Just why don't insurers ask about tyres?

[shauncr91]

Having a thought from a thread about tyres on PH, why do insurers not adjust their prices based on what tyre's are fitted?

I can go out and buy a 300+bhp RWD car with 30p tyres on it, but insure it for the same price as someone with £800 tyres. Surely this should be a critical risk factor for insurers?
They will base quotes on other factors such as exhausts and brakes etc so why do they disregard something as critical as tyres? Surely someone who's prepared not to be a ***** on maintaining their car is less likely to be a risk?

 

[NathWraith]

Good point to be honest but I guess the hassle in the insurer actually checking would not be worth it.

 

[Joe T]

Good idea in principle, but pretty tricky to implement.

 

[Firestar_3x]

Having good tyres fitted will limit your scope for crashing, but you don't have that much influence on someone else crashing into you.

The correct way of sorting this out is to set the minimum wet breaking tyre distance to something which outlaws the current crop of Chinese dross.

 

[Malc]

Very good point, but at what point do you stop? Also, for the insurance companies to factor in tyre quality, they would have to have the statistics to differentiate between different tyre qualities.

You're also assuming that the stats would work in the favour of the person who puts better tyres on their car i.e. their premiums would go down. The stats could well work in the opposite favour. An example of this being where you park your car overnight. Most people would assume that Garage would be cheaper than Street due to it being more secure and less chance of people hitting the car etc. With Admiral, it's cheaper to park on the Street than Garage. Unless this is a glitch on their system, this can only be assumed to be because the stats say that you're less likely to make a claim or the value of a claim is less if you park your car on the street.

Lies, damn lies and statisitics.

 

[shauncr91]

Having good tyres fitted will limit your scope for crashing, but you don't have that much influence on someone else crashing into you.

But if I crash into someone then surely they'd be claiming from my insurance anyway not theirs, so I don't see how that would make a difference.

 

[rG-tom]

It's also half likely that people who fit the best of the best tyres are more likely to be driving their cars at a pace where this is noticeable.

I'd imagine it to be the cheapest insurance for mid range tyres, then good tyres then linglongs?

 

[Rybo89]

I didn't buy Contiental Sport Contact 3 tyres to drive like a granny

Insurance would just turn it back round on you and charge you more for having better tyres.

 

[cwhitehead]

pretty sure they would charge you for gripper tyres as you are more likely to speed round corners.

Would never work only another reason for them to screw us harder.

 

[shauncr91]

I didn't buy Contiental Sport Contact 3 tyres to drive like a granny

Insurance would just turn it back round on you and charge you more for having better tyres.

On the other hand, my father has CS3's on his car and it never goes about 70 Some people just want to run their car properly without thrashing it, comes back to my previous point that his tyres cost ~£900/set but someone can insure the same car for the same price and spend less than a 5th of that on their tyres..

 

[atpbx]

Show me a tyre for a 300bhp car that isnt rated to at least 70mph and you almost have the beginnings of a point.

 

[dalin80]

Quite frequently when we have crash damaged cars come in the first thing the insurance engineer checks is that the tyres are legal and have the correct rating for the car.

Asides from that it will be an almost impossible task for the insurance man to judge based on make of tyres, unless they could also get a G meter into the car as well.

 

[NathWraith]

I didn't buy Contiental Sport Contact 3 tyres to drive like a granny

Insurance would just turn it back round on you and charge you more for having better tyres.

More than likely

"why you fitting performance tyres? Oh must be a boy racer +£500 to your premium."

FUUUUU-

 

[Conscript]

Whilst a good idea in principle, surely we'd need a standardised way of rating tyre performance first?

Otherwise, what's to stop insurers bumping up their premiums because they rate you're tyres as a poorer performing than their own arbitrary standard?

 

[Firestar_3x]

But if I crash into someone then surely they'd be claiming from my insurance anyway not theirs, so I don't see how that would make a difference.

From a claim and fault point of view yes, however regardless of fault you've still had a crash, you've still had all the problems which come along with one, and as many have found your premium will rise next year.

 

[Hagar]

I am almost sure new £100 average tyres with full tread will perform as well as £200 tyres with 3mm.

You then would get people trying to evaluate the equation, spend £400 more on tyres to save £400 on insurance........

I have never been asked about brakes or exhaust on an insurance form. If you modify them you will likely pay more not less even if better.

 

[ubersonic]

IIRC tyres are consumables and so not classed as modification

 

[shauncr91]

I have never been asked about brakes or exhaust on an insurance form. If you modify them you will likely pay more not less even if better.

I understand an insurer charging more for better brakes, I mean if you consider yourself needing more stopping power then the normal response would be to slow down and stop driving like a tool. In my old Focus I could break wet-traction below the speed limit on Wan Li tyres, I could put these on my Fiesta aswell but that would be differing from the manufacters standard P-Zero's, Ford fitted Pirelli's for a reason, because they deemed them suitable for the car, they didn't fit Wan Li's because they weren't suitable.

 

[NathWraith]

IIRC tyres are consumables and so not classed as modification

This is any interesting point though. What is a consumable?

Exhaust definitely is, as they age they can crack, blow, rust off etc and yet an exhaust is probably the number 1 "modification" done to cars.

Although I guess it depends if you change it through necessity (exhaust blowing) or want more performance/aesthetics.

 

[realscot]

Then also Nath, you'd have to consider lifetime filters etc, plugs, leads etc etc, direct replacement to consumable parts only slightly better than oem stuff.