Car insurance...

DashcamDPR

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Dash Cam
A119 Pro, Mio Mivue 508 for the work van
My renewal is due this month, one of the comparison sites actually asks if I have a dashcam, though it made no difference to the price, still quoted double what I paid last year!

I'm gonna ring my current insurer tomorrow and see what they can do for me, and ask whether or not my dashcams (currently undeclared) will pull it down further!

Some independent specialist insurers boast about the discounts they can offer for various reasons (of which I'm technically included in) yet none can come close to my current insurer... Adrian Flux
 
Makes me curious how UK and US insurance rates and business practices in general compare.
In the US different companies can vary widely for the same coverage depending how they discount certain things. The last one I was with for about 5 years discontinued all coverage in my state (auto insurance is state regulated and I guess they didn't want to deal with Texas insurance regulators any more). They generously placed me into a "county mutual" affiliate company basically higher risk and high prices and only 6 months at a time. No thanks. Got my home insurer on the phone and got auto and homeowner's policies with multi policy discount at half what I was paying, for a full year.
 
To be fair, the only reason I have insurance is because its legally required and I get the minimum cover I can get away with :D

after all, so far my no claims on my home insurance and car insurance are at maximum, so given that they don't give you your money back for never needing them to pay out for anything, I'm not giving them a penny more than I have to :D
 
Minimum here in TX is $30,000 for each injured person, up to a total of $60,000 per accident, and $25,000 property damage per accident. These days those numbers are pretty easy to exceed if you happen to screw up and cause a wreck. Then you'd be getting sued for the rest. I found not that much more to bump that up to $100k-500k-100k liability. What you pay a lot to do with your driving record too. As far as insurance in general, yeah, I've paid homeowners ins so long now it has exceeded the price I paid for the house. Never had a claim!
 
I've never even looked into the figurative amounts of insurance provided by policies for cars, we just basically tell them our driving record, age and where we live, and details about vehicle value and performance. they give us a price, we buy the cheapest

home insurance, we do get clear info on how much money our insurance will stretch to in terms of home rebuild, contents value cover, yet it cost me on average £100 a year to insure my home and contents

I hope your home was extremely cheap to buy if your insurance payments have cost more!
 
Bought the house 39 years ago. Our homeowners insurance is about 8 to 10X that "£100 a year"! Living in "tornado alley" makes it expensive.

Auto, they take into consideration city, county, your credit history, driving history for 3 to 5 years back, type and age of vehicle, whether you drive back-and-forth to work daily or do just "pleasure" driving, anything they can come up with seems like to adjust rates mostly higher.
 
Well.... had my renewal this morning and its £54 more than last year, despite my car's value being considerably lower, and an extra year of claim free driving

Gonna call them and see what their "excuse" is
 
Same BS here so I take it they are all the same! Driving a 16 year old vehicle and the collision and comprehensive parts which cover damage to it keep going up even though the actual cash value keeps going down. Amazing how they pull that off and get away with it.
 
Same BS here so I take it they are all the same! Driving a 16 year old vehicle and the collision and comprehensive parts which cover damage to it keep going up even though the actual cash value keeps going down. Amazing how they pull that off and get away with it.
Value of the vehicle is not the driving factor - cost to repair is.
 
Value of the vehicle is not the driving factor - cost to repair is.

that's one factor but not a major one as labour and parts costs don't change a lot from year to year, insurance policy prices are calculated using financial modelling by actuaries, they'll use historical data to calculate the risk of someone in your age group, location, vehicle type etc to estimate the likelihood of a claim, if there's been a rise in claims in the previous year in any of the categories you fall into then your policy goes up
 
Value of the vehicle is not the driving factor - cost to repair is.
You must work for an insurance company! I've heard that reasoning before.
They will repair it up to the cash value of the vehicle, minus deductible. When the vehicle started out at say $25,000 and now 16 years later worth maybe $3500 on the books they aren't likely to repair much either. A minor fender-bender could easily total it especially if the air bags deployed. And part of the comprehensive is theft coverage and that only pays ACV minus the deductible. Hard to justify. But I pay it anyway. Not that much more than just legal limit liability, and uninsured motorist coverage.
 
I wish that kind of coverage was equally cheap here but it isn't.

Phil
 
... as labour and parts costs don't change a lot from year to year,...
Pretty much in line with inflation so they do increase year over year. The other factors that come into play are accident and theft rates in a geographic area which increase the likelihood of a claim. Driver age and driving record have more of an impact on the liability coverage than repair/replacement.

You must work for an insurance company! I've heard that reasoning before.....
I don't and you probably heard that reasoning before because it's true.
 
that's one factor but not a major one as labour and parts costs don't change a lot from year to year, insurance policy prices are calculated using financial modelling by actuaries, they'll use historical data to calculate the risk of someone in your age group, location, vehicle type etc to estimate the likelihood of a claim, if there's been a rise in claims in the previous year in any of the categories you fall into then your policy goes up
Increasingly credit history has become a major factor as well; eligible drivers in a household whether they are listed on a policy or not are factored in to those calculations.
 
Increasingly credit history has become a major factor as well; eligible drivers in a household whether they are listed on a policy or not are factored in to those calculations.

if you ever meet an Actuary that works for an insurance company ask them to explain it to you, suggest drinking copious amounts of coffee so you can stay awake while they bore you to death with how these things are calculated, alternatively you can drink copious amounts of alcohol to try and drown your sorrows and wonder why you ever asked in the first place ;)
 
if you ever meet an Actuary that works for an insurance company ask them to explain it to you, suggest drinking copious amounts of coffee so you can stay awake while they bore you to death with how these things are calculated, alternatively you can drink copious amounts of alcohol to try and drown your sorrows and wonder why you ever asked in the first place ;)
I have been involved in an adversarial relationship with an Insurance company for the past couple of years. Many hours have been wasted talking with actuaries who could not hit their butt with both hands on a good day. I have tried both of your solutions with varying degrees of success :(
 
I am changing next time, did a little online window shopping for car insurance, and as it turn out i can get the same as now another place but almost 1500 Dkkr less or as i recall a 20% saving, that's just about the price of a new windscreen.

you got to shop for these things more often, my plan for the phone are now 79 DKkr a month for 30 Gb data and 20 hour speech ( free text and MMS ) they (same company ) sell the same plan now dead cheap for 109 DKkr/mo.
So your phone company you also got to keep on its toes, if not there are other ones out there.
And if they put up a attitude i tell them look at what i use out of my subscription ( about 3GB and 3 Hour speech / Mo )
So i am sure i can do better elsewhere.
The reason i am at 79 Dkkr/mo now is in early june i got a mail saying my suscription change cuz now i can use it in the EU too and bla bla.
But i dont travel and if i do its not with my phone, so i called my provider and said whats this BS ? it look like i better get another provider, and wouldn't you know within seconds the person in the other end found a better deal to me.

Same you can also now do for your electricity provider here, if you find a cheaper one call them and say so and so i cant get at those guys, do you want to match that or loose me as a customer.
 
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kamkar1, could you let me know what insurance-agency you got the best offer at? I'm currently looking to change to a cheaper, but it seems thay are going haywire when getting my car details. A simple 1.6 101bhp isn't a fancy sportscar, yet i'm paying the same price as if i've got a Golf Mk3 VR6... :S
 
Bumped an old thread for a couple of reasons, firstly it's mine, secondly my car renewal was due, and thirdly, I got it cheaper for a strange reason!!

My current insurer's renewal isn't cheap this time around, due to changing cars since last year to a completely unmodified one (Adrian flux frown upon "standard" cars!)

Hastings essentials is a no frills version of Hastings direct insurance, and they offered me a very cheap quote of £226(ish), with the option of upgrading to Hastings direct for £13.29 extra (for the year), giving me some add-ons like 3rd party cover on other vehicles, windscreen and vandalism cover.

Sounds pretty good yes? WELL.... I took ONE mile off my "expected miles per year" and the cost option of upgrading to Hastings direct went from £13.29 extra, to MINUS 54p!! £225 this year for the upgraded package!! I'm fairly pleased
 
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