Insurance - bid for my business...!
Discussion
Spotted on Autoexpress...
For many drivers it will be the ultimate pleasure - seeing insurers battling it out to win their custom.
Motorists send their cover requirements to website www.bid4mybusiness.co.uk and insurance firms do precisely that in an auction. Users will then get quotes by E-mail and can choose the cheapest. Insurers like the system as it eliminates brokers, which charge £40 for introducing a new client.
hmm... might be worth a laugh...
For many drivers it will be the ultimate pleasure - seeing insurers battling it out to win their custom.
Motorists send their cover requirements to website www.bid4mybusiness.co.uk and insurance firms do precisely that in an auction. Users will then get quotes by E-mail and can choose the cheapest. Insurers like the system as it eliminates brokers, which charge £40 for introducing a new client.
hmm... might be worth a laugh...
I went to look at the Norwich Union site for a quote, and in th epreamble it said "we don't offer insurance to anyone with any motoring convictions in the past 5 years" which is a little odd. Anyway that ruled me out (along with half th epopulation and 90% of PHers
) so I didn't go any further.
Anyway -
I've some experience fo a similar idea for gas and electricity auctioning. It works on a larger scale, ie largish businesses, 'cos there's enough business to justify the effort involved by the supply companies. However, on a household scale there they wouldn't bother as the sums involved are trivial. We did try a scheme bundling a large number of people together, and got a group of 40-odd as a pilot but it didn't get anywhere. The feedback was, if it had been 400 or 4000 they've shown more interest. This was about 18 months ago, the market may have matured since then. The other factor is that (believe it or not) the profit margins in flogging energy are generally tiny, so it'd need to be a big contract to justify the cost of getting the business.
My take on the insurance would be that it may be viable for fleet policies, but not for individuals. If a group of individuals could get together and put their insurance needs together, and put it forward for reverse auctioning, then there may well be some mileage in it. In fact there almost certainly would be.
There would be two reasons for getting lower prices: economies of scale, which is obvious, but also spreading the risk around a larger group would make the actual risk based cost of insuring the group less than the sum of its parts (I think - any actuaries here to confirm?)
So now all we need is a suitable way of getting a largish number of like-minded motorists together ...
) so I didn't go any further. Anyway -
I've some experience fo a similar idea for gas and electricity auctioning. It works on a larger scale, ie largish businesses, 'cos there's enough business to justify the effort involved by the supply companies. However, on a household scale there they wouldn't bother as the sums involved are trivial. We did try a scheme bundling a large number of people together, and got a group of 40-odd as a pilot but it didn't get anywhere. The feedback was, if it had been 400 or 4000 they've shown more interest. This was about 18 months ago, the market may have matured since then. The other factor is that (believe it or not) the profit margins in flogging energy are generally tiny, so it'd need to be a big contract to justify the cost of getting the business.
My take on the insurance would be that it may be viable for fleet policies, but not for individuals. If a group of individuals could get together and put their insurance needs together, and put it forward for reverse auctioning, then there may well be some mileage in it. In fact there almost certainly would be.
There would be two reasons for getting lower prices: economies of scale, which is obvious, but also spreading the risk around a larger group would make the actual risk based cost of insuring the group less than the sum of its parts (I think - any actuaries here to confirm?)
So now all we need is a suitable way of getting a largish number of like-minded motorists together ...
Woo hoo just got a quote from www.esure.com/ for £382.31 for my BMW. The renewal quote was £525 from my existing insures.
I have registered with bid4mybusiness but cant see them beating £382.31
One happy bunny here
I have registered with bid4mybusiness but cant see them beating £382.31
One happy bunny here
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