Actually James, after a lengthy chat with my usual broker this year, I found out what has actually happened.

Retail has been a disaster for years now, due to the internet and idiot resellers ruining the margin for the very products that keep them in business. Well that's now come to the insurance industry.

There were only 4 or 5 underwriters doing ALL of the insuring in the UK and due to the ridiculous margin bashing going on with confused and compare etc. one of them decided to jack in the UK and focus on their business in Europe and the States where there is more profit to be made. So the others all sat round a table and collectively decided to put prices up across the board this year. Once again, Joe Schmo's need for the cheapest everything makes the world a tiny bit more rubbish.

Some of the places I spoke to are saying that prices have gone up about 40% across the board with some regions being hit even harder. With my current insurer, the people who underwrote my policy last year are not part of the pool any more.

So, it looks like there'll be a huge leap in uninsured drivers out there.

The insurance industry needs to realise this, and decide whether they are in it just for profit or whether they provide a service.

edited

[LIFTED] duh Heather. I thought you would know better.

Fact is, the public have once again ruined the capitalist system with their penny pinching ways.

I see what you did there, and I approve.

Perhaps it's time for Big Insurance to get a bloody nose. We motorists are held over a barrel by needing insurance cover by law, so perhaps a non-profit or co-operative movement could be set up to serve our needs over shareholders.

Good. Capitalism hasn't done ordinary people any favours, has it? Why shouldn't we be able to get decent services at affordable prices. Capitalists must realise that pricing everyone but the rich out of the market does no-one any favours.

*wakes up again*

That's better! Hello again

I was implying sarcasm, but that clearly hasn't come across.

But there is some truth to it. Insurance, like everything else, is a commodity. It has a price. If screenscrapers ruin the margin for it, businesses will not want to provide it anymore at worse, or at best will artificially hike up prices. How many other products do you expect to get cheaper every year, whilst they continue to provide the same value. That's not really sustainable, is it?

No, it's not. But then continuously increasing the prices won't work either. Fewer people will pay the higher prices, the prices have to rise to counter it, fewer people pay, etc.

I have always resented having to pay increasing premiums when I don't make claims on the policy. It should be the other way round in a sensible world. If the premium goes up, it's human nature to shop around for a better deal, and so the whole merry-go-round continues.

I really think there's a market for a more ethical insurance scheme, run as a non-profit, which had reasonable prices and provided a decent service.

wonder how much it would be to insure one of these:



26k for the car, really badly want.

I would argue this premise for various reasons

1) Insurance is not a commodity. Commodities, generally, vary their prices by the standard laws of supply and demand. For example, if there is a poor coffee harvest one year, the price of coffee beans will rise. Likewise precious metals, wheat etc. Commodities are objects of which there is a finite supply. There is no finite supply of 'insurance'. I've never been to an insurance brokers and been told 'I'm sorry sir, we've sold out of insurance today, we've just got none left. We;re getting some more in tomorrow, if you would like to come in then'.

Insurance does not operate according to the same principles as commodities.

2) Insurance is not subject to elastic demand. If the price of coffee gets excessive, you can drink tea. if precious metals become expensive, you can chose not to wear jewelery or buy electronics which use expensive components. Legally, in the UK, if you own a car you have to buy insurance. The number of customers for insurance is equal to the number of motor vehicle owners and is pretty much price invulnerable in this regard.

Owners have no choice not to buy. The only choice they have - the only way they can get true market forces to work in the insurance market - is to use confused & the meerkats & etc to get the best deal they can. They cannot be sure market forces will work if they stay where they are - in fact experience suggests the reverse will happen. Insurance should get cheaper over time - statistically, the best predictor of future accidents is the the frequency of accidents you have had in the past - yet I think you'll find it hard to find anyone who has not seen their insurance premiums rise over time, regardless of clean driving record, if they stay with the same company.

The only way the consumer can get the market to operate properly is to force the insurance providers to compete against each other. It's that simple. If the insurance companies don't like the fact well, frankly, my heart bleeds. If you don't like how the market is, leave. I'm sure someone will be happy to take your place who will give consumers a deal they are happy with.

To put it bluntly, a lot of insurance companies lost a lot of money in the credit crunch, because they had taken the significant profits they were making then and invested them in risky ways because the banks told them it would be OK. Now they're trying to grab that money back by hiking their customer's premiums. Customers who have not made claims, customers who pay their premiums on time, customers who are a diminishing risk over time. They are essentially being punished financially for the insurance companies financial incompetence. And they can bite me, to be blunt.

Aviva announces high premium rise despite 21% increase in profits

If you don't make claims, you don't know what you're paying for. I'm happy to pay a little more, because I know what it's like to claim and the service I get from my broker is all important. Of course, most people probably don't care - hence the comparison sites.

Fact is, things go up. It's called inflation. Sure, things shouldn't leap up, but it really is unreasonable to assume that any product is going to continue to get cheaper EVERY SINGLE YEAR indefinitely - surely? For me, at 29 and without full no claims, I have a right to expect things to keep getting cheaper for another couple of years, but after that, it's a plateau til I hit 50 and that's just the way it is. I don't see that as unreasonable.

I agree that a more ethical scheme would be good, but that's rather socialist and caring, and that doesn't seem to fly in the west...

Jon, you're right of course. Insurance isn't a commodity in the true Marxist sense. I just meant that it's a "thing" and it has a "price".

Heathers idea makes sense. I'm just saying that people are shopping around for in some cases a tenner or thereabouts and that just seems a bit much to me. But that's the price you pay for dealing with a computer and not a person.

Bratty, for you, that would be A LOT of money. Probably wouldn't cost me much more. In fact, my mate has one

I understand that the price of things will generally increase year on year. That's not what the complaint is about.

Taking my past insurance...

3 years ago I had 6 points on my license, I lived in ls8 postcode (highest risk rating), I only had 7 year ncb and I was 25. Now given the fact that over the last 3 years I have moved to a safer area, I'm older (and wiser?), I now have 10 years ncb, my car is worth less than it was in the past and I now have a clean license.

Surely given all of those conditions then even if insurance was increasing with inflation then my insurance should be about the same as it was 3 years ago. However, my renewal quote was over 50% higher than my premium 3 years ago.

This is what I don't understand. This is what bugs me. They have no real care about the person taking out the policy and their history. The numbers they come up with seem arbitrary.

Some of us had to pay three times that because we moved to a high-risk area!