Third Party or Comprehensive?

thatkindofgirl

I was just reading someone's comment on the Nissan 'Double Take' Thread where somebody said that most people don't get comprehensive insurance.

Is this true? I've checked and the difference of insuring for comprehensive vs third party seems to be a couple hundred a year (at most) and certainly has more benefits.

Why don't people get comprehensive?

PS: I don't want to hear from people who don't insure at all. I'm still waiting on compensation for over 3k medical expenses after some uninsured neandrethal ploughed into my friend's car in December.

seamus

When you're a male provisionally licenced driver, getting comprehensive insurance can as much as double your premium. I'd guess that vast majority of provisional drivers are on TPF&T.

Other than that, I'm not sure if someone would be right to say that most people are on Third Party insurance, though a good deal of people would be on Third Party Fire & Theft because it covers them for damage against someone else and loss of their vehicle. Most people would be willing to take the risk of their own fault in an accident, and incurring the damage/loss of their vehicle in that case. More than likely because they believe it won't happen to them, they're good drivers.

fletch

I'm 21 & paying over €2k for my insurance TPF&T with a full licence. I don't pay the extra few hundred euro for fully comprehensive because lets face it, if I crash into someone else and do a lot of damage to my car, no way would I make a claim on my policy because, my insurance premium would sky rocket the next year & no other insurance company would want me.
Plus I drive a car that's worth <€3k so the slightest bump and the car's a write off

dahamsta

Much the same as fletch there, I went TPF&T to save a couple hundred quid, and because my car is worth about the same and I'd prefer to take the hit on fixing it than claim. Only difference is that slight bumps don't really do anything. You need to give my bus a good thump to get it's attention.

adam

Capt'n Midnight

What does fully comp cover that normal policy doesn't ?

You need fully comp if you can't afford to walk away from the car, in the repayments sense.

Don't forget that if you make a claim your insurance will probably go up for the next five years. In effect for a low value car they won't pay out it would simply be a loan.

sceptre

I went 3pf&t as opposed to comp because I'm not rolling in a pile of cash. I could do useful things with even an extra few hundred for the next few years, even if it's just the expected coke and hookers. Plus my car's probably only worth about six grand now after owning it for four years (it's a 99 corolla, two years old when I got it). I'm going to assume (or hope) that there's a very good chance I won't be in an accident that's my fault that'll take out my car as a staggering number of drivers, on first glance, appear to be staggeringly worse than I am.

I suppose if I bought a shiny-new new car I'd cough up the extra for the first year or two but I'm not intelligence-inhibited enough to want to buy something really expensive that'll depreciate by about 20% or more in the first ten minutes so that mightn't happen for a rather long time.

causal

seamus wrote:

When you're a male provisionally licenced driver, getting comprehensive insurance can as much as double your premium. I'd guess that vast majority of provisional drivers are on TPF&T.

Yup - and it's worse for motorbikes. saobh said recently it was €5500 [sic] extra for comprehensive - even though the bike was only worth €3000 :eek:

Most people would be willing to take the risk of their own fault in an accident, and incurring the damage/loss of their vehicle in that case. More than likely because they believe it won't happen to them, they're good drivers.

Yup - I've yet to meet the driver who says "you know something, my driving isn't that good, I think I'm going to have an accident".

casual

iregk

I think a huge problem as well is that there are some insurance companies out there will not offer fully comp to drivers under 21 and some even raise that to 23. So in some circumstances its not a matter of choice its because they can't get fully comp.

But also on young male prov pollocies the difference between tpft and fc can be huge. a poor chap i work with was quoted 3,5000 (21 y/o) on a 1.2 polo and fully comp was an extra 1,200!!! that is ridiculous.