Now Ye're Talking - to an Insurance Underwriter

Poochie05

Business Cat wrote: »

Class 1B is what you would require. It covers limited business use and would cover you for claiming mileage.

Class 2 would be for someone clocking up alot of miles, not a rep necessarily but heavier vehicle use than the average person.

A sales rep would need Class 3 which is for commercial travel.

Thanks Business Cat!
That what I thought I should be asking for. Would it be possible that some policies would exclude carrying passengers under this category?

Liam McPoyle

H3llR4iser wrote: »

Thank Business Cat, what I meant is more or less this: is it possible to see the actual data that says, for example, that men crash (or better, cost more in claims) than women, that one particular car is more often involved in accidents than another one and so on. What I mean is bare, sheer number sheets: "BMW 320i - 2000 claims; Ford Focus 1.4 - 1200 claims" and so on.

So if a 19 years old is quoted 3000 Euro to insure his 900cc Micra, and is told "well kid, nothing I can do - 19 years olds cause a lot of claims", it would be nice to show data to back it up.

Otherwise, whatever the "quote systems" produce will always, invariably, feel artificial, sort of "made up" if I may; It's a lack of transparency I frankly find very unsettling - and it's certainly not limited to Ireland.

I'm asking because recently there was a scandal in Italy, where residents of some cities pay more based on the "reputation" the area has for accidents and frauds; While a driver living in Naples pays three times the premium of one living in Milan (similar sized and populated cities), it has emerged from Police reports that, on average, the former only produces about half of the claims of the latter, while insurance companies keep insisting it's the other way around - with no facts to back them up. Given that insurers down there use the exact same mantras as Irish ones ("risk category", "data proves it"), one has to wonder if something bearing any similarity can be happening here.

Nope.

The information would be considered commercially sensitive and as such its not for public consumption. You also have to take into account that giving specific data about specific cases could contravene data protection and a whole raft of consumer rights.

I can see where you are coming from for sure but to make that information available to anyone that wants to see it is just not in any way feasible.

Liam McPoyle

Poochie05 wrote: »

Thanks Business Cat!
That what I thought I should be asking for. Would it be possible that some policies would exclude carrying passengers under this category?

I doubt it. The only issue with carrying passengers that I could see would be if you were getting paid for it, then you move into hire and reward.

Giving a couple of colleagues a lift a couple of times a month would have no bearing whatsoever and Id take any company to task that tells you otherwise.

Poochie05

Business Cat wrote: »

I doubt it. The only issue with carrying passengers that I could see would be if you were getting paid for it, then you move into hire and reward.

Giving a couple of colleagues a lift a couple of times a month would have no bearing whatsoever and Id take any company to task that tells you otherwise.

That was my hunch, that they saw the word 'passengers' in the exclusions but didn't make the distinction that it was if carried for hire or reward, so I did question it with them and they seemed to agree once I stressed it was car pooling not for hire or reward, but comes up most years with one particular company, so good to know it is worth clarifying.
Thanks for your input.

nozzferrahhtoo

Weird random questions that popped into my head while I read along with this mostly Car Insurance Dominated thread:

1) Are there vast differences across the EU on how insurance costs are calculated, why is this so if yes, and would any of these procedures work well in Ireland? I live in Germany for example. In Ireland the insurance cost varies wildly depending on your car. You spend a lot more for a 2 liter engine than the engine of a box fiat for example. Here in Germany however I noticed when deciding to buy a car........ I did some insurance quotes to check the differences........... and I found my premium did NOT change based on the engine of the car. I would pay as much for a 2 litre BMW as a Fiat Panda. So they are clearly calculating based more on the driver, than the car itself. Why would this be?

2) Who, if anyone, is offering insurance related to Car Hire? I return to Ireland 4 times a year and hire cars. The insurance you pay with people like Enterprise is often higher than the cost of the actual car hire. In the UK I believe they have options (some of which I am told are available to the Irish but I cant find them) to insure yourself quite cheaply annually, and you then bring your own policy to the car hire company for this. but I can find little or no details on this. Any input you know of?

3) Not car insurance but home insurance? Know much about this? I know nothing but my dad was recently considering not insuring his home at all any more. He was looking over the policies of various offers and the list of things NOT covered was vastly larger than the paltry list of what was covered. He was left bemused as to the benefit of insuring the home at all. Is this a weird industry in Ireland too?

Liam McPoyle

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Weird random questions that popped into my head while I read along with this mostly Car Insurance Dominated thread:

1) Are there vast differences across the EU on how insurance costs are calculated, why is this so if yes, and would any of these procedures work well in Ireland? I live in Germany for example. In Ireland the insurance cost varies wildly depending on your car. You spend a lot more for a 2 liter engine than the engine of a box fiat for example. Here in Germany however I noticed when deciding to buy a car........ I did some insurance quotes to check the differences........... and I found my premium did NOT change based on the engine of the car. I would pay as much for a 2 litre BMW as a Fiat Panda. So they are clearly calculating based more on the driver, than the car itself. Why would this be?

No idea why they wouldn't use the vehicle type as a rating factor tbh. The Germans are pretty efficient in general so perhaps they have discovered something thats yet to come to the fore over here.

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

2) Who, if anyone, is offering insurance related to Car Hire? I return to Ireland 4 times a year and hire cars. The insurance you pay with people like Enterprise is often higher than the cost of the actual car hire. In the UK I believe they have options (some of which I am told are available to the Irish but I cant find them) to insure yourself quite cheaply annually, and you then bring your own policy to the car hire company for this. but I can find little or no details on this. Any input you know of?

No company that Im aware of. You are basically looking for short term policies, Ive yet to hear of an Irish based company that offers this service.

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

3) Not car insurance but home insurance? Know much about this? I know nothing but my dad was recently considering not insuring his home at all any more. He was looking over the policies of various offers and the list of things NOT covered was vastly larger than the paltry list of what was covered. He was left bemused as to the benefit of insuring the home at all. Is this a weird industry in Ireland too?

If its for the house as in the buildings and contents, I wouldn't advise anyone to go uninsured. If its contents only then he could probably chance it.

Of course he could take the risk and not cover the buildings but something like a smallish fire or a flood claims can be worth tens of thousands of euro, for the relatively small premium outlay vs the potential loss ie the entire house burns down, I think anyone that can reasonably afford to insure there house should do it, its a no brainer imo.

TeaServer

Just spotted this thread, not read it all - so apologies if its been asked/answered already!

I have a question with just 2 words - "Chicken Sexer?"

Are there really that many people in this industry that it warrants an option in the drop-down list of occupations on every car insurance site? (At least in the past) I'm in a fairly niche industry myself, but I'd be willing to bet there are still more people in my industry than working as "Chicken Sexers"!!!

Any ideas?

percy212

The ombudsman is bound by whatever is in your policy. Word for word. Even if the policy seems unfair. If I were you I would go to a solicitor and get them to write a letter to both insurance companies. Explain your situation to them for a low price.

mamma2b wrote: »

Thankyou

Pythia

H3llR4iser wrote: »

Thank Business Cat, what I meant is more or less this: is it possible to see the actual data that says, for example, that men crash (or better, cost more in claims) than women, that one particular car is more often involved in accidents than another one and so on. What I mean is bare, sheer number sheets: "BMW 320i - 2000 claims; Ford Focus 1.4 - 1200 claims" and so on.

Without meaning to sound offensive, even if you saw the data we had, you would not necessarily be able to understand it. Actuaries study for years to be able to do this work and it's not as simple as what you describe.

Just in case you do like your statistics, we need to do multivariate analysis like GLMs to take into account things like correlations and interactions are present in the models also. Looking at it on a one way basis as you describe will lead to incorrect conclusions and also is not exposure adjusted which will be highly misleading.

Insurers are also under no obligation to prove or explain to you where they got their figures from and they absolutely will not show you as that is proprietary.

Liam McPoyle

TeaServer wrote: »

Just spotted this thread, not read it all - so apologies if its been asked/answered already!

I have a question with just 2 words - "Chicken Sexer?"

Are there really that many people in this industry that it warrants an option in the drop-down list of occupations on every car insurance site? (At least in the past) I'm in a fairly niche industry myself, but I'd be willing to bet there are still more people in my industry than working as "Chicken Sexers"!!!

Any ideas?

Ha ha ha, ya, its one of those bizarre career options alright. Ive yet to encounter one despite dealing with and seeing literally tens of thousands of home, car and van policies over the years.

drdidlittle

Sorry if this was asked before. Why isn't the person insured rather than the car. If it was the person they would then be insured to drive any car (within reason - not for hire, business use etc)

mel.b

Business Cat wrote: »

Class 1B is what you would require. It covers limited business use and would cover you for claiming mileage.

Class 2 would be for someone clocking up alot of miles, not a rep necessarily but heavier vehicle use than the average person.

A sales rep would need Class 3 which is for commercial travel.

What do you class as 'a lot of miles' for class 2?

Liam McPoyle

drdidlittle wrote: »

Sorry if this was asked before. Why isn't the person insured rather than the car. If it was the person they would then be insured to drive any car (within reason - not for hire, business use etc)

Its just not feasible for anything other than third party only cover.

Motor insurance is the only insurance that is a legal requirement in this country. People buy insurance to protect other road users but also to protect themselves in the event of a crash, a fire or a theft. Insurance exists to leave the person in the same financial position they were in prior to the incident.

If you are charging someone that drives a 98 Micra the same as someone that drives a 2014 Bentley, how is that any way equitable for anyone apart from the person driving the high end vehicle.

The type of vehicle - age, engine size etc has a direct bearing on the risk so cannot be ignored, it just wouldnt make sense to not take it into consideration.

Liam McPoyle

mel.b wrote: »

What do you class as 'a lot of miles' for class 2?

In excess of 40 to 50k kilometers per annum is veering into commercial travelling imo.

sydthebeat

Hi business cat, thanks for all your insight here.

Have you any experience and comments on professional indemnity insurance, specifically the consequences of last year's si9 in the construction industry.
Can you explain 'joint and several' liability and how it works in the Irish situation and whether it's commonplace thought out the world? Do you think it's fair?

nozzferrahhtoo

Business Cat wrote: »

No company that Im aware of. You are basically looking for short term policies, Ive yet to hear of an Irish based company that offers this service.

My bad I should have been clearer. The packages I have heard about in the UK, which I saw advertised in the Irish Times once by a UK company but subsequently lost it and cant find it again, are annual packages. You insure yourself annually with such people, and you are covered for car hire for the entire year.

Another question, aside from the well known insurances like home and car and the like, what insurances are in the Irish market that people do not generally use but you would advise?

Here in Germany they have insurance for EVERYTHING. It is quite mad. Car and home are but the tip of the iceberg, there is also insurances for various kinds of additional medical events, loss of earnings, being fired, becoming unfit to work and.... so much more.

My favorite is personal liability insurance which is ridiculously cheap but covers for anything stupid you might do in your day to day life. Like scratching someone car or person with a buggy. You can even insure yourself against people tripping and falling over in front of your house.

And most of it is insanely cheap, probably because the compo culture you lamented earlier in the thread does not really exist here.

You might be interested to play with the car insurance quote websites over here. Put in a load of factors and then play around with it. You will see what I mean that the type of car has minimum impact on the premium, which is bizarre to me. www.check24.de/Auto-Versicherung‎ is a good example.

Liam McPoyle

sydthebeat wrote: »

Hi business cat, thanks for all your insight here.

Have you any experience and comments on professional indemnity insurance, specifically the consequences of last year's si9 in the construction industry.
Can you explain 'joint and several' liability and how it works in the Irish situation and whether it's commonplace thought out the world? Do you think it's fair?

Hi Syd.

I'm afraid PI is something I don't have any experience with so I can't answer your questions unfortunately.

Liam McPoyle

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

My bad I should have been clearer. The packages I have heard about in the UK, which I saw advertised in the Irish Times once by a UK company but subsequently lost it and cant find it again, are annual packages. You insure yourself annually with such people, and you are covered for car hire for the entire year.

Another question, aside from the well known insurances like home and car and the like, what insurances are in the Irish market that people do not generally use but you would advise?

Here in Germany they have insurance for EVERYTHING. It is quite mad. Car and home are but the tip of the iceberg, there is also insurances for various kinds of additional medical events, loss of earnings, being fired, becoming unfit to work and.... so much more.

My favorite is personal liability insurance which is ridiculously cheap but covers for anything stupid you might do in your day to day life. Like scratching someone car or person with a buggy. You can even insure yourself against people tripping and falling over in front of your house.

And most of it is insanely cheap, probably because the compo culture you lamented earlier in the thread does not really exist here.

You might be interested to play with the car insurance quote websites over here. Put in a load of factors and then play around with it. You will see what I mean that the type of car has minimum impact on the premium, which is bizarre to me. www.check24.de/Auto-Versicherung‎; is a good example.

Interesting, I've not heard of such a product.

Insurance over here is pretty straight forward in terms of what's available.

I do remember one time getting asked if I could quote a fire eater for public liability insurance, surprisingly I couldn't find a home for it!

In truth though, one could probably find insurance for pretty much anything if they knew where to look. Some brokers would be very plugged into the London market and the Lloyds Syndicates so would be able to source a home for most types of risk.

I will have a look at that site this evening, thanks.

sydthebeat

Business Cat wrote: »

Hi Syd.

I'm afraid PI is something I don't have any experience with so I can't answer your questions unfortunately.

No problem, Thanks for the reply

mel.b

mel.b wrote: »

What do you class as 'a lot of miles' for class 2?

Business Cat wrote: »

In excess of 40 to 50k kilometers per annum is veering into commercial travelling imo.

Thanks, a couple more questions if that's ok? In my work (public sector) when I started about 7yrs ago we were told to get Class 2. I get paid mileage and sometimes carrying colleagues and/or students on Home visits. I have always got class 2. This yr I renewed my insurance online, and thought I had class 2 but it sounds from above that I actually have Class 1B.

Last yr I did approx 4200km for work. So do I actually need class 2 or is 1B enough? Does 1b indemnify your employer if you have an accident while travelling for work, or does only class 2 do this?

Thanks 😃

gozunda

Business Cat wrote: »

It could be something as simple as the accessor recognising the area / customer.

A more likely scenario is that if the claim that both had was with the same company then the fact they were father and child was likely recorded on their database and as a result the claims were associated by way of the clients.

I would presume insurance companies automatically share information to check on insured details?

gozunda

Business Cat wrote: »

Absolutely and Id be very surprised if a company declined a claim on this basis. The driver not been accompanied is not an issue for the insurer, it is a legal issue. Once the drivers leaner permit is valid and they are named on the policy the insurer should be paying out and I would strongly urge anyone that has had a claim declined for the above reasons to take it further.

Apologies - second question

In the case of some one pulling a trailer that requires an EB licence but did not have one - would that person be covered if they had an accident whilst driving with trailer attached?

nozzferrahhtoo

Business Cat wrote: »

Interesting, I've not heard of such a product.

After looking on google.... It is possible I am mis-remembering it now I think about it. The Product I am thinking of MIGHT have simply been a "Car Hire Excess insurance".

So it is not so much that you are not paying the car hire people insurance. Rather.... you pay them the minimum insurance with the maximum excess.... the other other provider who you pay annually is insuring you against that excess. Useful product I think as its VERY cheap for a year, and the choice in the car hire booth to minimise your excess can be VERY expensive.

This seems to be an example of it here.

Am actually looking into LIFE insurance here in Germany at the moment. The options seem numerous. You have to define the length of time you are insuring yourself for..... so I could insure against my death for the next 5 or 10 years....... and then how much you want to insure it FOR...... so I can say 200k 500k 1000k or whatever.

The broker I work with suggests 10 years at a time, for 4*my annual salary.

I guess they do not insure you for life, but in 10 year blocks, so they can re-evaluate your health status and the like each time? What do you tend to recommend in terms of both the TERM of the contract and the VALUE of the payout should I consume the bucket

EDIT: Seems you can even insure yourself against legal costs over here too. You just take out a policy and should you ever find yourself in court, you are covered for legal expenses. Nice. They think of everything here.

Coopaloop

EDIT: Seems you can even insure yourself against legal costs over here too. You just take out a policy and should you ever find yourself in court, you are covered for legal expenses. Nice. They think of everything here.[/quote]

You can get legal expenses insurance cover here, its not sold on a standalone basis like it is in Germany, but as an add on to motor and household insurance, also commercial legal protection too.

Liam McPoyle

mel.b wrote: »

Thanks, a couple more questions if that's ok? In my work (public sector) when I started about 7yrs ago we were told to get Class 2. I get paid mileage and sometimes carrying colleagues and/or students on Home visits. I have always got class 2. This yr I renewed my insurance online, and thought I had class 2 but it sounds from above that I actually have Class 1B.

Last yr I did approx 4200km for work. So do I actually need class 2 or is 1B enough? Does 1b indemnify your employer if you have an accident while travelling for work, or does only class 2 do this?

Thanks ðŸ˜႒

Class 1B would be sufficient to cover up to 5-10,000 km per year business use and it would cover you in the event of a claim. I have heard before though of public/civil servants been made get class two by their employer however they would then be reimbursed for the cost.

Perhaps get something I writing from them just to clarify what their expectation is.

Liam McPoyle

gozunda wrote: »

I would presume insurance companies automatically share information to check on insured details?

Yep, the claims team would have access to "insurance link", a kind of national claims database.

Zebrano

On a damaged car what percencage of the value does the repair have to be to write it off

Liam McPoyle

gozunda wrote: »

Apologies - second question

In the case of some one pulling a trailer that requires an EB licence but did not have one - would that person be covered if they had an accident whilst driving with trailer attached?

That's an interesting one!

Short answer is I don't know as it's not that clear cut.

If a guy was pulling a 2 wheel box trailer and someone pulled out In front of them and they collided, I think it would be incredibly harsh to decline a claim.

However if the person was towing a 2 or 3 axle trailer that was fully loaded, the trailer hits a speed wobble and flips over, I think the policy holder could be in bother.

Things like that really are on a case by case basis and it's impossible to put hard and fast rules in place, insurer discretion is of utmost importance.

Liam McPoyle

Zebrano wrote: »

On a damaged car what percencage of the value does the repair have to be to write it off

Usually around 60% would be deemed to be beyond economic repair.

Pete123456

Very informative and helpful stuff Business Cat!