can no longer afford car insurance
can no longer afford car insurance
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Discussion

Big hub

Original Poster:

65 posts

99 months

Wednesday 6th September 2023
quotequote all
Sad times i am now classed as a bad insurance risk!!, after many years of driving claim free with a clean licence having had the good fortune to have owned many performance cars of all types, and still have a love for track days, but i find i have to sell my cars because i can't insure them at a resnable cost.

My horrendance record started in 2021, now retired driving home had a puncture and delaminated tyre caused trim damage, claim one, next claim in 2022 was my car was t boned on a round about, driver on the phone but no witnesses, so i toke the blame, third claim was a car fire caused by a faulty battery charger, last but not least found me sitting at a tempory traffic light when a tractor ripped the side out of my car, the admitted liability. On the strength of this one car has gone up from £475 to £4000, another car i had on layed up policy has gone from £120 to £475, a old pajero only worth about 2K costs me £875. What rubs salt into the wound is although i was at no fault for last one, insurance algorythem tells the insurance i am more likley to another crash in three years, i realise there is extra costs to the insurance as hire cars are being kept longer because the shortage of body shops caused by the shortage of spares.

But why should we have to pay for this, i thought it was only bankers who went to work in balaclaves, maybe we will all have to pay for unjust insurance in the future, started to drive at 20 miles per hour and brake every time i see somebody at a side road.

Dingu

4,893 posts

60 months

Wednesday 6th September 2023
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To be fair that record as you say is horrendous. I’m not surprised the quotes are high. Not really anything unjust about it.

How you took the blame for being t-boned on a roundabout I’m not sure, unless your brief description isn’t accurately painting a picture of how it happened.

samoht

7,266 posts

176 months

Wednesday 6th September 2023
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That's really unfortunate.

Insurance has gone up for everyone, so probably part of the increase would've happened anyway, and part is due to your unlucky four incidents in the past two years.

Ultimately the insurance companies have to pay for everyone's damaged car repairs/replacements whether through the customer's own fault or losses caused by others which can't be reclaimed. And they have to set the premiums high enough to cover these costs. If their profits were too excessive, someone else would see a gap in the market and set up to fill it - if you've shopped around and this is the best you can do, it's probably in some sense a "fair" price.

Prices will come down in time - car insurance goes in waves, and your recent incidents will drop off your record in time, assuming you don't suffer more losses.

You could consider a dashcam so that next time at least you can increase the chance of recovering the cost from the other party next time you have a non-fault, if that might make you less nervous of others' mistakes.

If I were you I'd likely sell or mothball your fleet and get an MX-5 or similar in the meantime, until you can insure something more spicy again.

fflump

3,538 posts

68 months

Wednesday 6th September 2023
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Did the car drive into your side on a roundabout? That suggests it was your fault?

SuperNads

286 posts

189 months

Wednesday 6th September 2023
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Would you insure a random driver cheaply if that was their record though? I'm not sure I would. £4000 is their way of saying 'we don't want to insure you.'

x5tuu

12,788 posts

217 months

Wednesday 6th September 2023
quotequote all
The roundabout t-boning story is definitely missing some elements here to make a judgement call on liability.

Also, the titles very misleading, you’re not prepared to pay the premium rather than being able to ill afford it - considering car two has only gone up to what car one was.

Also it’s worth noting that premiums have pretty gone up across the board in the UK of late - my premiums have gone up by 50%+ with my current insurer (who is still the cheapest option by some margin) on my renewal due in a week or so, with no claims, points or incidents at all.

Katzenjammer

1,255 posts

208 months

Wednesday 6th September 2023
quotequote all
fflump said:
Did the car drive into your side on a roundabout? That suggests it was your fault?
confused

TooLateForAName

4,932 posts

214 months

Wednesday 6th September 2023
quotequote all
Out of interest what were the costs of those claims?


samoht

7,266 posts

176 months

Wednesday 6th September 2023
quotequote all
fflump said:
Did the car drive into your side on a roundabout? That suggests it was your fault?
It tells me nothing about who was at fault.

Imagine a mini roundabout with four exits, OP is proceeding South to North when other driver arrives at speed heading West to East and T-bones OP mid-junction. Then it would be squarely the other driver's fault. (I've seen the aftermath of this sort of thing a few times).

Equally it could be OP's fault, or 50/50, we don't have enough information to start casting aspersions.

Hub

7,143 posts

228 months

Wednesday 6th September 2023
quotequote all
A love of track days you say? wink

Yes others are right that insurance prices have gone nuts anyway without losing your no claims and being high risk, I don't think there is much you can do other than pay it or run a cheaper car for a bit.

ChocolateFrog

34,954 posts

203 months

Wednesday 6th September 2023
quotequote all
I wouldn't have claimed for the first one.

In fact I'd never claim unless there was someone else involved and I had to.

Insurance is there incase you run over Mbappe by accident not to replace bits of trim.

nails1979

642 posts

171 months

Wednesday 6th September 2023
quotequote all
samoht said:
It tells me nothing about who was at fault.

Imagine a mini roundabout with four exits, OP is proceeding South to North when other driver arrives at speed heading West to East and T-bones OP mid-junction. Then it would be squarely the other driver's fault. (I've seen the aftermath of this sort of thing a few times).

Equally it could be OP's fault, or 50/50, we don't have enough information to start casting aspersions.
Exactly, mini roundabout claims with no witnesses are a nightmare. Too many drivers think roundabouts means you give way to people approaching the roundabout on your right, and not who's actually established on the roundabout first.

WelshPetrolhead

1,021 posts

165 months

Wednesday 6th September 2023
quotequote all
ChocolateFrog said:
I wouldn't have claimed for the first one.

In fact I'd never claim unless there was someone else involved and I had to.

Insurance is there incase you run over Mbappe by accident not to replace bits of trim.
Exactly my thoughts when I read the first part.

Big hub

Original Poster:

65 posts

99 months

Wednesday 6th September 2023
quotequote all
by the way the person that t boned me was on the phone she still had it in her hand when she got out, hind sight is a great thing and yes i should have payed the first claim myself, my point was if you get hit by a third party and they admit fault, your insurance will go up, that can't be fair

fflump

3,538 posts

68 months

Wednesday 6th September 2023
quotequote all
nails1979 said:
samoht said:
It tells me nothing about who was at fault.

Imagine a mini roundabout with four exits, OP is proceeding South to North when other driver arrives at speed heading West to East and T-bones OP mid-junction. Then it would be squarely the other driver's fault. (I've seen the aftermath of this sort of thing a few times).

Equally it could be OP's fault, or 50/50, we don't have enough information to start casting aspersions.
Exactly, mini roundabout claims with no witnesses are a nightmare. Too many drivers think roundabouts means you give way to people approaching the roundabout on your right, and not who's actually established on the roundabout first.
These would be excellent points if the OP had actually said the incident happened on a mini roundabout.

TwigtheWonderkid

49,125 posts

180 months

Wednesday 6th September 2023
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You've had 4 claims in around 2 years. Before that, you were probably getting dirt cheap insurance and it never occurred to you to wonder why? You never thought to yourself "many people, youngsters, people with accidents, convictions, living in high crime areas, must be paying loads for insurance to allow me to have such low premiums". And why would you? You didn't care and I don't blame you. Why should you worry about people paying loads because they had a poor record. Serves them right. You had a good record and were reaping the rewards. But you need to realise that we all think like you did until your bad streak. My insurance is cheap. Higher than it was, as is most peoples, but still pretty cheap. I've got a clean record. If someone else with a poor record is paying loads more than me, then that's how it should be.

wong

1,448 posts

246 months

Wednesday 6th September 2023
quotequote all
So, the second claim - T-boned - I presume the car was written off?
The third - car fire - written off?
The fourth - side ripped off - written off?

How much have you cost the insurers?

blueST

4,895 posts

246 months

Wednesday 6th September 2023
quotequote all
Big hub said:
by the way the person that t boned me was on the phone she still had it in her hand when she got out, hind sight is a great thing and yes i should have payed the first claim myself, my point was if you get hit by a third party and they admit fault, your insurance will go up, that can't be fair
No judgement on your specific situation here. From an insurers POV though, just because something wasn’t your fault doesn’t mean there wasn’t anything you could have done to reduce the chances of it happening, so they most likely factor that in and increase the premium anyway. A simple example would be a truck changing lanes and hitting a car in its blind spot. The truck is to blame, but the car could avoid or reduce that risk by not loitering in the blind spot. It is unfair if you did absolutely everything and still got hit, but insurers don’t really concern themselves with individuals, it all about what vast volumes of aggregated data tells them is likely to happen.

Glasgowrob

3,347 posts

151 months

Wednesday 6th September 2023
quotequote all
Insurance market is borked


Recent renewal came in at £900 with no claims no points and max no claims insurer maxed out at 9 years

Added my OH with 2x claims in the last 2 years one worth 17000 and another at 5k all declared

Quote goes down to £700

Make sense of that

iphonedyou

10,417 posts

187 months

Wednesday 6th September 2023
quotequote all
Stop claiming for trim damage, fella!