What should determine your car insurance?

[Bradd]

I hate the way the price can change by thousands depending on your area

[Vee]

Mine goes up by thousands if I get a quote and say I live near Special..

[Stevo]

Mine goes up BY £2,000 for the area i live in at the moment, so insurance for me had been at my parents area instead (There is a mosque just up the road from me - no racism - jus' sayin')

[Bradd]

(2012-02-21 20:45)Stevo Wrote:  Mine goes up BY £2,000 for the area i live in at the moment, so insurance for me had been at my parents area instead (There is a mosque just up the road from me - no racism - jus' sayin')

Loooooooooooool

Insurance at my mates address in Yorkshire is 2k less for me haha, lucky git

[Vee]

Yorkshire is full of nice people, so..

[[TC] Special]

full of scum

[SO•Audiojack]

Mine costs like 400£ a year and it isn't the cheapest car to insure..
(Well for me it would be like twice that since I'm under the age limit whatever it was again 22 or something but it is in my dads name for the time being)

[[TC]►Leon◄]

Get over yourselves. It´s simple logic: Risk vs gain. If I were the insurance company and you, an 18´ish year old, wanted to insure your first car which ofcourse would be a lowered and pimped out BMW 325i E36 or something like that, I´d assrape you until you bought something more sensible like a Fiat Panda. The odds of you killing yourself, your passengers and causing carnage, costing me thousands and more thousands of pounds is far greater in the BMW than the Fiat. I don´t care about your health and well being. I care about my company and its income. If you can´t deal with that, find another company. Your not worth the risk to me.

The same goes for the increase in prices depending on area. If your car is surrounded by assholes and you live in an area mainly consisting of losers on welfare, I wouldn´t touch it since the odds of the car being damaged and/or stolen are far greater. It´s not exactly rocket science and bitching about it simply doesn´t make sense.

I´ve been 18 and had my first car too. I drove like an asshole all the time and so did most of my friends. Most guys tend to do that, since they´re interested in cars, measuring *Removed* sizes etc. and that´s why insurance is higher for males than females. It sucks, but it´s true.

- Leon


Edit: I didn´t read any of the posts, so this doesn´t make any sense, sue me.

[Bradd]

The thing is Leon, i'm not expecting to be driving round in a pimped BMW for a first car. It's a bog standard 1.0 Corsa that the insurance is stupidly high on. Also, my area is pretty decent and theres very rarely a car stolen but they still expect me to pay 4k+. WTF? Lol

[Turkey]

The 1st two paragraphs are pretty straight forward and I don't think anyone is bitching about premiums varying between places you live, what car you drive, if it's modified etc. These are all things people have control over, so if you end out in the same category as the boy racers and pay high premiums, it was down to your choices and you have nothing to complain about.

The last paragraph is something people might take issue with. It looks like you Leon, aren't too bothered about your insurance company assuming you're a moron because you admit yourself that you drove like an asshole. But think from the perspective of a young driver who just wants his car to get to work. It's a slow, boring car, he doesn't drive it much and he drives it responsibly. This person is still being ass raped by his insurance company and it's entirely based on prejudice.

Employers aren't allowed to discriminate. If a company decided not to employ any young people due to the stereotype that young people are lazy and grumpy, people wouldn't be cool with this. Why? Because not all young people are lazy and grumpy, some work hard. Same goes for young drivers - not all young drivers are reckless. This is why I think insurance should start much lower, but if you're caught doing something dangerous or you cause an accident then the insurance dildos and handcuffs should come out. The same as if you're lazy at your job - you loose it.

[ChrisM]

Well said Turkey.

[[TC]►Leon◄]

I see where you're coming from with your point Turk, but insurance companies have to be prejudice. I'll put it like this. If I were to be insured on your terms e.g low premium, based on the fact that it's my first car and I seem like a sensible person, have a sensible car, sensible social group, sensible housing and so forth. Then what'll the insurance company do when I sensibly park my car in someones living room? It's going to cost them a fortune - Way more than the potential loss of a few first timer clients. I' not saying that all the young men would do this, but enough to outweigh the income of the sensible ones. I'm not making this up. I'm sure you know that all statistics point to young men from 18 to their mid-20's tend to be asses behind the wheel. Like I said earlier: Risk vs gain. Risk having the younger client group smashing up everything around them, but gain a few extra clients via lower insurance for the aforementioned. I'm sorry, but I just can't see how that'll add up

I' not trying to defend anyone here. Hell, I hate the basterds too, as I was recently buttraped by them myself.

Also there is a key factor to all of it. You are obligated by law to be insured, which places very good cards in the company's hands. Remember, insurance isn't a service - It's a business. They don't care about you.

Hope this makes sense. Was written on phone.

- Leon

[Turkey]

I agree, as a business your objective is to earn money, so ideally you'd want to know everything you can about a person before quoting a price.

If a new study was taken out that showed for example Japanese drivers are 20% less likely to write their car off, then companies would probably want to vary premiums based on race... Well if they could get away with it - of course there's regulations, and even then a lot of customers would be outraged and change to a less racist company.

I think a good system would be for any driver with a statistical high risk to initially pay a larger sum of money to the company than normal, but with a large percentage of that sum being a deposit. If you crash your car or cause an accident - you loose the deposit, or a percentage of it. However, if you haven't caused any damage you get the deposit back.

That way insurance companies could still earn money from young drivers without ass raping the sensible ones that are just unlucky to be in a high risk category. But of course, that will never happen.

[[TC] Stephen]

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm an under 25 year old driver that pays around $1500 a year for a 2l turbo wrx

(I have a 55% NCB from 4-6 years of crash and point less driving, living in a reasonable area)

Also I'm already a 'class 1 driver' (best) and got a gold license straight after i passed my provisional driving test, usually you get silver then work up to gold after a few years of good driving. Gold means you can get up to 14 points instead of the usual 12 afaik, might make the cops more lenient as well.

[Turkey]

Nice Stephen. Do you know how much more expensive your premiums would be with an ordinary licence?

[[TC] Stephen]

I think it's more about age and how many points you have rather than the type of license.

[McGherkin]

I think insurance is fairly reasonable for young drivers.

I pay £1800 fully comp on my car. In the first year of driving, 1 in 5 drivers will have a crash.

So let's have a hypothetical crash. Both cars are written off, other driver has got the usual whiplash injury. My car's value is listed as £1500, other car is, say, a £8000 Mondeo.

So the insurer has to pay for:
£1500 (My car)
£8000 (Their car)
£4000 (Whiplash)

Total Cost:
£13,500

The total premium for every 5 young drivers paying £1800 is less than the cost of one of them having a crash. Still think this is unfair?

If you've got points on your license, you're more likely to become that 1 in 5, and if you've had a crash, you are that 1 in 5.

[James]

To be quite honest, I kind of am glad and sad that insurance prices are so high. I think its an alright deterrant for people who are pretty bad behind the wheel and people who are out there to impress and rag around a corsa 'for t3h lulz' and yeah, it is about making money also. Im using a scooter to obtain as many years as I can under no claims. So I can then obviously transfer that to a vehicle once I pass and buy one. Which I see happening after im 22 (currently 20, 21 in may).


Wouldnt you also have to factor in the chance they are an uninsured driver and with the current statistics ? It sort of seems you might end up hitting one just as much as someone who has insurance these days.. which will cost more right ?

[McGherkin]

Depends whose fault it is. If it's your fault, it won't matter whether they're insured or not. If it's theirs, your company will only be able to get the costs from them if they're insured.

I'd like to see participation in motorsport reduce premiums. I mean, someone who races on the track is much less likely to race on the road.

[Bradd]

(2012-02-23 20:15)McGherkin Wrote:  I think insurance is fairly reasonable for young drivers.

I pay £1800 fully comp on my car. In the first year of driving, 1 in 5 drivers will have a crash.

So let's have a hypothetical crash. Both cars are written off, other driver has got the usual whiplash injury. My car's value is listed as £1500, other car is, say, a £8000 Mondeo.

So the insurer has to pay for:
£1500 (My car)
£8000 (Their car)
£4000 (Whiplash)

Total Cost:
£13,500

The total premium for every 5 young drivers paying £1800 is less than the cost of one of them having a crash. Still think this is unfair?

If you've got points on your license, you're more likely to become that 1 in 5, and if you've had a crash, you are that 1 in 5.

You must live in Disneyland or something to be getting insurance that cheap lol. I'd say the average price of insurance for young drivers is about 3-4k, so therefore the insurance companies have got to be maknig a shitload of money. Also, 1 in 5 young drivers may crash but not all of them involve other cars so the insurers only have to pay off the value of the one car.