You know how all those poor motor insurers make perennial losses on their books, so they just [i have[/i to charge you exorbitant premiums?

News out today in the Insurance Times may interest you that Swinton’s director pay was boosted 1,000% for 2009. Directors pay shot up from £1.5m in 2008 to £16.3m in 2009. The top director took home £4.9m in 2009. Broadly similar to that other paragon of boardroom restraint, Hester at RBS.

This has been revealed as the parent company sacked the whole Swinton executive board. If I'd trousered nearly £5m personally I wouldn't be losing much sleep.

Mine increased by a whopping £12 this month. I phoned them up, told them I'd had a better quote and I'm now paying £30 less than last year. Mind you, I'm not with Swinton

I've just had my renewal through and my current insurer has increased my premium by over 100% in spite of the fact there have been no changes to my circumstances and I have an extra years NCB. To their credit, my broker has given me a more competitive quote but, it's still a modest increase on last year. After checking online today I think I can save £50 or so.

Mine went down £5 a month even with a windscreen repair in the last 12 months.
No one has been able to touch Swiftcover's prices for a few years now.

my lad is working in the uk and wants o buy a second hand car so he will be looking for insurance obviously

can someone give me some idea of when a driver is no longer classed as a 'young driver' - he will be 25 in june

thanks

Pah! I can do better than all of those.

In September I was insuring a Peugeot 107, paying £44 a month for myself, the wife and the eldest (23 yrs old, 5 yrs driving) to drive it.

Then I bought a Peugeot 307 to go with it, asked for a two car discount from Direct Line and got them down to £22 plus £21 a month to cover both cars.

Yes, I got two cars insured for less than the price of one.

You don't even get two guesses as to which person I removed from the policies to make it work financially ?

Thats it - 25, see my post above, the years worth of experience don't count as much as the physical age.

Usually 25 but if he's no no claims bonus or any driving history he'll not see the really good prices.

No need for the fat cat salaries as ever but don't blame that for your increased premiums. Blame the compensation culture everyone has bought into and the people who claim on car insurance because of minor injuries.

You forgot the bit about motor insurance not making profits for fifteen years

Edited for accuracy.

also the 1/4 of people who just renew their policy without even searching for a better deal, now wonder so many insurers send such ridiculous quotes out at renewal time.

My last quote was £450 fully comp with business use of over 20k miles and a £100 excess, I didn't think that was too bad.

Utter rubbish. First, there is no compensation culture, (as the government's Better regulation task Force officially confirmed) but even disregarding that, if there was, it would have NOTHING to do with this issue. You're confused, unwittingly or deliberately.

Why nothing? Because if a person is injured through no fault of their own, they are entitled to compensation. Compo in this country for injuries is, frankly outrageously low, but however low it is, if a person is legally entitled to redress for a civil wrong, then what is your objection?

One thing which undeoubtedly HAS happened is that peoples' [iawareness[/i that if they are injured through no fault of their own, they are entitled to compensation if it is someone else's fault. But the law has not changed, it is just that in recent years more people know about it.

Surely you are not saying that a person who is by law entitled to compensation for injuries inflicted on them should not bother claiming it, just to (ha ha) keep premiums lower?? What sort of a nutty standpoint is that?

If an area gets flooded, presumably you'd suggest the thousands of householders insured against the event should not claim, because the payouts will be reflected in increased house insurance premiums?

Aye, makes you wonder why they bother doing it. Certainly no fat on the bone, as evidenced by the Swinton paupers. And they aren't even the insurers, just a commission-gobbling middleman.

I think he is referring to things like this....

Of which many will be fraudulent.

Although he worded it poorly, I think he is referring to fraudulent claims.

I reckon a far greater factor in increased pemiums is the bloat that the insurance comapnies themselves have introduced, such as:

"Free" courtesy car
"Free" legal expenses cover
"Protected" NCD
"Free" breakdown cover

And the myriad of referral fees collected by passing on details of collisions to ambulance-chasers

Oh, I know exactly what he's doing. He is suggesting that "really" nobody is actually injured, but they lie, they hoodwink some guy who's done a decade medical training and however many years in medical practice, they hoodwink lawyers who have done thousands of claims and know what to look for, and they force insurance companies to pay them money even though the insurance companies know they were not injured.

This is utter bollox.

Insurance companies have a formidable and very expensive array of resources to detect, test and if necessary fight fraudulent claims. They do it all the time. If you try to fake a claim it's a bit like a park footballer trying to play against Barcelona.

Nobody is saying there are NO fraudulent claims, course there are, just as there is criminality in every field of human activity where money is involved. The answer is simple. If you think someone is a fraud -don't pay them. Make them prove it in court. Which happens a lot. (And rightly so.)

And scams such as setting up fake "repair" companies whose sole raison d'etre is NOt to repair a car, but to fake an "invoice" at a higher price than the price paid, to claim a falsely inflated amount from another insurer.

Courtesy cars are another major scam, some insurers actually subcontract this to credit hire companies who then claim thousands off the other insurer for a car which you thought you were getting as a "courtesy" by dint of having chosen that policy. The insurers of course getting an obscene kickback from the "hire" company.

Often you are conned into paying "legal expenses cover" simply as an unashamed claims capture device, when in fact you have no legal expenses, your claim is simply sold to a lawyer who will offer the insurer £600 or whatever for the claim, and your "legal expenses insurance company" does nothing , except trouser the money.

As for referral fees, insurers blatantly dissemble about "losing money" on motor policies, and a willing government full of liars, cheats and halfwits parrots it all back at us. Losing money? That would be why for example Admiral, as a company, made around 5.6 per cent of its entire £265m profits from referral fees. Now that's the sort of money-losing insurance business I'd like to be. In fact, they are now looking into taking up the claims game themselves, to replace that nice little earner. A tad hypocritical one may be forgiven for thinking.

Good company they are.

I had a couple of minutes to spare so I went on their website, inputted the basic details and they managed to more than double my current premium. By the time I added the little extras, like breakdown cover & EU cover, they trebled it.

My last quote went up by 35% for the second year, despite NEVER claiming on any insurance and having no points. Searching everywhere online and via a few brokers and independents I know got me pretty much nowhere.

What did it for me was when I asked my insurer for a quote for the Mrs' car - smaller engine, lower bhp, lower insurance group.
"That works out as the same price."
"How exactly do you work that out?"
"Erm, it just is."
*chuckle*
As it happens we both work from home and don't need 2 cars so I sold mine and stopped the DD. They somehow worked out I owed them £75 but after a few letters they stopped chasing.

The entire car insurance industry is as corrupt as they come and a total rip-off.

Hah. I pay £1700 a year, probably at least 3x more than what most people on here pay. I do facepalm quite a lot when I hear people complaining about a £20 rise in their premium.

You pay that for a reason, others are used to more reasonable rates where the price does down over time.