Insurance Companies Robbing Us All.

TheDon2010

Back in October my car had an attempted theft on it, the scumbags that tried to break in ended up destroying the whole handle and effectively broke it off. I rang the insurance company and told them what had happened, they informed me that as it was an attempted theft it would not affect my no claims or my premium and sure enough i decided to go ahead with the claim. Today i received a letter saying that my no claims has being reduced and my premium has gone from 64 euro's a month to 190 euro's a month... Thats a triple increase for a 300 euro cheque???? what is that about???

kildarelad

You think thats bad i have my full no claims this year no penalty points and no convictions or claims and my Insurance has gone from 1000 euro lasy year to 1600 this year on the same car

Atomic Pineapple

Ring them up and ask them why it has happened? Could be a mistake? If not and they misinformed you that you wouldn't lose your NCB when you actually would then give them back the €300 and tell them to give you back your NCB and wipe the claim from your record

kildarelad

I would agree to ring them up but would guarantee ya that you will get nowhere they lost a fortune on flood damage this year and the frost and are trying to get the money back

Anan1

TheDon2010 wrote: »

Back in October my car had an attempted theft on it, the scumbags that tried to break in ended up destroying the whole handle and effectively broke it off. I rang the insurance company and told them what had happened, they informed me that as it was an attempted theft it would not affect my no claims or my premium and sure enough i decided to go ahead with the claim. Today i received a letter saying that my no claims has being reduced and my premium has gone from 64 euro's a month to 190 euro's a month... Thats a triple increase for a 300 euro cheque???? what is that about???

What did they say when you asked them?

Anan1

kildarelad wrote: »

I would agree to ring them up but would guarantee ya that you will get nowhere they lost a fortune on flood damage this year and the frost and are trying to get the money back

Christ, it's either in the policy that theft-related claims don't affect NCB or it isn't. Floods and frost have nothing to do with it, it's all there in black & white.

Saab Ed

Just for the record : Im a car salesman and daily I have to change over peoples insuranace to their new car. Of late I've noticed that everybody is getting charged extra no matter what age, what type of car they are buying or what their driving history is. So now im prepping customers to say the following line when the insurance company ask them for more money .....

" Well I've been ringing around other companies for a quote and they're all coming in at about the same amount im paying at the moment, are you sure about that amount"

......to which the response is usually......

" Can you hold for a moment" followed by " Yes thats not a problem ,we can leave it at the same price "

One smart arse in the AA tried to extract an extra €200 from a fifty something year old woman with a perfect driving history to go from a 98 Nissan Micra to a new Clio. When she hit him with the line from above he told her that she'd have to cancel her current policy but that they could give her the lower price if she took out a new policy.....madness, but he was obviously on comission for A) getting a higher premium and if that didnt work for selling a new policy.

Morale of the story is put it up to them , they're chancing their arm and if they're not prepared to budge then move on

muppet26

thanks for that.

MONEY_MAKER

it's all a money making racket

TheColl

i definitely recommend ringing your company, and be insistent but polite with them... i got a quote for 1200 to renew this month, hammered them down to 920. still went elsewhere for 880 tho!

Trampas

With the amount of money insurance companies have paid out recently they have to recoup their losses and this is done via increase premiums as well as cutting cost.

I would look about which companies acted best during the bad weather and which didn't. Insurance is a bill which you never hope to use but if you do you want to get value for money.

Never look at the € sign. See what you are getting. Excess and extras the same?

oldyouth

MONEY_MAKER wrote: »

it's all a money making racket

Of course it is. Insurers aren't a charity.
One way to show insurers that they are not giving value to the public is for everybody to reduce their cover to 3rd party only, reducing the amount you pay insurers and then pay for any damages or theft out of your own pocket. When you pay for those losses yourself, it can't affect your no claims bonus. How can you lose????

Bottom, bottom line is shop around, there is value to be found out there if you look hard enough

zilog_jones

MONEY_MAKER wrote: »

it's all a money making racket

A business, trying to make a profit? Well, I never! :eek:

Jip

Saab ed, it's not just of lately, it's always like that, i never understood why people accepted the first renewal quote or never rang around. The case you mentioned could have been genuine, by taking out a new policy The lady was most likely receiving a host of introductory discounts.

MONEY_MAKER

"A business, trying to make a profit? Well, I never! "

Why is it this country has extreamly high insurace rates.
If the insurace was not so high, people would not feel the need to claim all the time when hey have a small tip or have somehing stolen. People feel they are being screwd by the insurance and when it does come around to claiming for something they try to get as much as possible, therfore causing an increase in insurance.

Absurdum

I remember mine went up in 2002 so when I rang them up they said it was due to 9/11....I wonder if New Yorkers are chipping in to the old flood and frost fund for us!

oldyouth

MONEY_MAKER wrote: »

"A business, trying to make a profit? Well, I never! "

Why is it this country has extreamly high insurace rates.
If the insurace was not so high, people would not feel the need to claim all the time when hey have a small tip or have somehing stolen. People feel they are being screwd by the insurance and when it does come around to claiming for something they try to get as much as possible, therfore causing an increase in insurance.

You're right, because there are a lot of claims where people try to claim as much as possible, the premiums are being driven up. Who is going to break the cycle to rectify this, the public or the insurers? If you are waiting for insurers to blink first, then you will be waiting a long, long time.

Claims & Administration Costs & Profit = Premium. Investment income used to be part of the equation, but not any longer. That shortfall has been added to the premium

thebiglad

MONEY_MAKER wrote: »

Why is it this country has extreamly high insurace rates

Insurance works on the principle of pooling risk - in simple theory 1,000 policyholders pay €100 from which there is a pot to pay all their claims (€100,000) during the insured time - also from this pot comes the administration costs of the insurer and a profit element.

In good times the insurer will invest a portion of the pot (portion not investable dictated by solvency requirements) and make money on top.

The issue at the moment is that investments do not perform and so all profits must be made from within the pot itself. Add to that the fact that Ireland has a relatively small insurance population (against lets take the usual comparison of UK) from which to make the pot. Now add in the 3rd factor which is the high cost of particularly injury claims in our jurisdiction combined with the high propensity to claim injury.

In order to maintain a suitable pot to cover all the claims and still make any sort of profit (they are of course in business) there is upwards pressure on premiums.

Of course the balancing factor is insurance company reserves which have been developed during the good days - these can and should be used to offset 'freak' weather events which we currently read about, however Insurers use such an event as a justification to increase premium and develop even greater reserves or allow release of funds to shareholders.

If you want to be cynical the insurers can easily hide their true profits by creating special reserves against future exposures (i.e. the next big storm event), of course the regulator is meant to monitor this occuring as it has impact on exchequer also.

Finally, just think back 5 years and the level of premium then, we are much better off now but have just got used to having relatively low premium.

if you want to reduce your premium share the risk with your insurer - take an excess of €1,000.

thebiglad

oldyouth wrote: »

You're right, because there are a lot of claims where people try to claim as much as possible, the premiums are being driven up. Who is going to break the cycle to rectify this, the public or the insurers? If you are waiting for insurers to blink first, then you will be waiting a long, long time.

Insurers don't mind high claims costs as long as they are forseeable - they will just charge appropriately higher premiums and justify it to whomever they need to.

With the higher premiums comes higher investments incomes (in good times)

jackofalltrades

MONEY_MAKER wrote:

Why is it this country has extreamly high insurace rates.
If the insurace was not so high, people would not feel the need to claim all the time when hey have a small tip or have somehing stolen. People feel they are being screwd by the insurance and when it does come around to claiming for something they try to get as much as possible, therfore causing an increase in insurance.

A lot of people are going to claim for as much as they can, wether the price of insurance is €50 or €1000, its down to the "cute hoor" way of doing things in this country. High legal fees, crappy driving and the publics reluctance for strict enforcement of traffic laws doesn't help either.

Hagar

jackofalltrades wrote: »

... its down to the "cute hoor" way of doing things in this country.

Or maybe it's Joe Public saying to himself "These boys have been riding me bareback from Day 1 now it's my turn." If people feel they are being ripped off they will do the same in return.

jackofalltrades

69 wrote:

Or maybe it's Joe Public saying to himself "These boys have been riding me bareback from Day 1 now it's my turn." If people feel they are being ripped off they will do the same in return.

Insurance for the average person is only going to be high for the first few years, after that it comes down considerably after building up a NCB/ getting a full licence.

If people feel they are being ripped off then they should shop around and try and get a better quote, there's evidence to show that a lot of people don't do this, so they can't be that angry.

Of the stories I've heard of people exaggerating claims most of them are in their 30's/40's and probably aren't paying a lot for insurance. They see a claim as their meal ticket and milk it for all its worth.

TheDon2010

zilog_jones wrote: »

A business, trying to make a profit? Well, I never! :eek:

Its no problem with business' making money but insurance companies dont return value for money like other businesses and there getting away with screwing people everyday...

TheDon2010

I rang them the other day and really let them have it in regard to the way they've handled my whole situation because there is alot more to the story but basically the people I was talking to agreed that i was right and also advised me to write a letter of complaint to them.. I was also informed that if I pay back the 300 ill get my bonus back and my premium back to normal but I think its time to start looking at other options because the way they've handled things the last few months has being extremely poor...

TheDon2010

thebiglad wrote: »

Insurance works on the principle of pooling risk - in simple theory 1,000 policyholders pay €100 from which there is a pot to pay all their claims (€100,000) during the insured time - also from this pot comes the administration costs of the insurer and a profit element.

In good times the insurer will invest a portion of the pot (portion not investable dictated by solvency requirements) and make money on top.

The issue at the moment is that investments do not perform and so all profits must be made from within the pot itself. Add to that the fact that Ireland has a relatively small insurance population (against lets take the usual comparison of UK) from which to make the pot. Now add in the 3rd factor which is the high cost of particularly injury claims in our jurisdiction combined with the high propensity to claim injury.

In order to maintain a suitable pot to cover all the claims and still make any sort of profit (they are of course in business) there is upwards pressure on premiums.

Of course the balancing factor is insurance company reserves which have been developed during the good days - these can and should be used to offset 'freak' weather events which we currently read about, however Insurers use such an event as a justification to increase premium and develop even greater reserves or allow release of funds to shareholders.

If you want to be cynical the insurers can easily hide their true profits by creating special reserves against future exposures (i.e. the next big storm event), of course the regulator is meant to monitor this occuring as it has impact on exchequer also.

Finally, just think back 5 years and the level of premium then, we are much better off now but have just got used to having relatively low premium.

if you want to reduce your premium share the risk with your insurer - take an excess of €1,000.

These comments are all fair but a point i made yesterday while on the phone to my insurance company is why am i paying all this insurance as a student and then when it comes to a situation where my car is vandalised by scumbags that I cant be covered for it without being screwed for it. For a 300 claim they put my premium from 700 a year to 2500 a year.. does this seem fair to you??? It doesnt to me...

Anan1

TheDon2010 wrote: »

These comments are all fair but a point i made yesterday while on the phone to my insurance company is why am i paying all this insurance as a student and then when it comes to a situation where my car is vandalised by scumbags that I cant be covered for it without being screwed for it. For a 300 claim they put my premium from 700 a year to 2500 a year.. does this seem fair to you??? It doesnt to me...

Have you checked your policy yet?

Have you asked your insurance company for an explanation yet?

In short, do you want to sort this out or do you just want to give out about it?

Vanbis

I rang my Insurance company up about my renewal quote for the end of this month and they said it was €850 which is €125 more then last year. I mentioned this and they said it was final and wouldnt not me movnig.

I went on to www.bestquote.ie and got a quote for €598.72 so now i will be moving

Cheeble

I had much the same experience:

They broke into car in middle of night;
Insurance company said it would not effect my no claims;
Claimed for repair;
Renewal turned up with no claims all lost.

I complained and they agreed to reinstate my discount, however they won't certify a no claims entitlement so now I can't go to another company (without paying a whole lot more).

Cheeble-eers

Anan1

Cheeble wrote: »

I complained and they agreed to reinstate my discount, however they won't certify a no claims entitlement so now I can't go to another company (without paying a whole lot more).

You can get details of the claim from them in writing - some other ins cos will quote on that basis.

Eoin

Cheeble wrote: »

I had much the same experience:

They broke into car in middle of night;
Insurance company said it would not effect my no claims;
Claimed for repair;
Renewal turned up with no claims all lost.

I complained and they agreed to reinstate my discount, however they won't certify a no claims entitlement so now I can't go to another company (without paying a whole lot more).

NCB protection doesn't mean that you should be given a claim-free certificate to give to another insurer. You've still claimed, and they are entitled to know that. It just means that your current insurer shouldn't penalise you.

69 wrote:

Or maybe it's Joe Public saying to himself "These boys have been riding me bareback from Day 1 now it's my turn." If people feel they are being ripped off they will do the same in return.

You're not trying to condone fraudulent claims are you?

MONEY_MAKER

i say it again its all about ow much they can make - correct me if i am wrong but did some insuarance company not just record 22 million profit, i know it's down from previous years, but !!