Most unfathomably stupid insurance quirks

[GBDG]

I'm buying a new car at the moment. Originally I was looking at getting it at the start of Jan, so I ran a few insurance quotes to make sure the car of interest didn't have a crazy premium.

I've moved the date of purchase forward a bit, and will hopefully be buying by the end of this week. So I head off back to the insurance quote and move the policy start date forward by 1 week... The cost of the insurance jumps up just over £100!

WTF! How the hell does that make any sense. My first thought was that this week may be high for accidents(?) but then, it's a 12 month policy! Even if it was an accident 'black spot' on the calender, then I would still be covered for that period next year!

So, what are the stupidest quirks you've found with our broken insurance system? Is this the worst?

[Patrick Bateman]

Maybe the underwriters have just changed things about.

It'll happen every so often.

[Mastodon2]

Quote one day, X amount of money. Next day, recalculated quote with exact same specs (by retrieving the quote from my profile on the website, price is now X+£49. What a con. Luckily, the insurance comparison website handily saved all quotes from the past month so I was still able to pick the cheapest option.

Really just shows you that these companies just pull a figure out of their arses though!

[GBDG]

Patrick Bateman said:

Maybe the underwriters have just changed things about.

It'll happen every so often.

But if I move the start date back to the original one, then the quote goes back down to (even more bizarrely) slightly below the original quote!

[matthias73]

This is a good idea. Next time you are looking at cheaper insurance quotes, change the date on them to every day of the month until you find the day that comes up cheapest

[Patrick Bateman]

GBDG said:

But if I move the start date back to the original one, then the quote goes back down to (even more bizarrely) slightly below the original quote!

Now that is odd.

[RP1]

I had to renew mine last week and as i do every time i fiddle about with the quotes to see what the cheapest option is using a comparison website. As the 'value' of your car is a pretty subjective thing with used cars i changed value of the car from £1200 to £1000 (thinking cheaper car = cheaper quote) and quote went up by £150. Changed it back to £1200 and goes down £150. How on earth does that make such a difference to the quote??

Bearing in mind my quote was around the £300 mark thats about 50% of the total evaluated risk on a difference of £200 in the cars value.

Sometimes i really, really don't understand how they calculate things...

[Chicharito]

There is a very odd quirk in insurance premiums - cheap cars cost relatively lots to insure.

My MX5 is worth under a grand, in reality - but if I put in a value of circa £1k, the insurance is more expensive than if I declare it at £1.5k.

I can only think that people driving sub £1k bangers statistically have more accidents.

[thinfourth2]

Chicharito said:

There is a very odd quirk in insurance premiums - cheap cars cost relatively lots to insure.

My MX5 is worth under a grand, in reality - but if I put in a value of circa £1k, the insurance is more expensive than if I declare it at £1.5k.

I can only think that people driving sub £1k bangers statistically have more accidents.

I always wondered why my sheds were so expensive to insure

So how many laws am i breaking if i claim my shed is worth 2 grand?

[VHPD]

thinfourth2 said:

I always wondered why my sheds were so expensive to insure

So how many laws am i breaking if i claim my shed is worth 2 grand?

None

As RP1 says "the 'value' of your car is a pretty subjective thing"

[EV11NED]

Earlier in the year I toted with the idea of buying a Clio 182 as a daily driver and an mx5 for weekend fun. Ran a quote on the famous multi car insurer website and got a (high) price for just me to drive. Added the OH on as an additional driver and the quote went down by £300!!

I'm not quite sure how insuring me alone on 2 cars, only 1 of which I can drive at any one time, is statistically a worse risk than adding the missus on and us having both cars out all the time?

[NickGibbs]

Try sticking in street parking compared to garaged. Often gets cheaper, bizarrely - did for me!

[DIW35]

I wonder if insurance companies think along the lines of - it's only worth £1000, so how much is the owner going to spend on it to keep it roadworthy. Whereas if you tell them the car is worth more, they may assume that as you have a reasonable investment in the car, you're going to look after it.

Not sure if that is the case, but it's a possibility.

[CraigyMc]

NickGibbs said:

Try sticking in street parking compared to garaged. Often gets cheaper, bizarrely - did for me!

In order of cheapest to most expensive, for me:

Driveway, On street, Garage.
Cohabiting, Single, Married.

Go figure.

C

[xRIEx]

Chicharito said:

There is a very odd quirk in insurance premiums - cheap cars cost relatively lots to insure.

My MX5 is worth under a grand, in reality - but if I put in a value of circa £1k, the insurance is more expensive than if I declare it at £1.5k.

I can only think that people driving sub £1k bangers statistically have more accidents.

I would guess that the majority of people who run sub-£1K bangers care very little about the car, nor how they drive it.


My last quote was more expensive if it was garaged, so I said it's on the driveway - sort of lucky that I've found it doesn't fit in my garage. Maybe insurers get a lot of claims of people scraping the sides of their car, or reversing into the back of the garage or something.

[AmitG]

I have always been confused as to why I see so little price difference between comprehensive and third party only cover.

I was looking to get insurance on a Rolls Royce and predictably the quotes were high. I asked for third party only cover (not even fire and theft) and the quotes were about the same! What gives? A Rolls is more expensive to repair, but surely doesn't inflict any more damage in a crash. Hence I would expect comprehensive cover to be high but third party only cover to be reasonable.

I had similar experiences with other cars.

Is this common? Can any insurance folks explain this?

[YoungOne]

Just a point for the OP, when you buy a new car you should get 7 days cover free so that will put you into january and your original cheaper quote

[Luke.]

Boxster cheaper to insure than 996 turbo oddly.

[heisthegaffer]

Luke. said:

Boxster cheaper to insure than 996 turbo oddly.

why is that odd? What age are the vehicles?

Also, in answer to the OPs general question, the reason for the difference in premiums is down to the underwriter having different rates per month.

[sneaky schnell]

AmitG said:

I have always been confused as to why I see so little price difference between comprehensive and third party only cover.

I was looking to get insurance on a Rolls Royce and predictably the quotes were high. I asked for third party only cover (not even fire and theft) and the quotes were about the same! What gives? A Rolls is more expensive to repair, but surely doesn't inflict any more damage in a crash. Hence I would expect comprehensive cover to be high but third party only cover to be reasonable.

I had similar experiences with other cars.

Is this common? Can any insurance folks explain this?

Actually, this seems reasonable (ish).

A Rolls Royce is a frikking tank. Chances are if you have a shunt in one, you're taking out everything it makes contact with. You might not even notice