The utter insanity of insuring a car in London

Soldato
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Insurance: WTF prices. Classic example is Janesy's thread, where he wants to buy something half decent but restricted by insurance quotes due to a London post code.

(I hope he doesn't mind me using him as an example. :) )
Male, 23, 3 NCB, clean license. To insure a Saxo VTR it'll cost £2200 + £1250 excess.

What's the problem here? I'd expect London to have a higher crime rate but surely insurance quotes have to be within reason? Going toward the outskirts of London to a nice town such as Theydon Bois I'd expect it to reduce quite a bit. But it isn't the case.

What a joke.
 
London's expensive, I guess everybody's jumping on the bandwagon :p

You're probably more likely to have an accident in London than out in the sticks.
It's more likely to be stolen, too.
The sheer volume of traffic dictates that you'll hit something eventually, or be hit.
On-street parking is asking for trouble too.


It is logical (as logical as insurance quotes can be), but still ridiculous nonetheless.
 
I just checked some quotes yesterday on a 1 litre corsa b and a micra.

Cheapest as usual was Quinn Direct at £3850 + 250 excess. Cheaper by about £500 the last time I checked.

The median was about £8000 with most companies.

Most expensive as usual was AA at £16000.
 
I think it depend's on the area as opposed to a london postcode.

I'm west london and my daughter is just 18 first car a 1.4 gls corsa 4 door ( she wanted it :) ) and for her it was just under £1200 full comp not sure about excess but it was'nt that bad.
 
I think it depend's on the area as opposed to a london postcode.

I'm west london and my daughter is just 18 first car a 1.4 gls corsa 4 door ( she wanted it :) ) and for her it was just under £1200 full comp not sure about excess but it was'nt that bad.

That's because she's a girl ;) Change it to male and you'll see that price double
 
I just checked some quotes yesterday on a 1 litre corsa b and a micra.

Cheapest as usual was Quinn Direct at £3850 + 250 excess. Cheaper by about £500 the last time I checked.

The median was about £8000 with most companies.

Most expensive as usual was AA at £16000.

You might aswell go third party with cars like that. Not even worth a grand.
 
You're probably more likely to have an accident in London than out in the sticks.
London tends to be 40 and below zones, you have to be a complete moron to have a slow speed accident
It's more likely to be stolen, too.
I doubt it, London has lots of police, CCTV and police with ANPR
The sheer volume of traffic dictates that you'll hit something eventually, or be hit.
Only if you don't know how to drive
But hey, it should not matter that someone ELSE crashes into you, it does not cost your insurance company anything ... it costs the other party
On-street parking is asking for trouble too.
Because driving down a road in a straight line for other people is so difficult?

I don't find driving in London to be that bad from the aspect of other people, the only issue are the number of speed cameras, the fact that all the Asian taxi drivers do not know how to drive, and the amount of traffic
 
LOL rypt.

I agree with mjt.

More traffic density, more population density, more foreigners, more criminals, more potential for disasters = more subsequent insurance claims.

But we also need to take into account the amount of income they generate from insurance policies in London. It's higher than anywhere else in the UK, but are there actually so many claims being made to justify the high prices? I don't think so.
 
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Theres an article today claiming the insurance industry is paying 600m more than they are taking each year. Average insurance prices are now ~£700 a year. Insurance is driving the young and poor to drive without cover. Typical British mess!
 
Theres an article today claiming the insurance industry is paying 600m more than they are taking each year. Average insurance prices are now ~£700 a year. Insurance is driving the young and poor to drive without cover. Typical British mess!

Cheaper insurance is for people that have proved themselves and safe and cautious drivers, I still pay £375 a year after driving for 10 years and never crashed, its still a lot of money so I might as well just stop paying it and become uninsured?

Being poor and young is a fact of life when driving, cant afford insurance, get the bus or cycle.

Its London, its full of immigrants with no insurance or driving documents, its over crowed and LONDON, its the most expensive place in the UK to do anything end of.
 
Being poor and young is a fact of life when driving, cant afford insurance, get the bus or cycle.

The problem is I see the end is near for driving with pleasure imho.
Petrol is more and more expensive, the roads are clogged more and more, tax is rising every year, and to boot the car fleet is changing, to more and more small city cars and electric cars are coming up. Not long before you'd have to earn 40-50k+ py to drive a nice big luxury barge such as a 7series/sclass/etc or an SUV.

The young person now ( or well, me anyhow) now thinks, quickly go and have fun in cars before the green brigade makes cars so expensive that you can't afford it any more and before the roads get so clogged you can't drive normally during daytime.

I doubt driving will become cheaper in the future.

My point is, I doubt that when insurance for example, is more reasonable due to ncb, driving will be the same as it is today ( where it is still very enjoyable and a better alternative to public transport).
 
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Yup when I was living in London, around 3-4 years ago although I didn't need a car by any stretch of the imagination, I keyed in some samples of something completely boring I think along the lines of a P-reg Xsara worth £2k or something, at home (Cornwall) it came out around £400, in my N15 postcode it was about £1,800, ridiculous really.
 
Why, oh why does everyone struggle with the concept of insurance?

A 23 year old driving a saxo around London is statistically a high risk. If you want a company to insure you against that risk, you need to pay more for it. It's not insanity, it's not a joke, it's just common sense. There's not some little troll sitting behind gocompare.com going 'lollondon'
 
Insurance: WTF prices. Classic example is Janesy's thread, where he wants to buy something half decent but restricted by insurance quotes due to a London post code.

(I hope he doesn't mind me using him as an example. :) )
Male, 23, 3 NCB, clean license. To insure a Saxo VTR it'll cost £2200 + £1250 excess.

What's the problem here? I'd expect London to have a higher crime rate but surely insurance quotes have to be within reason? Going toward the outskirts of London to a nice town such as Theydon Bois I'd expect it to reduce quite a bit. But it isn't the case.

What a joke.

I thought I was bad, I can insure a VTS fully comp with a £500 excess for £1100 :p

Why, oh why does everyone struggle with the concept of insurance?

A 23 year old driving a saxo around London is statistically a high risk. If you want a company to insure you against that risk, you need to pay more for it. It's not insanity, it's not a joke, it's just common sense. There's not some little troll sitting behind gocompare.com going 'lollondon'

I really don't think someone with 3 years NCB, well in their twenties in a 100BHP shopping trolley is particularly high risk, well not £2200 worth of risk.
 
A 23 year old driving a saxo around London is statistically a high risk.

How is he high risk, compared to driving it around the country-side?

You are more likely to stack it in the country side when hooning, than in London driving in traffic
 
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