Insurance Rip -Off

I've always thought and said it! Insurance companies are a huge rip off and are a license to print money. Scheming under hand practices to ensure minimum, if any at all, payouts, absolute scandal. Thieves, all of them, ah that's better, Spleen vented.

Just paid £2000+ for son's insurance on a car worth £1000, scum all of them...

Yes, insurers are the biggest rip-off of them all. They charge maximum they can get away with, then come down if you shop around and then pay next to nothing in a claim. Just as bad with home insurance. Whilst most of us probably agree we all dissapprove of drunk and uninsured drivers, do not believe everything you hear. My son is currently due in court for no insurance.....why? Because he has his motorcycle taxed but his insurers failed to to add him/it on the MID (motor insurance database). Despite having a valid insurance certificate that he has produced, and the fact he was not even riding the bike (it is a classic and stored in the garage, DVLA are using their new powers to prosecute owners of vehicles shown as uninsured on the MID that are taxed as the law now requires all taxed vehicles to be insured.

The jobsworths completely ignore the fact he has an insurance certificate and if found guilty, his insurance will rocket because insurers heavily load drivers with a no insurance on their licence.

Also another friend of mine crashed his car that was fully comp. He used his wifes car that she insured independantly for work the following week and got stopped for a routine check. His insurers cancelled his insurance without his knowledge as he no longer had a car for them to insure, which apparently invalidates your insurance until it was replaced although he had "driving other cars" on his policy. He was found guilty. No, he didnt get the remainder of the premium returned that covered the unused period. Surprise, surprise!!

There needs to be some regulation of the insurance industry.

And if you SORN the vehicle the insurance companies can charge you an admin fee or some even refuse to insure SORN'd vehicles. Ever get the feeling your in the middle with everyone just taking the pi$$ out of you.

Whatever happened to ‘the customer is always right’?

These days it is ‘the customer is always wrong unless they can prove otherwise’!

In Gerry’s son’s case it is a simple matter of the Insurance Company not updating the MID correctly. I suspect the DVLA sent an initial letter highlighting they could not confirm the vehicle was insured. That in itself is fine as long as you understand what a MID is, a lot of people don’t and assume because they have a valid insurance certificate that everything is ok. Before they know it they are being created as criminals.

The most frustrating thing with all these situations is that the ‘jobsworth’ could have stopped a simple mistake or misunderstanding escalating into court proceedings. All that it takes is a simple bit of communication giving the motorist two weeks to resolve the problem with their Insurance Company.

Does anyone know if the same applies to a vehicle that is taxed but does not have a valid MOT?

I think it all points towards having a road tax supplement added to the cost of petrol, pay as you go. I will get my coat!

Phil

Zitat von 8Tech;107515

He was found guilty.

I am always eager to learn what they might come up with next here... "found guilty" of what? Sitting in a well insured car?

Insurance over here is generally for a car not for a specific person driving it. At least as long as third party risk is concerned.
We also do have voluntary (e.g. money saving) restrictions in policies such as "all drivers are old farts", "only he/she is driving the car", "damage to be fixed only at insurers choice of workshop" yadda, yadda, you name it.

In the case that someone else, not specifically mentioned in the policy provokes a damage with an insured car the insurance company will still have to cover that (excluding several forms of negligence as usual). They might levy a premium over the contractual fee to the person taking out the car insurance after the fact but they cannot run and hide and leave the individual standing in the rain, nor will there be a penalty to the person provoking said damage (again excluding all sorts of negligence which may totally change the view of things).

Anyone ever seen insurance headquarters looking like uncle Tom´s cabin? No? Well, then you know what they need our money for and why they regularly put up a fight if requested to stand in for what they insured.
Next topic... petrol prices?

Reinhard

Here it is the driver that needs to be insured, not the car, although there also needs to be insurance cover on the car, even if its unattended or being driven as long as it is on the public highway (road).

The insurance companies even have the police, who WE pay for, making sure that the insurance companies incomes are enforced by law.

Also very simple here, insurance is for the car and driver (doesn't matter who it is), and we pay small extra fee for passangers ($15 per year) and that's it. When insurance expires, you have 15 days to renew it or return the licence plates if you don't want to pay anymore. My 8 is in highest insurance premium (all cars over 140kw) and it is EUR 380 per year, if I'm cought driving without one, fine is EUR 700 roughly.

Just had this years renewal - up from £461 to £587

Should it not go the other way the older they/I get

Zitat

[INDENT]Just had this years renewal - up from £461 to £587

Should it not go the other way the older they/I get [/INDENT]

Same for me last time. I shopped around and got a much better quote, told the ones I was with I was changing and they matched it. I still moved to the new ones as it just showed they were taking the p**s!

I feel for Gerry’s lad, I knew this was going to catch lots of us out, although his case is slightly different as he was insured.

My point is why should I have to insure a vehicle that is not driven on the road?
I know if I SORN it, it's OK, but if you have a lot of stuff it becomes a full time job.

I currently have six vehicles, all fully taxed, insured and MOTd and use two of them at present. One hasn't been used for three years and another for two years.

My daughter got a new car a while back from a dealer as a trade in. The MOT had expired and it needed a little work. It was still taxed.
The plan was to leave insurance etc. running on her old car and in a few days, when the work was done, swap over to the new one. The car was not on the public road.

I contacted DVLA as technically she should SORN the new car as it was now owned by her and had no insurance. I didn't want them to drop a fine on her.

DVLA said this was a very rare situation and they didn't really know what to say!
They wanted her to surrender the tax disc and SORN the car, but as the V5 was not in her name she couldn't SORN it. She would have lost part month on the tax and could not re-tax it until the V5 (log book) came back in her name, possibly up to three weeks.
We got a verbal agreement that they would not fine her for the period we waited for the V5 to arrive from them.
Two weeks later, swapped over to the new car.

GEEEEZ! Rant over.

Just as an update, my son produced ANOTHER letter, this time directly from his insurers who admitted that they had failed to add the vehicle to the MID and 2 weeks later, the DVLA stated "due to further information we have received, we have decided not to pursue the case". My son is fuming, no apology and quite a bit of worry for a young lad. He got a bit of my attitude though through all this and now wishes he had gone to court and in his words........"rinced them". I pointed out to him that they are above the law anyway so he would not get anywhere with them and the jobsworths wouldn't care anyway as they still get paid from OUR pockets.

This sort of thing gives the youngsters the same attitude towards them I have and unfortunately enlightens them to the ways of the jobsworths.

Total nobs! At least he can put it behind him.