Exactly, as soon as you put an "S" or "RS" in front of an Audi model ID prices start to go up, in some cases quite dramatically.
car insurance doubled, why?
- Thread starter hobib_ali
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Exactly, as soon as you put an "S" or "RS" in front of an Audi model ID prices start to go up, in some cases quite dramatically.
So if your car is below £40k its all the same?
A £1000 car is the same to insure a £30k car. When it gets stolen or written off, the costs are the same.
Newer cars aren't also more complicated with more expensive repairs. Nope.
Heard it hear first...
A £1000 car is the same to insure a £30k car. When it gets stolen or written off, the costs are the same.
Newer cars aren't also more complicated with more expensive repairs. Nope.
Heard it hear first...
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Just to highlight how cheap £730 for a £30k car actually is.
If the insurance company had 50 people for the same car and charged them £730, they would collect £36500. They would keep £32,590 after paying insurance premium tax.
If just 1 of those cars is stolen or written off, then they've made a massive loss as they also will need to cover employee costs and other costs such as paying commission to your favourite price comparison website or broker. This isn't even taking into account people claiming windscreen replacement, repairs for accidents involving others or injuries caused.
If the insurance company had 50 people for the same car and charged them £730, they would collect £36500. They would keep £32,590 after paying insurance premium tax.
If just 1 of those cars is stolen or written off, then they've made a massive loss as they also will need to cover employee costs and other costs such as paying commission to your favourite price comparison website or broker. This isn't even taking into account people claiming windscreen replacement, repairs for accidents involving others or injuries caused.
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Not too mention the cost of repairing/replacing whatever it was driven into, medical bills for the people involved, hire car, legal costs etc.
If you crash your £30k car into another £30k car and write them both off, it wouldn't surprise me if the costs were closer to £100k!
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Soldato
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... and it's got to be poor Joe Bloggs on the street ... That's you buddy
There is some truth in this. I used to work for a large underwriter & when we were asking the value of the car it wasn't actually a rating factor below what I think was about £32k back then.
However the cost when new & to repair the vehicle was factored in so a car that was expensive when new would still cost more to insure than a cheaper vehicle when new even if they were both now 10 year old & worth £5k.
If i've got the model right as i don't know my Audis looking at parkers the A5 is a £25k-£40k with 268hp when new ans the S5 a £40k-£46k car when new with over 330hp. I can't imagine we'd have had these in the same category/segment so for all intents & purposes they would be a different car.
Even something like the Mondeo 3.0 Titanium X and the ST220 fell into different segments, one was classified as a family car & the other fell into one of the "sport" cetegories so again totally different despite them sharing the same engine & body.
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Definitely an increase in theft Risk from an A5 to an S5 purely on the desirability of anything with an S or RS badge
Insurance can be weird though my old man pays less to insure a modified S3 then a 1.6 diesel Astra (granted both are sub £200 ) and my wife recently insured a new 300hp mini for half of what she was paying on a diesel Skoda worth a third as much.
It’s all about risk profiles for insurance companies they work on the metrics their allowed to work on and calculate a risk based on many many multiple factors add some insurance co magic beans in for good measure depending on their own appetite as a company ie do they want to grow a particular demographic of customers and as such should they sell that policy at cost or sometimes even at a loss and bobs your fathers brother. You have quote.
Now every insurer has their own risk measurements and their own outlook on how they want to shape or build their customer bases hence you see such wildly varying quotes whilst one insurer may want to flood their books with a particular type of risk another may have been burnt and want to offload as much of that as possible you may find one company is running at a huge loss to grow market share and simply doesn’t care about making money it’s all about getting new customers on the book and to hell with everything else
Insurance can be weird though my old man pays less to insure a modified S3 then a 1.6 diesel Astra (granted both are sub £200 ) and my wife recently insured a new 300hp mini for half of what she was paying on a diesel Skoda worth a third as much.
It’s all about risk profiles for insurance companies they work on the metrics their allowed to work on and calculate a risk based on many many multiple factors add some insurance co magic beans in for good measure depending on their own appetite as a company ie do they want to grow a particular demographic of customers and as such should they sell that policy at cost or sometimes even at a loss and bobs your fathers brother. You have quote.
Now every insurer has their own risk measurements and their own outlook on how they want to shape or build their customer bases hence you see such wildly varying quotes whilst one insurer may want to flood their books with a particular type of risk another may have been burnt and want to offload as much of that as possible you may find one company is running at a huge loss to grow market share and simply doesn’t care about making money it’s all about getting new customers on the book and to hell with everything else
An engine doesn't make it a whole car, I bet Audi use the engine in a number of cars not just A5 and S5. The differences are the badge is more desirable, probably has bigger wheels/wider tyres which mean the wings will be different which then means the bumpers could be different which will be more expensive. It probably has a splitter or spoiler (or just bigger ones). Then there simply could have been more crashed/stolen S5's than A5's in your area which will make a difference.
Just an example about the difference in cost to parts. In the 2000's I had a 206gti which I crashed (was in to a sign on a roundabout so not in to anyone else, the tyre let go at the wrong moment) and it needed a new wing and front bumper. I bought a wing from a local car parts shop and it cost £89 which considering prices these days isn't bad, but for a non gti 206 the wing cost £36 and the only difference was the gti one was slightly wider as it came with slightly wider wheels and tyres.
Just an example about the difference in cost to parts. In the 2000's I had a 206gti which I crashed (was in to a sign on a roundabout so not in to anyone else, the tyre let go at the wrong moment) and it needed a new wing and front bumper. I bought a wing from a local car parts shop and it cost £89 which considering prices these days isn't bad, but for a non gti 206 the wing cost £36 and the only difference was the gti one was slightly wider as it came with slightly wider wheels and tyres.
Yep, the engines are likely the same with different turbos, intake, cooling etc and maybe ECU. Bodywork may look the same but it often isn't. Not just shape and fittings but sometimes different materials (might be alu instead of steel). Suspension parts will also be different and more reinforced on performance versions of cars.
Like the Yaris GR vs normal Yaris. Every panel is different and made from carbon fibre. Very expensive and needs a specialist to repair it. But not many end up in ditches or stolen, unlike Audis so insurance is probably quite cheap.
Like the Yaris GR vs normal Yaris. Every panel is different and made from carbon fibre. Very expensive and needs a specialist to repair it. But not many end up in ditches or stolen, unlike Audis so insurance is probably quite cheap.
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Soldato
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Yeah it's really cheap. We're honoured that they are able to sell it to us. We should be thankful to our glorious capitalist overlords.
Admiral: '2024 was a remarkable year. We delivered an excellent result with a 28 per cent increase in turnover and 90 per cent increase in profit as we welcomed an additional 1.4 million customers to the Group.' Source.
Aviva: 'Group operating profit up 20% to £1,767m (2023: £1,467m).' Source.
Hastings: 'Operational profit2 increased by 70% to £193.2m, reflecting the improved underwriting performance.' Source.
Direct Line: '£395m increase in operating profit with 22pt Motor margin improvement'. Source
To be clear, I'm not saying these corps shouldn't be able to turn a profit. I'm saying that their jacking up of the prices under the banner of 'increased cost of business' is clearly horse ****.
Like most other business such as energy suppliers.
Soldato
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Close.
The actuaries evaluate the risk profiles and the true cost of the various factors that that insurance co uses.*
This is then handed to the marketing & underwriting departments who look into what they think they can get away with at any price point bearing in mind what it will cost to support that business with expected loss rates.
Eg when I worked with actuaries for one of the big insurers years ago they said one of the lowest risk categories was 25-35 year old single males with high performance cars. Due to them generally caring about the car and driving. So decent tyres etc
One of the worst was Mr Mondeo with his missus and two fighting kids in the back. Cost conscious on everything so budget tyres etc.
Yet the market could not shrug off the Mondeo man should be cheap and the guy with the supercar should be expensive.
Its why some would spin off "specialist" insurers from their main brand in order to more closely market a particular segment.
Insurance also went in waves with "write for profit" at times and "write for volume" at others the switch coming as a response to not that great figures and the thought the other would be better.
* I am pretty sure it doesn't work that way any more but the Coop insurance was a unique case in that they actually published a points table that you as the consumer could use to work out your premium.
X points for Y postcode, Z points for age range, AA for males AB for females etc etc
Add them all up and cross reference to the points table and you could see your premium.
They were as a result either grossly expensive or very cheap compared to the rest of the market.
If you read your links, you will see just because something goes up doesn't mean they are making obscene profits.
Admiral increased profits by selling to more customers. Good on them, they must have been cheaper than their competitors.
Hastings made £193m with 3.9m customer. So about £50 each.
The Aviva one is misleading because that isn't just car insurance. They are a massive company.
Read your Direct Line one. Wow, 22pts improvement in motor margin. They went from losing 21% per £ to making 1%. Looks like they haven't increased prices enough to recover the £320m they lost in 2023.
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Fantastic insight
Although I’m still absolutely baffled at some of the margins brokers expect to make
We run one of the larger taxi / ph fleets in Scotland we have just renewed our fleet policy with a different branch of the same broker with the same underwriter £500 per car less than the best quote we could get for our renewal with the exact same company and details
Soldato
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When I worked for the insurer I did (I was finance systems projects manager so saw the whole company at times in real detail as I worked on projects across it, like new MI system and new underwriting system) most of the profit came from investing the cash received and hoping that it stayed in our hands long enough to earn some money before we had to pay it out.
The weather was a major risk, a snowy winter could see claims spike for relatively minor accidents, but repair places would be swamped, so longer hire car periods etc.
I pay under £700 for a TTRS in a Slough postcode.
