Cover me, I'm going in! (with new serious bits at the end) (Motor Insurance in general)

Name: The Operator

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Product:	Motor Insurance in general
Date:	18.06.01 (421 review reads)
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Advantages: Follow this simple advice...

Disadvantages: Does anyone ever read these bits?

I read recently that motor premiums are to rise by as much as 25% in the coming year.
Oh no, not again! But I don't have accidents so why should I have to pay for the idiots who do?
There are a number of reasons why this is so and some are quite surprising.

Consider this. Insurance companies are in the risk game. Or if you wish, they are gamblers. They are playing the odds, spreading the risk, laying off the losers against the dead certs and this is where we all suffer. The only difference is, they are gambling with your money and increasingly, they are losing.
Several factors increase the odds against a safe bet.

If you are under 21 or over 65 you fall into proven high risk areas. Whoever thought to combine the legal age for driving with a teenager's propensity for fuelling his (because they normally are his) testosterone driven braggadocio with the lure of alcopops wasn't really living in the real world. Once the coveted certificate is obtained, spotty youth's first act of benevolence towards his fellow drivers is typically to purchase a "cut 'n' shut" Fiesta XR2 from "the bloke round the corner with all those cars in his garden", cut two holes in the rear shelf, insert two 14" speakers and three mates and then attempt to pilot the whole creaking, booming and spluttering, uninsured heap down the A13 from Dagenham to Saarfend scaring everyone in his path. This journey usually ends somewhere near Corringham as the engine gives out or the car in front supplements the worn or non-existent pads by providing additional braking assistance.

What about the 65 year olds then? Surely they have had years of experience? Well sadly, and I speak from some considerable experience here, a lot of pensioners (but not my mum and dad, or yours either) are blind and shake a lot. They also have little sense of direction and do not possess the ability to read simple road signs while driving and ra
ther dispiritingly, they have a disturbing tendency towards dying suddenly, even occasionally while driving. This is considered a potential hazard to other road users.

This is all pretty obvious though; we all need protection against the possibility of meeting one of these hazards head on. Ahh, there's another reason!

Should you indeed meet youth or grandad in one of these head to heads, you will find that your £25 000 worth of prime Japanese or German engineering excellence crumples like tissue paper at the slightest knock. This is deliberate of course; it's for your safety and protection and we've been demanding better engineered-in safety elements for donkey's years. Trouble is, whereas before your average Humber Super Snipe could shrug off the odd knock with little more than a slight headache as a result, today's motors require full intensive care following seemingly minor parking knocks. That's a difficult call - do you really want to make a claim for that damaged panel against your fully protected NCB or can your wallet stand the repair? Mmmm. How many claims are for minor knocks exacerbated by the modern car's ability to amplify damage out of all proportion to the severity of the accident?

Body shops have capitalised on this phenomenon and have sprung up all over the place. See how readily they will accept insurance work - guaranteed payment, jack the cost up a little and get those minor scratches done into the bargain (come on own up, who hasn't), insurance cheques don't bounce.
You see, even if we're not bad drivers, we're still partly to blame for wanting more than we deserve.

How can we minimise our insurance costs then?
The only way to realistically reduce costs is to reduce the odds of something happening to you. If everyone mucks in, it may take a few years, premiums should level out (fantasy). You can affect the amount of premium you pay by following a few simple
and commonsense rules:
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Drive carefully for a start and don't be the cause of accidents. Everyone out there is a hazard waiting to kill you. Avoid them. Especially lorries - they don't have proper brakes, only a speaker system which goes "HHHSssszzzz" and they weigh nineteen times as much as you do. They also have tyres made out of burnt lasagne which they leave in steaming heaps all over the motorway.

Keep your mileage down - there are usually discounts for those who drive less than 10000 miles per annum.

Don't buy alarm systems unless they meet an approved "Thatcham" category , you will be wasting money. Thatcham is the insurance industry's testing and approval centre so most companies won't want to know if you've not got one of their approved wingdings fitted.

Don't entice villainy by leaving your windows open and your laptop sitting on your front seat. Alternatively, don't leave your car too tidy - they'll only break the boot open and central locking systems are devilishly expensive to replace.

Keep your car in tip-top shape by getting it serviced so the brakes don't fail and your tailipe doesn't fall off and bounce through someone's windscreen.

Insist on your progeny taking new driver lessons after passing his/her test. Especially motorway driving. Come to think about it, when did you take your test? Many insurance companies now offer discounts to "ageing" drivers taking advance tests or refresher courses - don't be embarrassed!

Don't be a prat and give in to temptation and buy a car that really is only at home going round Brands Hatch. You honestly won't be able to handle it after driving that Escort for 15 years. Also - Volvo, BMW and Mercedes drivers out there! Pay heed - that round thing in front of you - it makes the car go round bends - those crazy Teutons haven't yet worked out how to do it w
ithout this vital driver/machinery interface (that's a toll booth operator's in joke).

If we all took these simple precautions, we could be saving everyone money. So simple really.

We could of course attempt to lobby parliament to increase the minimum driving age to at least 20 or 21. These are magical ages at which maturity is deemed to have been attained (oh yes, it is apparently so). Although, of course we all know that age does not necessarily equate to wisdom (look at some of the ops in here, including mine, as evidence of that) so a compulsory refresher test every 8 years or so would weed out the prematurely senile and the psycopathic. Eye tests should also be mandatory every two years or so.

On a more immediate level, do spend a few days hunting around for insurance before your policy is renewed. Don't leave it just to the AA Insurance either, there are loads of better deals out there. I'm with Abbey National and they are superb for me but may not be for others, so don't blindly trust the advice of friends. Local brokers often have great deals, especially when it comes to inclusive breakdown and recovery services.
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I wouldn't use the net just yet though. They ususally offer two quotation services: a detailed one which takes several minutes to complete and a quick one which usually runs along the lines of "Where do you live/What car do you drive?" They will then give you an impossibly low quote at which you run screaming around the living room saying "look at this, CHEAP, CHEAP". Look carefully. You will probably be subject to about £600 voluntary excess as well as £300 compulsory. It may even be a ten month policy. Fill in the extra details and it will rise almost exponentially. Use the phone, let them do the work and stop shouting about effin' crooks.

Paying by direct debit usually adds another 10% unless you are lucky enough to find a company that doesn't penal
ise you for using DD (Abbey Nat, again).

Don't blame the insurance companies for wanting to rip you off. A lot don't make any money at all out of motor insurance so they will always seek to recoup most of their losses from other drivers. At the end of the day, most of the blame lays with us for our greed in wanting something for next to nothing and stupidity for tolerating the abusers of the system for so long.

If you want to change the system - your MP's name is in the phone book and he's usually got one of these things, too. Alternatively use this marvellous tool, the WWW, to mobilise action groups and lobby together and get the liabilities off the road.

Safe driving.

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