Car Insurance confuses me sometimes...

Soldato
Joined
29 Jul 2010
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23,738
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Lincs
Last week I had my renewal notification and quote from Hastings for the Mazda 6 insurance in a months time. As usual it had rocketed (current year £240 this year £370) so I did the normal comparison quotes and Churchill came out the cheapest at £204.

Rang Hastings, went through the routine "Oh, we'll see what we can do" and they came back with £230 ish. That was close enough for me and I renewed.

This morning I have just had a call from Hastings validation dept about my renewal. It seems they had changed systems and though my notification only incident from 2016 was on my account (nothing arose from that), the fault claim of £900 from 2017 had only just been applied by the system, so she said this had changed my premium and it was now £30 cheaper....

:confused:

I literally had to stop her to confirm that by adding a fault claim on my account it had made my premium cheaper, which she did indeed confirm.

How does that make sense? :p
 
Soldato
Joined
11 Oct 2005
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4,796
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Manchester, UK
I hit someone very gently at a roundabout a few years ago. There was no visible damage and they said they would take it no further but due to the insurance claim horror stories I've heard, I decided to run quotes with fault claims added just in case.

I ran a quote with a fault claim, cost of repair £500. It came out around £130 cheaper than if I had no claims. I was baffles but no surprised. The wonderful world of insurance never ceases to amaze me.
 
Soldato
Joined
26 Feb 2009
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Exeter
Dont try to find logic in insurance, there's no point. Its a giant mathematical statistical problem, not some dude at a desk saying "hmmm, I think that should cost £x"
 
Soldato
Joined
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Exeter
Maybe because statistically you have low value crashes. Which makes you cheaper than being an unknown who might have an expensive crash?

Agree it doesn’t make sense but perhaps that’s how it works?

Like I said, there is no "why". The risk factors they use dont have or need an explanation attached to them.

Lots and lots of data from historical policies and claims - if having a claim in conjunction with everything else on his policy makes him a lower risk then it'll be a lower price. There's no need for a "why"
 
Man of Honour
Joined
13 Oct 2006
Posts
90,820
Earlier in the year I moved house from a good postcode for cheap insurance to a less good one - heard horror stories of people doing a similar move having £100s added - called my insurer up expecting a hefty increase but they re-calculated at nearly 15% lower even the lady on the phone sounded surprised.

I hate the crazy increases though on renewal that really needs some regulation.
 
Associate
Joined
15 May 2012
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788
Location
Nottingham
Yeah that's weird OP, I was expecting them to want more money off you.

I'm doing the whole renewal thing on my Skyline currently and no matter who I've tried It looks like this years is going to be more expensive than last. I've been with Flux Direct for the past year £501, they wanted £660. Phoned around the usual brokers (Reis, A-Plan, Sky, aib etc) and the best I can get is £530. Nothing my side has changed but apparently 2019-2020 is more expensive go figure?
 
Sgarrista
Commissario
Joined
9 Aug 2013
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10,421
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Bromsgrove
Yeah that's weird OP, I was expecting them to want more money off you.

I'm doing the whole renewal thing on my Skyline currently and no matter who I've tried It looks like this years is going to be more expensive than last. I've been with Flux Direct for the past year £501, they wanted £660. Phoned around the usual brokers (Reis, A-Plan, Sky, aib etc) and the best I can get is £530. Nothing my side has changed but apparently 2019-2020 is more expensive go figure?

Try pace ward, sometimes a referral via them comes in super cheap (Jonathan Coleman if they ask) and they usually work hard to beat any other quote.
 
Soldato
Joined
19 Mar 2012
Posts
6,558
Like I said, there is no "why". The risk factors they use dont have or need an explanation attached to them.

Lots and lots of data from historical policies and claims - if having a claim in conjunction with everything else on his policy makes him a lower risk then it'll be a lower price. There's no need for a "why"

Pretty much this, if the data set is big enough that the results of their risk rating stand up to scrutiny from a numbers point of view, they won't care as much about understanding the Why of it.

I mean it might be that in their experience, someone with your history will typically have 1 low cost crash and then never claim again, so now you've had that claim you're lower risk. And yes i understand that doesn't make sense if you look at it in pure mathematical probability terms like a coin toss situation.
 
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