim ratio is fairly low and most claims that do arise are a couple of thousand pounds following a burglary or burst pipe. Worst case senario (in the UK) is probably a fire causing a total loss of the building and contents and even that is only likely to result in a payout of a couple of hundred thousand pounds.

In contrast, average motor premiums are probably edging towards £1,000 now. However, even a very minor claim is likely to cost at least £5,000 now and, as mentioned above, probably considerably more once everybody has had a bite of the cherry. Claims that run into a couple of hundred thousand pounds are not uncommon and there are a significant number of claims that exceed £1M. Whilst, as mentioned at the outset it may not be a popular view, in those cicumstances it is hard to see how motor insurers can make any money or how motor premiums can been considered to be poor value for money. It only surprises me that people complain about motor premiums but rarely mention household premiums which, to my mind, represent significantly worse value for money.

I regret to say that until steps are sucessfully taken to limit fraud, whiplash claims, credit hire claims and legal fees, the position is only likely to get worse.

Edited by costsmonkey on Friday 2nd December 17:28

Edited by costsmonkey on Friday 2nd December 17:30