Car(tel) Insurance

Over the same period(longer actually) on the same car, my insurance stayed pretty much the same(within a range of fifty quid), no mid boom reduction, but in the last three years? It near tripled. Actually more like quadrupled if I had stayed with the same broker(a broker who I was loyal to since they opened their doors back in the late 80's. My customer number was 01).

Though I suppose because mine is one of those cars that apparently offends the baby Jesus and interferes with farmyard animals, none of the daftly dodgy(as opposed to kinda dodgy) insurance companies that were underselling would touch me at the time.

Boggles wrote: »

Motor insurance is compulsory, i.e illegal not to have. IF the insurance companies fooked up that sort of titled market, that isn't the consumers fault.

Nope it's not, but we will continue to pay for financial institution's mistakes. Again.

And lest the old excuse of "massive claim costs" is rolled out, as it always is. Let's have an oul look at that shall we...

I wrote this on another thread hereabouts: Why has the insurance industry been so lackadaisical in fighting and lobbying hard to reduce these figures? If my business was running at such a loss and the main cause was one factor, I'd sure as hell be fighting to remove that factor. Seems a bit puzzling.

This "compo culture" has long been a concern. I remember it being talked about and used as an excuse back in the 1980's, so it's not as if this is a new thing.

Then there's the transparency over all this. Let's go back a year ago.

In a hard-hitting report, the Joint Committee on Finance said the motor insurance industry had deliberately been hiding key information from public view and engaging in cartel-like behaviour. The report said that all witnesses who appeared before the committee – except for the insurance industry itself – had highlighted the absence of data-sharing and a complete absence of transparency across the sector as a serious problem. The absence of this information meant it was impossible to get to the root cause of motor insurance price increases, the committee said.

"Cartel-like behaviour" according to an Oireachtas committee. As for their constant whinge about "compo culture";

The report pointed out that only 20 per cent of insurance claims are processed through the Personal Injuries Assessment Board (PIAB) with a further 10 per cent going through the courts. For both of those routes there is full transparency . . . however the remaining 70 per cent of claims are settled privately by insurers [and] there is no visibility or transparency whatsoever about these claims,” the report said, The committee said consumers have “effectively been told to accept these exorbitant increases without any explanation. The insurance industry says that it is the result of an increase in legal costs and compensation awards but will not supply supporting evidence for verification.”

Now take that in folks. 70% of their payout figures are hidden. If they were serious about stopping this payout madness they could illustrate that perfectly if they released out of court settlements figures and how much less costly they were. If Case A of whiplash going through the courts got 30,000 and Case B settling on the steps of said courts received 5,000, it would put major pressure on the government and the legal sector to explain such a disparity. Very puzzling that they don't. Hmmm. Funny that they don't. Well it doesn't suit them to do so. I would bet the farm it would show that the figures they pay out are less than they claim.

The report also suggested another cause of the spikes in the cost of motor insurance – which have seen some people’s premiums go up by over 100 per cent in just two years – was because insurance companies have been using their motor insurance books to bolster shortfalls in investment income in other areas. “From around 2012/2013, investment income dried up,” the report said. “Guaranteed returns of 4 per cent on government bonds disappeared. Insurance companies rushed to plug gaping holes by burning through their capital reserves.

NB "investment income dried up". It's easy to blame idiocy like Quinn's, but they were all at it to some degree and again we have to pay the price for a legal requirement. It is beyond scandalous that this industry is so opaque on this particular matter. That's before we get to the cartel stuff. Never mind the suspicion they're keeping completion out of the market(internally and external), that so many also "magically" decided to say cars over a certain age(10 years, but trust me that will contract further) virtually the same day, yet won't release the full figures showing that this segment actually costs more.

Transparency my arse and now both our own gov agencies and the EU are finally looking into it. Clearly they see shenanigans. Proving it will be the thing though and even if proved what bet would you take out that anything concrete will actually happen?

Rod Munch wrote: »

Nope.

But thats because the company's that make the products I use have not had to pay out billions of Euro from their income to people that buy or use their products.

So entirely avoiding the whole bad investments by insurance companies part then? And the lack of transparency. And the "cartel-like behaviour" as reported by a government investigation over a year ago and the latest government and EU investigations culminating in early morning raids on insurance company premises? Ah yea, defo all the motorist's fault. Here's my smily face. :rolleyes: