New way to charge insurance

DaithiSurfer

Why should you pay insurance when your car is not being used?

This would also encourage people to get public transport. ie when you get the bus you don't pay insurance for your car.
When you are sitting at work you shouldn't be paying in case you crash your car (maybe pay in case someone crashes into you, but that should not be much).
When you are asleep in bed you shouldn't be paying either.

These schemes with the GPS system in the car for younger drivers could be expanded like so.
GPS can tell when a car is moving as well as where it is.
When do we need insurance? when we are moving.
Therefore you pay a fixed third party fire and theft price for when the vechicle isn't moving and also some fee for insurance in case someone damages you car when not moving. When it is moving you have to pay for insurance so the amount of miles and places you drive clocks up 'risk points'.
At the end of each month you nominal fee (third party etc) + the value of your risk points is decucted from your bank account by dd.
This was drivers will not be paying for insurance when they don't need it.
Also, the ins companies have less likelyhood of a claim against you at these times, so should not be charging you for it.
It might need a bit of tuning but i believe the idea is sound.

mike65

Thats an interesting approach nothing like harnessing technology to a bit of lateral thinking....It would require alot of GPS devices to fit fitted which will cost.

Sadly it proberly won't happen for much the same reasons mentioned here....
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&postid=1051525#post1051525

Mike.

Seth Brundle

Just because you are not driving your car doesn't mean that you shouldn't have insurance - what if someone nicks it?
Also a scheme like that would eventually allow the insurance companies to ask you to submit details of where & when you drove (thus providing them with personal info on you which they would undoubtedly sell on)

JohnBoy

Hmmm,

That would be interesting, but I have a question

if you don't drive your car much you have a lower chance of having an accident per unit time, but if you drive a lot you have a lower accidednt per unit distance

Ok this assumes everyone having a fixed probability of having an accident in a year.

then there are questions like is someone who does <5k miles pa more likely to have a crash than someone who does 30k?

sure, the 30k person is on the road more, but they are also more experienced, 6 times the oppurtunity but 6 times the experience too.

many many isssues here.

Personally I'd rather pay a fixed cost, cos I "know" that in a scheme like this in ireland anyone who went beyond 12k miles pa would be penalised and I do 30k+ pa so that would be me.

Seth Brundle

Fair enough what happens if your car is stolen from outside your house whilst uninsured because you were not driving it?

DaithiSurfer

As i said in my first post

"Therefore you pay a fixed third party fire and theft price for when the vechicle isn't moving and also some fee for insurance in case someone damages you car when not moving."


Also, is it not true that someone driving 30k SHOULD pay more than someone driving 12k.

The idea of this is that you pay as you go. Like a car park. Those who use it more, pay more.

I just had a bright idea reading another post about tax going on petrol.
What about putting insurance into the price of the petrol too?
In this way you pay
1)depending on how much you drive.
2)the size of your engine.
3)where you drive.

In order for that one to work we need a policy which insures the car and not the driver.

Seth Brundle

oops - earlier reference not seen.

Mr E

Not a bad idea, but some people (e.g. Sales Reps) would be FLEECED.

You'd probably need some sort of ceiling.

- Dave.

DaithiSurfer

I don't think it'll happen but it would definitely be a way of not fleecing low mileage drivers.
I heard a guy on the radio last week talking about weekend only insurance for those who use the bus during the week. Good idea too.

Seth Brundle

Good idea but what happens if you need to go somewhere midweek in the car in a hurry?

knipex

Originally posted by TmB
Not a bad idea, but some people (e.g. Sales Reps) would be FLEECED.

You'd probably need some sort of ceiling.

- Dave.

We allready are. you need class 3 insurance with an indimnety for your employer.

Age: 30
Lisence: full
No Claims: Full
Car 1.9 TDI Toledo

Cost €2233

The resale value on our cars is €0

Maintainace cost are astonomical

Not to mention fuel.

So do you think the milage allowances are still high.

Lord Nikon

Why not have insurance added to the cost of the fuel. i wouldn't mind paying 1euro a litre for petrol, knowing that the extra money would be going towards my insurance. By doing this you would only be only be paying for the insurance while the car is using fuel.

So, if you have a car with a large fuel consumption it would cost more, and a small car less.

Also, if you drive your car fast and hard, your car will demand for fuel, which in turn increases your insurance.

The same could be done with road tax. Include the car tax with a fuel purchase, so the car is only on the road moving around with fuel in it.

It's all quite simple really.

Seth Brundle

associating insurance with fuel could be done in 2 ways that I can see:-
1. the insurance portion would be divided evenly between companies. Some could then claim that their market share has been wiped out and therefore sue the state. The state could also be sued by foreign companies who cannot now enter the market. The companies share could be decided by the percentage of motorists insured with that company for each month. However, some companies would still claim that their market share has been reduced.
2. the indemnifies all cars and keeps the insurance portion. The state is then sued by the companies for not allowing competition.
(IMO) either way it won't work as free enterprise is restricted!

Insurance will come (is coming!) down when:-
*motorists reduce the amount of accidents. This can only be achieved when the roads are designed sensibly (proper speed limits, overtaking lanes where appropriate, motorway crash barriers, etc.), less drink driving, less inappropriate speed (fast and slow drivers!), etc. Most of these amount to proper application and enforcement of the rules but won't happen with the current system!
* less people drive without insurance (80K people currently)
* proper driver training and re-education. I believe that drivers should have to re-sit the test every 5 years. Provisional licence holders should be limited to driving with a fully licenced driver (over 5 years licenced) and once their test is passed then they must be restricted (as in the UK) as to the roads/speeds they can drive.
* motorcyclists can use the bus lanes.
* the legal industry somehow has their fees reduced

Victor

Originally posted by kbannon
Insurance will come (is coming!) down when:-
*motorists reduce the amount of accidents. This can only be achieved when the roads are designed sensibly (proper speed limits, overtaking lanes where appropriate, motorway crash barriers, etc.), less drink driving, less inappropriate speed (fast and slow drivers!), etc. Most of these amount to proper application and enforcement of the rules but won't happen with the current system!

Driver error causes 82% (source: NRA accident report 2001) of accidents, but only accounts for 17.5% of the above paragraph.

Seth Brundle

Originally posted by Victor
Driver error causes 82% (source: NRA accident report 2001) of accidents, but only accounts for 17.5% of the above paragraph.

driver error encompasses drink driving and inappropriate speed but para 3 should cover/re-train drivers for the others.

Da Man

The standing costs of owning a car in this country are huge, if you take into consideration insurance, motor tax, and high depreciation due to VRT. If you have a car you need to drive it in order for it to make sense to own it, hence using public transport is a disincentive. And the public transport providers obviously do a great job making sure everyone prefers their cars as well...

As for the GPS idea, I believe the problem is that insurance companies presently like to get paid in advance so they need to look at your situation at the start of the policy to determine the risk over the next year. It's not a system that would allow a realtime GPS system to operate, as that would imply that you pay in arrears depending on how you drove during the day or whatever.

It seems to me that insurance companies should try to use a bit of imagination and perhaps take mileage into consideration without introducing GPS technology. Some people drive 20k miles a year, others 5k a year, but the insurance companies don't really distinguish between the two. The only major distinction they make is between commercial drivers (who are assumed to drive a lot), men (who are assumed to drive a family car most of the time), and women (who are assumed to drive less than men).