Latest Car Insurance News
Welcome to Expert Car Insurance News. Here you will find all the latest information concerning the motor insurance industry.
Posted November 2007
Who’d be a celebrity - it drives up costs
Elephant.co.uk have just demonstrated that the cost of fame shows its hand in many ways. They provided the example that the likes of Jade Goody and Brian Belo who both gained minor celebrity status through the Big Brother program will now pay 22% and 40% extra respectively for their car insurance premiums due solely to their fame.
Elephant.co.uk have gone as far as including ‘celebrity’ to their list of livelihoods in recognition of the increasing quantity of wannabes who find fame purely by being in the public eye on such reality TV shows as ‘X Factor’. A spokesperson said that the amount of people achieving minor celebrity status is growing so fast that it has become necessary to include it as a separate occupation/category to properly reflect the individual risk of that lifestyle.
Explaining why it increases your car insurance premium when you become famous the spokesperson explained that it is in part due to the increased likelihood of passengers in the car being equally or more famous (and relatively high earning) that the cost of any claim where the driver is at fault can be considerably higher. Gaining ‘celebrity’ status can be as easy as becoming a partner to someone who is already in the limelight, such as the WAGs (wives and girlfriends of highly paid footballers). He suggested that if you become famous it would be far better for your car insurance premium to remain with your un-famous partner.
Having drawn attention to the extra insurance costs that celebs incur when compared with those when they were engaged in their former occupation the spokesperson agreed that the income enjoyed by even the marginally famous nowadays probably amply compensated for the raise in premium.
Posted November 2007
Crushed? That’s how the uninsured feel
The illegal, uninsured car drivers are feeling the weight of their lack
of legal and moral responsibility in ever greater numbers. As a result
of their selfish activity, a hefty proportion of those that are caught
driving without car insurance are having their vehicle seized and of
those almost half are being crushed. The Association of British Insurers
(ABI) released the information last Wednesday at their annual motor
conference and showed that the number of vehicles without insurance
taken and held in 2007 to date was in excess of 100,000 which is an
increase of 28% over the same period in 2006.
The increase in tracing and catching the uninsured has been aided by the
extended development of Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR)
together with the central database of vehicle insurance records to which
all
car insurance companies have to submit details of all policies they
hold. This means that there’s no escape for the illegal motorist,
because as soon as they pass an ANPR camera the registration number can
be automatically checked against the database and the fact that there is
no match dispatched to the nearest patrol car.
A spokesperson for the ABI said that quite apart from being illegal, drivers that act in this way often have the same attitude to the car’s roadworthiness, making the car more likely to be involved in an incident. The cost to the law abiding motorist is around £30 per year in additional premium to pay for the compensation fund for the victims of uninsured drivers. The police, using sophisticated technology together with the insurance industry as a whole are sending the message that driving uninsured is not only wrong but you can’t get away with it, and the cost can be crushing indeed.
Posted November 2007
If petrol prices doubled we’d take to the busses
A poll released by Esure car insurance computes that the average driver would be willing to pay up to £1.83 per litre for their fuel before they would consider tossing away their car keys and taking to the busses and trains. This figure hides a hardcore majority of drivers (55%) for whom the love affair with the car proves so strong that they said they wouldn’t ever give up their beloved car in favour of public transport.
It appears that cost is only one consideration for the motorist, for the added factors of independence, convenience and status afforded to us by our car we are willing to pay a high price indeed.
As fuel prices hit the symbolic £1 per litre mark, we in the UK are willing to dig deep into our pockets to feed our guzzling motors: over a third (37%) of motorists admitted they weren’t thinking of trading up to a more fuel efficient make in the next 3 years and unexpectedly, a third never think to shop around for the cheapest garage for their petrol either.
For the conscientious drivers amongst us, there is some advice for
reducing your fuel consumption and hence your overall fuel bill:
1. Close windows and sunroofs (these cause drag)
2. Avoid excessive acceleration and braking (the further the gas
pedal goes down the higher your fuel consumption).
3. As you move up through the gears try to keep your engine speed
below 2,500rpm (higher revs burn petrol)
4. To minimise consumption on longer journeys stick to 65 -
70mph.
All this is good news for car insurance companies in the era of rising
oil costs, because there is no short term prospect of the British
motorist giving up their beloved car almost regardless of cost.
Posted November 2007
SAD drivers are more likely to have accidents
It’s that time of year again: winter’s drawing in, the daily commute is no longer in full daylight, the clocks have gone back, it’s only an hour, but the body clock still takes time to adjust. This is when SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) starts to become most apparent and statistically it affects drivers at this time every year, with a rise in car insurance claims.
The RAC backed National Commute Smart Week, which during the last week has been trying to raise awareness of the effects of the change to GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) and the onset of shorter hours of daylight. It encouraged employers to allow their employees to drive to work at a time that suited their motoring body clock. This would avoid the overnight change in the timing of the daily routine which has the same effect as jet lag.
1.5 million drivers could be more likely to have a car accident following the change to GMT and up to 5 million adults are affected by the changing daylight levels. The effects of these issues is shown in lower levels of concentration, with drivers finding it more difficult to maintain proper speed control, recognise changes in speed in other traffic and maintain their position in traffic lanes.
This was dramatically demonstrated in 2006 by a rise of 7% in those seriously injured and killed between October (1,211) and November (1,340). A spokesperson for RAC car insurance said that if it’s possible, motorists should absorb this change to GMT over a period by changing their journey time to travel in the light. This will make a large difference to the individual’s level of concentration and reaction time.
