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Should car insurance payouts be limited to reduce premiums

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 montyjohn 29 Jul 2022

I was thinking the other day that a simple way to reduce car insurance premiums could be to cap payouts for car repair costs from a third party claim.

My thinking is, if you drive an old banger, you're not adding much value and therefore risk to the road.

But if you drive a £200k car, you're adding a huge risk and a simple fender bender can be a real problem.

So should someone driving a cheap car be liable for the damage to an expensive car in full even if the accident is their fault?

Try this for an example, if I bought a £10m painting and carried it down a busy high street, I could hardly expect someone who scrapes past it to pay for it since I created the risk.

Should there be a similar train of thought on the roads. If I choose to buy a silly expensive car should my insurance have to cover the cost over a cap regardless of fault since I chose to put so much value on the road?

No idea if this would bring premiums down much, but if it would I think it should be considered.

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 kevin stephens 29 Jul 2022
In reply to montyjohn:

But if you hit a pedestrian and they need 24 hour care for the rest of their life the cost would be the  same, and an old banger may be more likely to be involved in such an accident than a £200k car with enhanced safety features.  

 wintertree 30 Jul 2022
In reply to montyjohn:

> But if you drive a £200k car, you're adding a huge risk and a simple fender bender can be a real problem.

Wrong.  

Someone driving an expensive car doesn’t increase the risk of someone else crashing in to them, instead it increases the consequences.

Hitting a £200k car is towards the lower end of third party damages a motorist could cause given the cost of care for a human paralysed for life from said crash can exceed £1m.

That’s two egregious sleights of and in your OP.  Is this a troll or an attempt to draw readers away from other threads?

> Try this for an example, if I bought a £10m painting and carried it down a busy high street, I could hardly expect someone who scrapes past it to pay for it since I created the risk.

But there is no law that says all pedestrians must carry third party insurance.  You would be a fool for putting your asset at such unprotected risk.

8
 The New NickB 30 Jul 2022
In reply to montyjohn:

I believe the most expensive insurance repair job on a car (in the U.K. at least) was around £900,000 (Mclaren F1 owned by Rowan Atkinson). There will have been hundreds of injury claims exceeding this. 

In reply to wintertree:

> Someone driving an expensive car doesn’t increase the risk of someone else crashing in to them, instead it increases the consequences.

Multiplicative risk assessment considers risk to be likelihood * severity (consequences). This is also true for insurance risk, and many other 'risks'. In this context, 'risk' does not mean 'likelihood'.

OP montyjohn 30 Jul 2022
In reply to kevin stephens:

> But if you hit a pedestrian and they need 24 hour care for the rest of their life the cost would be the  same

I'm purely talking about claims for the vehicle.

2
OP montyjohn 30 Jul 2022
In reply to wintertree:

> Wrong.  

> Someone driving an expensive car doesn’t increase the risk of someone else crashing in to them, instead it increases the consequences.

If you increase the consequence then you increase the risk.

> Is this a troll or an attempt to draw readers away from other threads?

What are you talking about?

> Hitting a £200k car is towards the lower end of third party damages a motorist could cause given the cost of care for a human paralysed for life

I'm only talking about the costs for car repair. One less expensive item covered by insurance will lower the overall risk and therefore cost of policy.

4
OP montyjohn 30 Jul 2022
In reply to The New NickB:

> I believe the most expensive insurance repair job on a car (in the U.K. at least) was around £900,000 (Mclaren F1 owned by Rowan Atkinson). There will have been hundreds of injury claims exceeding this. 

So this is the obvious potential flaw. If it turns out that 99.9% of car damage claims are below say £30k then a cap of £30k won't help I expect, but how much weight would an actuary put on that 0.1%?

Would it disproportionately increase premiums due to that what if scenario?

3
 MG 30 Jul 2022
In reply to montyjohn:

I think I agree that those with expensive cars need to accept the risk but am not sure how it would work practically. What about hitting an coach (pricey, I assume), for example?

 MG 30 Jul 2022
In reply to wintertree:

> > 

> But there is no law that says all pedestrians must carry third party insurance.  You would be a fool for putting your asset at such unprotected risk.

So if the law is charged to limit third party car insurance to say £15k, the situation would be similar.

 Ciro 30 Jul 2022
In reply to montyjohn:

If you want to reduce the cost of entry to motoring, go down the Australian route (or how it was 20 odd years ago when I lived there at any rate)

Your road tax covers you for third party injury and nothing else, and that's the legal minimum to drive.

A young or thrifty person can drive an old car cheaply, anyone who wants a nice car can pay to insure it against being involved in an accident with someone who has third party injury cover only.

Of course, that will tend to keep environmentally unfriendly cars in the road for longer.

1
 Ciro 30 Jul 2022
In reply to wintertree:

> Hitting a £200k car is towards the lower end of third party damages a motorist could cause given the cost of care for a human paralysed for life from said crash can exceed £1m.

What percentage of the total car insurance claim costs are personal injury vs garage repair though?

I'd also wonder how many high value personal injury claims were the fault of slow old bangers vs high value sports cars?

I'm not an actuary so don't know the answer to that, but the Western Australian government seemed to be covering the cost of personal injury from taxation.

 wintertree 30 Jul 2022
In reply to captain paranoia:

> Multiplicative risk assessment considers risk to be likelihood * severity (consequences). This is also true for insurance risk, and many other 'risks'. In this context, 'risk' does not mean 'likelihood'.

Risk as a general term means probability.

I agree that in risk assessments it's a combination of probability and severity.  I do not think it appropriate to apply an RA lens to general use of the word however.

It is not clear to me - and googling has reinforced that - that "risk" has as similar canonical meaning in insurance terms.  A multiplicative approach is used to determine the financial cost associated with a risky event, but the language sometimes uses risk as a term for probability, and sometimes as a term for the financial liability posed to the insures (multiplicative).

Unless you've got a canonical example of insurance always using risk as the multiplicative liability and not probability, I suggest that the OP was at least ambiguously worded.  I think you spend a lot more time on RAs than many people, and so will naturally look at the language from that lens.  Others may not...

5
 wintertree 30 Jul 2022
In reply to Ciro:

> I'd also wonder how many high value personal injury claims were the fault of slow old bangers vs high value sports cars?

Compare the insurance cost of a Corsa for an 18 year old vs of a high performance sports car for someone in their 40s with a clean licence and a long NCB and you'll get a pretty good idea...  

1
 AJM 30 Jul 2022
In reply to Ciro:

> What percentage of the total car insurance claim costs are personal injury vs garage repair though?

Google suggests.....

"the world of insurance claims is evolving, with the cost of vehicle repairs now outweighing those of personal injury claims for the first time in many years."

https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/fleet-industry-news/2021/11/19/cost-of-veh...

So historically a majority cost from injury claims, by inference...

 Ciro 30 Jul 2022
In reply to wintertree:

> > I'd also wonder how many high value personal injury claims were the fault of slow old bangers vs high value sports cars?

> Compare the insurance cost of a Corsa for an 18 year old vs of a high performance sports car for someone in their 40s with a clean licence and a long NCB and you'll get a pretty good idea...  

No you won't, an 18 yr old is high risk for a number of factors, including the fact that the insurance company doesn't have enough data to determine whether someone is a safe driver or not until they have been driving for a number of years.

Also, people across the age range drive both Corsas and high performance sports cars. 

I was an idiot in a car when I was younger, and probably got lucky that I never caused a serious accident. I took every car I had to the limits, and whilst any accident at speed can have life changing consequences, I think that in the cars that did 140+mph (despite their better handling) I would have been more likely to cause such an outcome than the ones that maxed out at 85mph.

 Ciro 30 Jul 2022
In reply to AJM:

> Google suggests.....

> "the world of insurance claims is evolving, with the cost of vehicle repairs now outweighing those of personal injury claims for the first time in many years."

> So historically a majority cost from injury claims, by inference...

That's interesting - I guess in Australia the government were either covering personal injury from geveral taxation, or the large numbers of people taking external insurance meant that road tax on the population covered personal injury for the smaller number of otherwise uninsured drivers.

 RobAJones 30 Jul 2022
In reply to Ciro:

> That's interesting - I guess in Australia the government were either covering personal injury from geveral taxation, or the large numbers of people taking external insurance meant that road tax on the population covered personal injury for the smaller number of otherwise uninsured drivers.

Doesn't New Zealand take this one stage further and make car insurance optional?  Not sure that system is too popular though. 

 Robert Durran 30 Jul 2022
In reply to montyjohn:

I wonder if a better way to reduce premiums would be to all agree, logically, that superficial damage which does not actually effect the function of a car doesn't actually matter and therefore does not effect a car's value and therefore cannot be insured against. A lot of small claims might add up to more than a few large claims.

5
 wercat 30 Jul 2022
In reply to RobAJones:

It does go further and we learned about the New Zealand no compensation scheme in Tort in the early mid 70s so it is now venerable

Post edited at 10:47
 mbh 30 Jul 2022
In reply to Robert Durran:

Another way might be if car repairers were forced to charge the same whether or not a claim had been made to cover the cost. It was made very clear to me the last time I went through this that there would be one price if I was going to claim and a lower one if I was not.

 henwardian 30 Jul 2022
In reply to Ciro:

> Of course, that will tend to keep environmentally unfriendly cars in the road for longer.

I agree with everything you said in your post except this bit. In my experience and the experience of everyone I've talked to, the overwhelmingly singular thing that takes environmentally unfriendly bangers off the road is their failing the MOT and it not being worth the cost to get them to pass it.

 henwardian 30 Jul 2022
In reply to Ciro:

> I was an idiot in a car when I was younger, and probably got lucky that I never caused a serious accident. I took every car I had to the limits, and whilst any accident at speed can have life changing consequences, I think that in the cars that did 140+mph (despite their better handling) I would have been more likely to cause such an outcome than the ones that maxed out at 85mph.

This doesn't really contribute to the premium though because you'll be personally liable for damages caused by reckless driving (such as driving anywhere in the UK at 140mph). The insurance company will simply refuse to pay out, same as if you deliberately drove your car through the front of a police station, for example.

In reply to wintertree:

It seems that the insurance industry uses 'risk' in yet another way; what risk assessment would call 'hazard' or 'feared event'.

https://www.insuranceopedia.com/definition/2430/insurance-risk

Although they get confused with their use, too:

"The greater the chance of the risk[1] occurring, the higher the premiums will tend to be. A driver with a history of accidents or traffic violations, for instance, will be viewed as a higher risk[2] to the insurer so will be charged more for auto insurance coverage"

[1] is the hazard, or feared event

[2] seems more like a multiplicative measure, since it is considering magnitude

It looks like they muddle their usage, possibly because for them, every hazard has a financial value, and it's hard for them to mentally separate hazard from severity.

Post edited at 12:25
 owlart 30 Jul 2022
In reply to Ciro:

> I'd also wonder how many high value personal injury claims were the fault of slow old bangers vs high value sports cars?

I wonder how many personal injury claims are the result of ambulance-chasing lawyers rather than actual personal injury, too.

OP montyjohn 30 Jul 2022
In reply to Robert Durran:

> wonder if a better way to reduce premiums would be to all agree, logically, that superficial damage which does not actually effect the function of a car doesn't actually matter and therefore does not effect a car's value and therefore cannot be insured against.

This would definitely (or at least should) reduce premiums but I would fear it would also promote a careless driving style if there was no penalty for minor fender benders.

 mbh 30 Jul 2022
In reply to montyjohn:

What is the point of fenders if they can't be bendered?

OP montyjohn 30 Jul 2022
In reply to wintertree:

> Risk as a general term means probability

Risk is exposure to danger and always includes probability and consequence.

You wouldn't describe walking along a tightrope 1 foot of the ground risky because the consequence is low.

You wouldn't describe a commercial flight risky because the probably is low.

Therefore risk always considers both.

I've never heard the term risk being used just to mean probability. If people do then they are using it incorrectly.

1
 Robert Durran 30 Jul 2022
In reply to montyjohn:

> This would definitely (or at least should) reduce premiums but I would fear it would also promote a careless driving style if there was no penalty for minor fender benders.

Yes, it would be so liberating. All the stress taken out of tight parking and opening doors in carparks. Very soon all cars would have proper bumpers again and rubbery strips along their sides and we could just get on with our lives again.

2
 Robert Durran 30 Jul 2022
In reply to montyjohn:

> Risk is exposure to danger and always includes probability and consequence.

I think that, at least in common usage, you are correct. On one climb I might have a 1% probability of being hit by a small pebble. On another a 1% probability of being hit by a huge boulder. The second climb is riskier for me.

 Ciro 30 Jul 2022
In reply to henwardian:

I thought the main exclusions were normally drink/drug driving and deliberately causing damage with your vehicle, not reckless driving?

 Petrafied 30 Jul 2022
In reply to wintertree:

> Risk as a general term means probability.

The OP clearly isn't using the term 'risk' as a synonym for probability.  He's clearly using it in the actuarial (and correct) sense of being a function of probability and consequence.

 Ciro 30 Jul 2022
In reply to Robert Durran:

> I think that, at least in common usage, you are correct. On one climb I might have a 1% probability of being hit by a small pebble. On another a 1% probability of being hit by a huge boulder. The second climb is riskier for me.

We commonly use it in both ways - if I said I'm eating lots of oats to reduce my risk of heart attack, or that I only drink drive on quiet country roads to avoid the risk of getting caught, you would understand I was talking about the probability of either event, not hoping for a less severe outcome if it happened.

 jimtitt 30 Jul 2022
In reply to montyjohn:

> This would definitely (or at least should) reduce premiums but I would fear it would also promote a careless driving style if there was no penalty for minor fender benders.

There's no conceivable argument why it should reduce premiums, if the number of accidents and their cost remains the same all it means the people with more expensive cars pay more even though they were not at fault.

The Americans tried a system to reduce the costs of minor shunts (specifically fender benders) where cars had to survive (if I remember correctly) driving at 5mph into a wall and the repair costs were extremely limited. Thus was born the Endura bumper, a grotesque 50kg rubber front to cars and the hideously ugly and useless bumpers bodged onto otherwise good cars. None would make it through any modern crash test.

 Andrew Lodge 30 Jul 2022
In reply to Robert Durran:

Except this isn't true and never will be.

If the average person goes to look at 2 second hand cars, one has multiple small scrapes, the other is just as it left the showroom, otherwise they are identical in terms of age and mileage.

Which one will sell first, it's the one in good condition, every single time, therefore it has more value.

 Dax H 30 Jul 2022
In reply to jimtitt:

There are a few things that increase premiums.

Approved repair centers take the piss, I have mates who work for them, one who owns one and personal experience of taking my van for repair. They include every slight thing they can to make maximum money, in my case it was a dent on the rear door that just needed some filler and paint I thought. Nope, new door, new door trim, new badges plus paint plus a new rear bumper because it was scratched and dented. The same bumper I drag machinery and tools over every day.

Personally injury claims just being paid out rather than investigated. I took a van off a guy at work because in his words "I can't wait to have an accident and get my claim in". I know investigating costs more than paying out but proper investigation followed by criminal proceedings for fraud would cut the number of claims.

The price of after market parts, I dropped and broke 3 small plastics on my motorbike and the cost was over £500, a pal of mine worked at the factory and got me them at cost price, £70.

Crumple zones on cars, far far safer for all involved but the extra damage increases the cost of repair. 

Profit for the insurance company, they seem to do quite well. Maybe a case for a none profit government backed insurance (or profits going to the public purse) but knowing the government the running costs would probably be far higher than the private alternative. 

There are ways to reduce the cost though, my last motorbike was a 3 years old 1200cc that cost 18k and was £400 a year to insure, my current one is a 13 year old 650cc worth about 2k and costs my £65 a year. 

 Robert Durran 30 Jul 2022
In reply to jimtitt:

> There's no conceivable argument why it should reduce premiums, if the number of accidents and their cost remains the same all it means the people with more expensive cars pay more even though they were not at fault.

I was envisaging an (albeit unlikely) change to a less vain/materialistic mindset where people didn't care about superficial damage and didn't bother getting it repaired.

 jimtitt 30 Jul 2022
In reply to Robert Durran:

As mentioned above, that's what the excess is for. I don't care about what I do to my car and would repair it at my whim and cost. Somebody else rams it I'll repair it at my whim and their cost.

 JoshOvki 30 Jul 2022
In reply to Dax H:

> Approved repair centers take the piss

This is actually a really big concern of mine. I have an ageing van which is brilliant.  But the first person that bumps into will probably make it a write-off because its old it's not valuable and because its not valuable it will be cheaper to write it off than fix a dented panel/door etc

 Robert Durran 30 Jul 2022
In reply to Ciro:

> We commonly use it in both ways.

Or maybe in my scenario what I am actually saying is that the risk of serious injury or death is greater on the second route.

 AJM 30 Jul 2022
In reply to Dax H:

> Profit for the insurance company, they seem to do quite well

This seems to be a commonly held belief, but certainly for motor insurance its often not the case.

 Dax H 31 Jul 2022
In reply to JoshOvki:

> This is actually a really big concern of mine. I have an ageing van which is brilliant.  But the first person that bumps into will probably make it a write-off because its old it's not valuable and because its not valuable it will be cheaper to write it off than fix a dented panel/door etc

I wouldn't worry too much, if it is written off you can often buy it back from the insurance company. As long as its just a cosmetic write-off and not a structural one keep driving it. 

 Dax H 31 Jul 2022
In reply to AJM:

> This seems to be a commonly held belief, but certainly for motor insurance its often not the case.

They are private buisiness, they wouldn't offer insurance if they didn't make money from it. 

 MG 31 Jul 2022
In reply to montyjohn:

> I've never heard the term risk being used just to mean probability. If people do then they are using it incorrectly.

"The risk of xxx happening.is.low...."  is a common usage

 AJM 31 Jul 2022
In reply to Dax H:

Google is your friend, it's trivially easy to find articles about the industry's motor insurance loss ratios, both predicted in this year and actual from pre-covid years (with fewer people on the roads, 2020 and 2021 were unsurprisingly quite low claim years)

 RobAJones 31 Jul 2022
In reply to AJM:

> Google is your friend, it's trivially easy to find articles about the industry's motor insurance loss ratios,

I remember reading an article a few years ago pointing out that some companies payed out in claims as much as they received in premiums and only made a profit because of the way they invested the money collected before it was paid out 

>both predicted in this year and actual from pre-covid years (with fewer people on the roads, 2020 and 2021 were unsurprisingly quite low claim years)

Again, I have read similar, and it appears to be a competitive marketplace. What I'm not sure about is given the above, why did share prices double in the 5 or so years before covid, Direct Line and Admiral were the two companies I googled and how did shareholders in the two companies receive dividends of 6%  and 10%  

 Ian W 31 Jul 2022
In reply to Dax H:

> They are private buisiness, they wouldn't offer insurance if they didn't make money from it. 

They are sneaky little so-and-so's. Whilst they may not make much from selling insurance, their profits from the claims management companies and repair companies they own more than make up for it.......

 AJM 31 Jul 2022
In reply to RobAJones:

I do life insurance, not general insurance, so my knowledge of this is certainly not exhaustive, but having said that:

- pretty much all equity markets rose in the years before COVID, partially as a result of cheap money inflating all asset prices

- I believe that other lines of business are more profitable than motor

- yes, investment returns can be the thing which tips a premium Vs claim loss to an overall profit, although given what I thought firms usually invested in this feels like it would still leave a picture of a marginal business line (assuming for example they fund short term corporate borrowing, consistent with mostly having a short period between premium collection and expected payout, that isn't a huge earner so won't cushion against very big swings in the combined operating ratio). Whether it's a small profit or a small loss, there certainly isn't much to point at motor insurance being a cash cow for insurers.

 birdie num num 31 Jul 2022
In reply to montyjohn:

I always like to buy a car with a dent already in it. It saves time.

OP montyjohn 31 Jul 2022
In reply to MG:

> "The risk of xxx happening.is.low...."  is a common usage

Whether you realise it or not that risk has a consequence element to it.

This is why you wouldn't say "there's a risk that cow is going to moo" if you don't care if that cow is going to moo or not. No consequence.

1
 Dax H 31 Jul 2022
In reply to Ian W:

> They are sneaky little so-and-so's. Whilst they may not make much from selling insurance, their profits from the claims management companies and repair companies they own more than make up for it.......

And there is one of the biggest problems, their claims management companies sole aim is to screw as much money from other insurance company as possible, but the other company does the same when the tables are turned and we who pay insurance fees the market. 

In reply to Dax H:

After my parked car was hit years ago, back then I discovered the claim management company who initially had phoned me was given my details automatically by my insurer; maybe they were connected and appointed with hindsight. I have no idea how much the final cost to the other insurance company was since they wouldn’t disclose to me.

In addition, for two years afterwards I received many phone calls from other claims management companies who had also got my details looking if there was other things to claim besides the car; I asked how they got them and was told from my insurance company as it was obvious they had my details and were not just those random calls about your accident that we get.

It got frustrating explaining so many times over the 2 years that no I hadn’t any personal injuries since I was not in the parked car when it was hit. Felt like the general thrust was I must have something I could claim for. 

 Neil Williams 01 Aug 2022
In reply to montyjohn:

If you damage someone else's property of whatever kind you should, morally and legally, pay for its repair in full.  So no, this should not be done just so you can have cheaper insurance.

 Neil Williams 01 Aug 2022
In reply to Robert Durran:

> I was envisaging an (albeit unlikely) change to a less vain/materialistic mindset where people didn't care about superficial damage and didn't bother getting it repaired.

It's not yours to make that decision for others.  Though if you do prefer to live in a place where that is the view, some of Eastern Europe or India may be to your taste, rather than the UK where we care about ensuring we don't damage other peoples' stuff and putting it right properly if we do.

Having said that I do think cars should be better designed in this regard, such as that we should return to black plastic bumpers designed for resilience rather than painted ones.  Perhaps it'd make things easier if a certain level of resilience to very minor bumps was part of the construction and use regulations.  Then we'd both have our way.  For instance "door dings" wouldn't be a thing if all cars had a black plastic protective trim on the door (both the side and the edge) in a similar place.

Post edited at 11:30
 Neil Williams 01 Aug 2022
In reply to The New NickB:

The highest claim was tens of millions for the two trains written off at Great Heck by that idiot who fell asleep and drove his Landy down the embankment.

 Neil Williams 01 Aug 2022
In reply to Climbing Pieman:

I would personally like to see all personal injury claims needing to be backed up by evidence of treatment at an NHS surgery or hospital and an independent assessment of appropriate compensation in accordance with the report of the treatment.  Whiplash is far too easy to claim, for instance.

OP montyjohn 01 Aug 2022
In reply to Neil Williams:

> If you damage someone else's property of whatever kind you should, morally and legally, pay for its repair in full.

But there has to be limits surely.

You could take an expensive car to somewhere like Cambodia, and if a local accidently bumps into you, you could financially cripple that person for the rest of their life. Hardly moral.

I appreciate I'm now going outside the scope of the OP but it surely demonstrates there are limits to what you've suggested.

If our insurance is more expensive than it needs to be so others can drive flash cars, I would say this is morally wrong. Perfectly happy for people to drive flash cars, but I don't want to pay for it.

 jimtitt 01 Aug 2022
In reply to montyjohn:

 Perfectly happy for people to drive flash cars, but I don't want to pay for it when I crash into it.

Corrected that for you.

 wbo2 01 Aug 2022
In reply to montyjohn:

You are obviously aware that people with expensive cars pay more insurance than you, it may be mileage constrained, whatever.

Perhaps you'd likely to simply limit the price of cars instead?

Alternatively simply state that people who live in London can't claim for vehicle loss/damage.  As I'm pretty certain the root of this thread is that you've received a larger quote or bill than you expected.

 Neil Williams 01 Aug 2022
In reply to montyjohn:

> But there has to be limits surely.

I wouldn't say there does (though there is a ceiling, somewhere in the tens of millions if I recall, for mandatory Road Traffic Act cover it doesn't remove the liability).  That's why you take insurance rather than self-insuring.  Even if insurance wasn't required by law it would be utterly stupid not to take it, just as it's my view that if I can't afford Comprehensive cover with Legal Protection then I can't afford the car at all, unless its value was under about £500 and thus into the territory of "worth less than the excess would be".

Very poor countries where insurance isn't really a thing are different in a way; we're talking about the UK here.

> If our insurance is more expensive than it needs to be so others can drive flash cars, I would say this is morally wrong. Perfectly happy for people to drive flash cars, but I don't want to pay for it.

You're paying for what you do with YOUR car, which isn't only about other cars, as I noted above the highest claim ever in the UK, well over £10m, was for two written off trains.  The way to keep the cost of your insurance down is to ensure you use your car responsibly and carefully.  It's perfectly possible to go an entire life without a "fault" claim by way of careful driving, thus far both of my parents have, though most people will end up with one or two when younger.  (I've got one from when I was 18).

Post edited at 13:36
 Darkinbad 01 Aug 2022
In reply to Ciro:

> If you want to reduce the cost of entry to motoring, go down the Australian route (or how it was 20 odd years ago when I lived there at any rate)

> Your road tax covers you for third party injury and nothing else, and that's the legal minimum to drive.

True. But the compulsory third party (CTP) injury insurance component of that is typically 2 or 3 times more expensive than what you pay if you choose to also insure against third party property damage (as I do). So you wouldn't save a great deal compared with the UK system of CTP insurance for both injury and property damage

> A young or thrifty person can drive an old car cheaply, anyone who wants a nice car can pay to insure it against being involved in an accident with someone who has third party injury cover only.

Yes. And then the insurer will come after that someone for the money they paid out.

 chris_r 01 Aug 2022
In reply to montyjohn:

Bring back grey plastic bumpers. Who really needs body matched coloured ones? The cost of a colour matched respray must add a lost of cost to often very minor scrapes.

 elsewhere 01 Aug 2022
In reply to Dax H:

> And there is one of the biggest problems, their claims management companies sole aim is to screw as much money from other insurance company as possible, but the other company does the same when the tables are turned and we who pay insurance fees the market. 

Larger claims mean larger premiums and a growth of the insurance industry. Bonuses all round!

 Dax H 01 Aug 2022
In reply to Climbing Pieman:

>  I have no idea how much the final cost to the other insurance company was since they wouldn’t disclose to me.

This is a favorite argument of mine. If you have a claim you have to declare it otherwise your new insurance is in valid. The first thing they ask when you say yes it how much was it for. I don't know they wouldn't tell me. Well how much do you think. I don't know, car body repair isn't my field. Can't you guess?, no I'm not basing you canceling my insurance in a guess, thus was the damage, how much do you think I should put. I can't answer that I'm afraid. (in other words it's a recorded conversation and I'm not sticking my kneck out) 

> It got frustrating explaining so many times over the 2 years that no I hadn’t any personal injuries since I was not in the parked car when it was hit. Felt like the general thrust was I must have something I could claim for. 

Occasionally I will play with these scum sucking parasites if I'm traveling between jobs, their only interest is to badger you to claim for a none existent injury so that they can make X% on it. 

 LastBoyScout 01 Aug 2022
In reply to montyjohn:

The problem with vehicle repairs is that it's a skilled job and takes time.

Anything more than a minor scrape is going to involve a full assessment and then, if approved, dismantling a portion of the vehicle, removing the damaged parts, ordering replacements, fitting them and there's also painting to consider - and that'll only happen if the insurance company deems it worthy of repair.

Years ago, someone crashed into my wife's car hard enough to ram it into the car in front of her. It was away for several weeks and the bill for the replacement car alone would have been in the £thousands.

 Neil Williams 01 Aug 2022
In reply to jimtitt:

I'm not talking about major heavy constructions on the front of cars.  I'm just talking about returning to the bumpers all cars have being black (or coloured but unpainted) plastic, and door trims being added in the same material both on the door side and edge, which would basically prevent "dooring" and very minor bumps causing damage.  Similarly using a more flexible plastic for number plates would prevent cracking of these in a bump.

Does this?:

https://ssl.caranddriving.com/cdwebsite/image169.ashx?url=https://ssl.caran...

really look that terrible?  You would have to be very unlucky to do serious damage by "dooring" it.

Post edited at 18:36
 Neil Williams 01 Aug 2022
In reply to chris_r:

> Bring back grey plastic bumpers. Who really needs body matched coloured ones? The cost of a colour matched respray must add a lost of cost to often very minor scrapes.

Having paid recently to repair my door when someone "doored" it badly in high wind and didn't leave details I'd love to have had a black plastic door protector in place, and as I've got a "soft roader"/fake 4x4 (a Kuga) it wouldn't detract from the look to have that, either.

In reply to Dax H:

> If you have a claim you have to declare it otherwise your new insurance is in valid.

I didn’t change insurance company so I didn’t need to declare anything as my company had been involved from the start* and would know it all including the cost of repairs. With the involvement of a claim management company, which were essentially appointed by my insurance company, I have to say from my point of view it was handled completely without any hassle or stress to me at whatever cost to the 3rd party insurers.

* It was technically a hit and run as the driver left the scene. It was her husband that reported the accident later. I’ve don’t even know if the police were involved.


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