Government ePetition on Car Insurance

[highlander]

I think we should all sign this, and pass it on to friends & family asking them to sign too.

Quoting from the petition:

Responsible department: Department for Transport

The cost of car insurance in parts of the country is getting out of hand. We have young drivers being quoted over £20,000 for their first car, and many responsible drivers have seen their premiums going through the roof just because of their post code.

As the Member of Parliament for Bradford East, my mail bag has been inundated with messages from constituents who are angry about this. The police say that there is a great deal of insurance fraud going on which they know about, but do not have the tools and resources to deal with.

On top of that, the scandalous practice of selling crash details to personal injury lawyers is pushing up premiums for everyone and must be dealt with. When responsible drivers are being forced off the road by the cost of insuring their cars, the Government has to act.

Add your name to this petition to help me fight for affordable insurance, tougher policing of uninsured drivers, and tighter regulation of claims companies.

Thank you,
David Ward MP

The URL for the petition is:
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/354

(David Ward is not my MP, but I agree with him that this needs sorted out)

[FarmerPug]

ah this is a better thread, yup its a good idea to sign it

[highlander]

Sign the one on fuel prices too, because they're scandalous as well.

[lozz]

Sorry but it wont do any good sighning it,,

theres to much hastle involved in them putting everything right,
it wouid cost millions for them to tidy up all this,

theyd have to employ 1000s of people to go under-cover and target those, either involved in crash-for cash,
and also those enticing people to get involved in these things,

theres 100s of companys all with licences that get people to sighn claim forms, and then they forward them too solicitors,
they make £700 off solicitors for every claim

How wouid they sack all these companys if they have a licence to do this, ?

My insurance as Gone thru the roof and ihave to live with it, been driving 19 years and im paying simalar premiums to when ifirst started driving.

all isay is stay focused,
people are taking there brake lightbulbs out,
also if your involved in a accident get a witness to comfirm how many people was in the 3rd partys vehicle,

1 on board seems to turn into 5, Whiplash scams

throw away camera is a good thing to have in your glove box

[sirwiggum]

all isay is stay focused,
people are taking there brake lightbulbs out,
also if your involved in a accident get a witness to comfirm how many people was in the 3rd partys vehicle,

1 on board seems to turn into 5, Whiplash scams

throw away camera is a good thing to have in your glove box

Throw away camera is always good, if only for the fact that in my only crash experience, no getz would stop and be a witness, and as noone was injured and it was a minor accident, the police weren't interested.
The other bustard in the BMW that hit me didn't even let on to his insurance company. My insurance company had to threaten legal action against him!

And the whiplash thing, there was the story of a minor local bus crash that later turned out to have had 150 passengers

Mind you, the bus that turned over recently, they did account for all passengers who were on board and had to treat them for minor injuries.

[highlander]

To clean up the car insurance industry, the government doesn't need to target the "crash-for-cash" people (at least, not immediately).

What I want them to do is:

1) Come up with a basic, fair, and standard set of rules that define how much someone's premium should cost
2) Put a fair upper limit on how much third-party only insurance should cost
3) Ban insurance companies from selling your details to accident lawyers

No. 1 is relatively easy and cheap to do - although the government would be involved, so naturally it would cost taxpayer's money initially, but I think it would still work out better for us all as we wouldn't be paying tax AND stupidly-high insurance fees.

I'd also state that it should be unlawful for insurers to charge all 17 - 21-year-olds incredible insurance fees simply because of their age; they should only be charged higher premiums once they've shown themselves to be a risk (i.e. caught speeding, driving dangerously, etc).

No. 2 is also easy to do - say, no more than £1,500 for Third Party Only cover for those under the age of 21, after which the cost of their insurance should be expected to start going down as time goes on, based on an accident-free/conviction-free record.

No. 3 may be more difficult to enforce, I grant you that.

My point is that if we don't get people signing the petition, then definitely nothing will happen, rather than just maybe nothing will happen. It's like playing the lottery - you can't win if you don't buy a ticket. You seriously can't moan about the cost of car insurance if you're not prepared to put your name down protesting about it.

[lozz]

its the personal injury claims, Whiplash thats the reason for high insurance prices,
iwas told this by a insurance company icarnt see them Lying.

so if thats the case, Yes the Goverment shouid do something about it,

just think. £2k claim per 4 passengers and then the other vehicle, x 4 another passengers possibly more if a mpv 7-6 - 8 seater involved, big money there even before they pay out for the vehicles and add solicitors fees/court fees its big money,

[sirwiggum]

To clean up the car insurance industry, the government doesn't need to target the "crash-for-cash" people (at least, not immediately).

What I want them to do is:

1) Come up with a basic, fair, and standard set of rules that define how much someone's premium should cost
2) Put a fair upper limit on how much third-party only insurance should cost
3) Ban insurance companies from selling your details to accident lawyers

No. 1 is relatively easy and cheap to do - although the government would be involved, so naturally it would cost taxpayer's money initially, but I think it would still work out better for us all as we wouldn't be paying tax AND stupidly-high insurance fees.

I'd also state that it should be unlawful for insurers to charge all 17 - 21-year-olds incredible insurance fees simply because of their age; they should only be charged higher premiums once they've shown themselves to be a risk (i.e. caught speeding, driving dangerously, etc).

Then we will have thousands of motorists who aren't declaring their convictions.
Sure, when they crash the insurance company could do a lookup, but as we've seen with undeclared modifications, they aren't too bothered with declaring things to the insurance companies, just get the policy to keep on the right side of John Law.

No. 2 is also easy to do - say, no more than £1,500 for Third Party Only cover for those under the age of 21, after which the cost of their insurance should be expected to start going down as time goes on, based on an accident-free/conviction-free record.

Good idea.
How about say max. £1500 for < 4 years driving experience but with a max of 100bhp / 1.6 litre petrol / 1.9 litre diesel / goodness knows electric or hybrid.
Any more than this and you pay a "topup" fee? An extra £2000 and you can drive a 300bhp car?
Or say, insure per person and not per car? But then, would be difficult to catch on ANPR.

No. 3 may be more difficult to enforce, I grant you that.

My point is that if we don't get people signing the petition, then definitely nothing will happen, rather than just maybe nothing will happen. It's like playing the lottery - you can't win if you don't buy a ticket. You seriously can't moan about the cost of car insurance if you're not prepared to put your name down protesting about it.

Make it law, then if you have an accident and get tortured by solicitors, report your insurance company to the FSA.
I doubt many people would have sympathy for insurance companies, they have a licence to print money from driving legislation.

[lozz]

it wont change,

just watch in another year or too, 1.2 and 1.4 cars are going to be very popular.
isee alot of young lads driving bmws, subarus etc, theyre in college, The word Fronting springs to mind,

Makes me sick realy ,
the fact that after nearly 20years driving experience, no claims, and im having to drive cars that chavs shouid be driving just to be able to keep on the road,

[highlander]

Then we will have thousands of motorists who aren't declaring their convictions.

Then there should be a way of automatically passing driving-related offences between the Police/DVLA and the insurance company's database system. Again, that's something the government regulator could make happen.

At the very least, when a motorist applies for an insurance policy or their policy renewal comes through, the insurers would know about the convictions, and could properly penalize the motorist if they fail to declare properly under a "3 strikes and you're out" rule:

if they don't declare their offences correctly (1st strike), send them an automatic letter
if they ignore it (that's strike 2), send them another
if they ignore that one (that's strike 3), then the police come round and charge them with insurance fraud, which makes it difficult for that individual to get insurance at a reasonable cost

Under no circumstances should someone else's failure to declare their convictions, or their failure to take out a motor insurance policy, have any effect on my insurance premiums.

Similarly, if I have a not-at-fault accident, my premium should not go up (it does at present; trust me - an insurer I spoke to said that I was deemed to be at a greater risk of accident because of it).

I doubt many people would have sympathy for insurance companies, they have a licence to print money from driving legislation.

Definitely. No sympathy from me to insurers, or for ambulance-chasing lawyers.

The whole industry is a sick joke. It's a legal, government-sanctioned protection racket. It needs to stop. If you don't tell the government you're pissed off about it, nothing can or will happen to change things for the better.

[DiscoPol]

Or drop the unique way that cars are insured in the UK, all the rest of europe uses the car not the driver as the insured base, then with permission from the owner anybody with a license can use the car, my car for example is insured fully comp with all the xtras, glass,breakdown,replacement,legal cover, business use, full european cover, contents cover, etc etc etc on a new car worth circa 23k sterling and with zero percent discount as im new to polish insurance, it still comes out at only £1500 ish, now saying only nearly kills me but in the uk i think i would be paying a hell of a lot more based on the same criteria and vehicle.

Why does the UK insist on staying with what is basically a flawed system?
the rest of europe cant be losing money on the industry otherwise you wouldn't have all the same big names you have in the UK working over here on the continent

it would be interesting to see the profit made in the uk as opposed to the profit made in say germany or any other european state by one of the big insurers, im betting its a damn sight more in the UK

[Bailes1992]

Or drop the unique way that cars are insured in the UK, all the rest of europe uses the car not the driver as the insured base, then with permission from the owner anybody with a license can use the car, my car for example is insured fully comp with all the xtras, glass,breakdown,replacement,legal cover, business use, full european cover, contents cover, etc etc etc on a new car worth circa 23k sterling and with zero percent discount as im new to polish insurance, it still comes out at only £1500 ish, now saying only nearly kills me but in the uk i think i would be paying a hell of a lot more based on the same criteria and vehicle.

Why does the UK insist on staying with what is basically a flawed system?
the rest of europe cant be losing money on the industry otherwise you wouldn't have all the same big names you have in the UK working over here on the continent

it would be interesting to see the profit made in the uk as opposed to the profit made in say germany or any other european state by one of the big insurers, im betting its a damn sight more in the UK

Does that mean anyone in the UK is insured to drive it too?

[DiscoPol]

Does that mean anyone in the UK is insured to drive it too?

if the car is owned by the individual that has payed for the insurance then yes, sadly mine is still the property of Citroen Leasing for another few years, therefore use outside of Poland is restricted to myself and my wife as you have to obtain a document from the leasing company to prove you have permission to take the car across international borders.

Within Poland though anybody can drive my car with my permission as long as they are carrying the documents with them, and as this is a requirement for all drivers anyway its no hassle at all, Spain was the same system as was Denmark, it makes life a lot easier all round, if you need to go somewhere and you dont have your car with you, you can just borrow one from somebody without the fear of legal or financial penalties if it all goes wrong.

[rwb]

Isn't the problem that judges are awarding compensation where insufficient evidence has been presented to prove that any is due?

Passing on details to lawyers ought to break data protection rules, but I expect there's something in the smallprint of the insurance contract.

[sirwiggum]

Half the problem is that whiplash is easy to fake a symptom. Really sore neck, but no real medical test for it.