New insurance player, w00t!/English Insurance Companys merged thread

MacGyver

Can english insurance companys insure irish drivers yet, as ive been told today that a company who quoted me no less then a week ago now say they wont insure me because im a student. isnt this discrimination of some sort.

Can i ring english companys and get insurance from them for use in ireland?

What can be done about this type of discrimination? they wont insure any age student even mature students!

Seth Brundle

They won't insure you because you are a student - get over it! They can do what they like because they put it down to statistical risk and therefore avoid being descriminatory.
Anyway, were you planning on using an english policy over here? Chances are that it would not be valid!

Fudger

no you can't get english insurance here, but before Harney changed her post she had met with some english insurance companies to discuss opening up the irish market, but i wouldn't hold your breath. The chances of having a case for student discrimination is a joke my friend, if there is any case for discrimination its against males on the grounds of sex and age discrimination, but thats a no hoper aswell

Nuttzz

You do have a case for discrimination, however if you go to the equality crowd they would probably get a judgement against them for you and they would have to give you a quote, of course the quote would be in the region of €6-7,000 for a micra so wont be much use to you

MrPudding

Check this out http://www.clements.com/ and choose “WorldAuto”



One of the lads in work was being quoted €1500 by other insurance companies. This crowd insured him for €380. It is fully legit, he has an Irish Insurance disk for his car and all the proper paper work. This must be one of the new entrants that were mentioned a short while ago.



MrP

fletch

Do they provide personal motor policies....? Can only find business

MrPudding

fletch wrote:

Do they provide personal motor policies....? Can only find business

Yes they do. My colleague got his insurance last week. It is personal car insurance. You will find it under Worldauto.

MrP

edmund_f

Obivious joke,

Have sent them a mail this morning, will post a reply back and let you all know how i get on, for reference, current quote EU900, 1.8 1998 Alfa 156, 4 yrs NCB, lets see what they can do

Ed

kenmc

Hmmm - not so sure about this one. All I can see in the "Worldwide Auto" is a blurb saying "For professionals living and working outside of their home country". And the main page states that
"The leading provider of auto, property and health insurance to expatriates and the organizations that support them"
Interesting to see the results of the email....
Oh - and the stupid site doesn't work with Opera either, so docking brownie points for that.

MrPudding

I know it looks a bit strange. They also cover people in their own country, including Ireland. My friend has his Irish insurance disk for the car and all the relevant papers. It is 100% above board. The papers come from AIG, I’m sure you all know them.

MrP

Fudger

i was wondering about that cause of the below.......

"ProfessionalsAbroad is one-stop insurance shopping for professionals of all nationalities who are working outside of their home country."

Very interesting though.......

Peace

Well i dunno if that insurance will apply here... 1st its for professionals (wtf?) and second it says for people working outsoide their home country (wtf?)

Although i ran the online quote and it gave me 905usd on a golf tdi..
didn't ask me what BHP/what age i was/NCB/ what type of license....

Quotes in Ireland are about 1400/1500yoyo

Eoin

As mentioned already, they can not get done for discrimination if their reason is based on statistical data.

W.R.T. to foreign insurance companies, I think this could be a bit of a gamble - I don't know what the legal details are (i.e. can foreign companies issue a valid Irish insurance disc etc), but I would not like to be dealing with a foreign company in the event of an accident - they probaby don't have to answer to Irish courts in this event, so there are no guarantees.

edmund_f

Phoned Clements this afternoon, was talking to a Melissa Burdette.
The story is that there is no problem quoting on car insurance in ireland, but you have to be a Foreign national. Apperently there are no plans for them to start quoting for Irish nationals living in Ireland, but perhaps if people start e-mailing them expressing an interest then perhaps they may look into it?

but apart from all that, all you people who hold UK/european/other passports should have no problem?

looks like expensive insurance is only specific to people actually living _and_ born in Ireland

her contact details are

phone number 00 1.202.872.0060
email mburdette@clements.com


Ed

Seth Brundle

WRT to Clements Intl (via the aformentioned link) - they are not a membeer of the IIF nor are they allowed to provide insurance in Ireland. I contacted IFSRA and got this reply:-
"Clements International are not registered to provide insurance in the Republic of Ireland. Under the terms of the EU 3rd Non-Life Insurance Directive (Statutory Instrument 359 of 1994) it is not possible for an insurance company situated outside of the EU to provide insurance other than Marine and Aviation cover. In addition to this the various Road Traffic Acts stipulate what insurance is acceptable for the purposes of driving on Irish roads."

Capt'n Midnight

From http://www.clements.com/program_director/index.asp
Just answer the questions ...

Are you purchasing insurance for an individual or on behalf of an organization or commercial business?

Individual *
Organization or Commercial Business

Will you be living outside of the United States or your home country?

Yes
No *

Are you a US Citizen interested in insurance for your needs within the United States?

Yes
No *

Insurance Assistant

It is our understanding that you are a foreign national purchasing insurance within your home country. At this time we are unable to offer this type of insurance. If you would like more information or if you feel you have received this message in error, please contact a customer service representative at +1.202.872.0060 (Worldwide) or +1.800.872.0067 (US).

edmund_f

Quote:
Will you be living outside of the United States or your home country?

Yes
No *

the answer to this would be yes?
as Ireland being outside of the United States?
or am I being really really stupid here?

Finaly answer is to actually phone Clements yourself?

ed

ubu

edmund_f wrote:

Quote:
Will you be living outside of the United States or your home country?

Or your Home country

Wouldnt this make your mates insurance void Mr.P?

parsi

but Ireland is your "home country" and you're not living outside of that - so the answer would be Yes if you were Irish and living in Uzbekistan or similar..

Capt'n Midnight

edmund_f wrote:

as Ireland being outside of the United States?
or am I being really really stupid here?

It is our understanding that you are a foreign national purchasing insurance within your home country. At this time we are unable to offer this type of insurance

Edited - 'cos if they ain't approved in ROI then probably not in NI either ..

kbannon wrote:

"Clements International are not registered to provide insurance in the Republic of Ireland. ... Road Traffic Acts stipulate what insurance is acceptable for the purposes of driving on Irish roads."

mike65

This is of no use to 99% of ppl reading this.

Mike.

Victor

I'd be very wary of this insurance.

Moved to Motors.

edmund_f

Perhaps wary is good. This all does sound a bit too good to be true. Comment regarding the item

"Clements International are not registered to provide insurance in the Republic of Ireland. Under the terms of the EU 3rd Non-Life Insurance Directive (Statutory Instrument 359 of 1994) it is not possible for an insurance company situated outside of the EU to provide insurance other than Marine and Aviation cover. In addition to this the various Road Traffic Acts stipulate what insurance is acceptable for the purposes of driving on Irish roads."

IIf is the representative of the insurance companies, sorta like asking the devil if hell is a bad place to live. America being a much more letigous (sp?) country than ours, i would believe that if this, american, company is offering insurance in ireland, there must be something in it?. Perhaps it may only be for American Armed forces personel?,i am sure the IIF would be able to point out the little loophole that Clements are using, that does not apply to the bulk of the people availing of the IIF's members services in Ireland and supporting them (i.e. us plebs who are bending over and taking these insurance costs as being justified)

Will mail the Insurance Ombusdman, and the consumer association tomorrow to see if can get some clarification on this issue. I am sure it is worth some more investigation?

Final questions;

asked of Kbannon, you seem to have a good legal handle on this and perhaps may have the final say on the matter?

Clements are not registered?. Clairifcation, where can i view this registered list of insurance companies, under which irish or european law governs this list
various road traffic acts, stipulation of insurance levels, ditto.

Regards to all who made it to the end of the post

Ed

Seth Brundle

As most insurers are members of the IIF this was the first place I looked. Once I noticed they werent listed under the members of this body (http://www.iif.ie/memcocon.htm) I got suspicipus and went to www.ifsra.ie and (the insurance regualtor). They don't have an up to date list of allowed companies but sugest that you contact them, which I did, and was told that they were not permitted to sell motor insurance in Ireland.
I have no legal handle - Im just repeating the result of my query to the regualtor. As for looking up law and stuff, try www.irishstatutebook.ie as a start!

edmund_f

kbannon,

thanks for the reply, have maild the IIF, the IFSRA and the ombudsman to see if i can get any clarification on what a company has to do to provide insurance in Ireland. Also would be an interesting excersise to see if the current ones are actually fulfilling the same list.

Something does not sit right with me regarding this. Every other country in Europe seems to have an open market, with open competition, and thus reasonable prices. It is too much to ask that we too, the Irish, pay a fair price for insurance?

Must also get onto Tesco, they are apperently offering a trial run of motor insurance in Waterford (don't quote me on this until i can verify it), will try to find out how they are proposing to do it

Regards

ed

mike65

edmund_f wrote:

Must also get onto Tesco, they are apperently offering a trial run of motor insurance in Waterford (don't quote me on this until i can verify it), will try to find out how they are proposing to do it

Regards

ed

Dont see how that could work or that Tescos would need to trial
motor insurance, its a pretty straightfoward business.

Mike.

Superman

that Clement company sounds bogie!

dahamsta

kbannon wrote:

WRT to Clements Intl (via the aformentioned link) - they are not a membeer of the IIF nor are they allowed to provide insurance in Ireland.

MrPudding said the papers came from "AIG". What about them?

edmund_f

AIG i assume are the insurance company that Clements are using? http://www.aig.com

' Dont see how that could work or that Tescos would need to trial
motor insurance, its a pretty straightfoward business.'

agree, but i have only heard of it in Tesco Ardkeen Waterford, thus the 'trial' bit was my personal intertrepation of the actions of Tesco. Have mailed them, awaiting a response, will give them a call shortly. I would imagine that every multinational company would trial everything, doubt they would banket roll out a new product to an entire country without having some sort of statistics and consumer feedback - thus 'trial'

Superman 'Clement company sounds bogie?'

Why? the prices they are charging are available to every other person in the world, i would imagine if you quoted current irish insurance costs to someone in another country they would at least call it 'bogie'. Bottom line is the prices we are being charged are nuts, they are completly over the top. If there is some sort of loophole where i have to apply for citizenship of another country and give up my Irish passport to get normal insurance rates, perhaps that may be worth it.


IIF were back onto me, they passed the buck to the IFRSA, apperantly i have to buy a copy of the 'blue book' so when i get a copy of that will report back if it has anything of note.

ed

LFCFan

got a quote of over $1800 (around €600 more than I'm paying now) for insurance with Clements so even if they were legit they're still a bloody ripoff

MrPudding

Sorry for the delay. Clements are a broker. The underwriting is done by AIG, the paperwork comes from AIG, they are listed on the ifsra site.

After a bit more research arround the office I have found the other people who have applied are from the UK or Northern Ireland (technically the UK.) I am sorry for the misinformation. I just got a bit excited. On the plus side I can make use of it as I am a Northie.

MrP

Merrion

I believe that Tesco are going to be acting as an insurance broker rather than as an insurance underwriter. This means that they will buy underwriting from one of the other companies (I'd imagine AIG would be in the frame for that one as they were for the AA when it started brokerage here) and will compete with the other brokerages on the commission side.

Since commission rates are too high in this country (>30% is not unusual) this is a good thing and if they are able to build this into a big business they might even get better rates from the risk underwriter.

Tommy Vercetti

I believe Tesco will be underwritten by Hibernian, so it's the same ****, different name :rolleyes:

big man

You'd be incorrect. Tescos will come in on the basis of being a tied-agent and only offering insurance with one company/underwriter. It would be too much hassle for them to offer a number of companies - they do their life cover the same way with Hibernian. However, am led to believe the underwriter they are using is UKI (Ultra Keen Insurances). This underwriter has never been in the irish market for motor so they wont have had any historical claims data, and you should expect relatively low premiums for the first three years until they see how claims are panning out!!

And for those who doubt the dodgy name of the company, they are reputable and are tied in with Churchhill and Direct Line in the UK, and are subisdiaries of Royal Bank of Scotland aka Ulster Bank.