[Closed] Vehicle insurance, can someone please explain.....

The bike is clearly a higher risk than the car in every way possible. How does that make sense?

A car is a bigger risk to third parties than a bike. If you plough right through a bus queue in a car you'll incurr a greater number of costly fatalities than on a bike, similarly if you smash it into the parapet of a bridge- more damage- you are also insuring each of your (potential) precious passengers. The majority of a premium is the harm you can do to others not the damage you can do to yourself or the vehicle. Iirc the value of the vehicle itself only accounts for a few percent of the premium £5k claim to replace car is buttons compared to millions that could be paid out to third parties.

I'm sure someone told me bikes are cheaper as the % accident rate is low ie there's loads more sunny Sunday pootlers than there are those throwing their bikes at the scenery.

theres a woman on the policy, they push up premiums due to their poor and agressive driving, and inabily to reverse into a parking space at a supermarket

[b] http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/wtf-women-eats-bowel-of-cereal-on-m62-this-morning [/b]

Perhaps they read all the motorbike threads on here so they know what you really get up to 🙂

theres a woman on the policy

There's the same woman on both policies!

A car is a bigger risk to third parties than a bike. If you plough right through a bus queue in a car you'll incurr a greater number of costly fatalities than on a bike, similarly if you smash it into the parapet of a bridge- more damage- you are also insuring each of your (potential) precious passengers. The majority of a premium is the harm you can do to others not the damage you can do to yourself or the vehicle

Ahhh. I was thinking it might be something like that.

Actually, thinking about it, the bike is in Mrs PPs name and the car in mine, although my last insurance on a similar bike was a bit cheaper IIRC

*sits smugly with sub £100 insurance for the year*

Matt, on what vehicle? Age? Location?

**is even smugger with £56 fully comp on a 200cc scooter**

😉

£93 on a Suzuki 650 comp.

But yes, it's hard to scuff your bike wheel in a car park against a R reg Toyota Carina Diesel with 450k miles on the clock, giving it a vicious scratch thats nearly all the way through the dulled paintwork - leading to a dodgy engineers report writing it off, 4 claims for whiplash in their car, 4 on your bike, storage and recovery charges all round and a credit hire car, all the time being pursued by dodgy solicitors who will send all parties to a bend Doctor NS look to litigate where ever possible to earn £10kinc legal fees out of Birkenhead County Court.

As someone said - the bulk of motor insurers payouts is to third parties, not the own damage element of the claim.

When I filled out my insurance quote form, it asked me what security I had on the car (immobiliser, tracker, both or neither).

I have an immobiliser, which made my insurance £120 more expensive than having no security at all.

When I queried it with the insurer they said that it's risk priced because "cars with good security systems often are nice cars which are likely to be targeted by thieves" 🙄

I suggested that the "nice car" bit should be factored in when you select the vehicle you are insuring, and then any security should either reduce or keep the figure the same, not raise it. But apparently that's not how their "computers work"

My first years insurance was just shy of £2k by the way, so stop whinging 😉 (although I have now reduced it quite a bit by putting my dear old mum down as a named driver)

Both 38, Highlands of Scotland, full NCD and no points:- Touran 1.9tdi £140 incl breakdown on both cars; our Yaris D4D is £89 for the year 🙂

You couldn't have 4 passengers on a bike.

all the above, plus insurers seem to use random number generators to come up with the premium figures.

Back in the day, I had a Mk2 1.3 Golf and my girlfriend had a Mk2 1.3 Golf. We were both insured by the same company and I wanted to add her to my insurance. The additional premium to add her to mine was more than the total premium that she paid to insure herself. On the same model of car. With the same company.

It seems that she could insure herself as a low-risk lady driver, but when I added her to mine she became a high risk under 25 driver. Grr...

Oh, and years later, after we'd married and then split up, I rang to take her off my insurance (on a Mk4 Golf by then, I'm very brand loyal). This, it transpired, would put the premium up. So I kept her on there.

Moral of the story - find a family member who'd be massively low risk and add them to your policy. It'll probably bring your premium down and they never have to get in the vehicle, never mind drive it.

It's madness I tells ya!

Moral of the story - find a family member who'd be massively low risk and add them to your policy

I keep my ex girlfriend on my car insurance as a second driver, with her full knowledge and agreement, for exactly this reason. She's never seen my car in a couple of years.

Moral of the story - find a family member who'd be massively low risk and add them to your policy. It'll probably bring your premium down and they never have to get in the vehicle, never mind drive it.

Yup. Currently my mum, my sister-in-law and my GF can drive my car 🙂

I moved from a 535i to an X-Type 3.0i, both valued at £1k and the insurance went up by 50% - no other details changed...

I keep my ex girlfriend on my car insurance as a second driver, with her full knowledge and agreement

No agreement and knowledge required. All you are doing is giving consent for someone else to drive your car, and insuring them accordingly. In many cases this would mean paying a higher premium, but as the examples above show, it can actually result in lower premia.

Putting my mum on took over £500 off my insurance.

No agreement and knowledge required.

Yeah but you have to update any driving convictions and I don't see her that often to find out about them. Plus it's only polite to let her know.

Yeah but you have to update any driving convictions and I don't see her that often to find out about them. Plus it's only polite to let her know.

It would be amusing if she just turned up and drove off in your car one day 🙂

Actually, thinking about it, you might need consent from a data protection perspective alone, since you are providing personal information about her to the insurer.

[b]mastiles_fanylion[/b] - Member
You couldn't have 4 passengers on a bike.

Honda cg125 - designed to be used in Asia & carry an average of 4 passengers

Also, my car insurance is 128pm!

Yeah but the point is, if you had 4 on your bike the insurance would be invalid and they wouldn't have to pay out so they don't care.