Claims
Why an insurer wants to hear about an incident you have no intention of claiming for
Notification and claiming are separate obligations, and the reason for the first has nothing to do with…
· 4 min read
22 articles
Premiums
A premium is a share of a pool, not a price attached to your car
Everything about how motor insurance is priced follows from one structural fact: the money to pay next…
· 3 min read
Young Drivers
Why the first years behind the wheel are priced the way they are
The premium a new driver is quoted is built from claim frequency, claim severity and an almost total…
· 3 min read
Young Drivers
Telematics prices the driving rather than the driver, and that cuts both ways
A monitored policy replaces guesses about a group with measurements of one person, which is why it can be…
· 4 min read
Young Drivers
Adding an experienced named driver only helps when the declaration is true
Household driver combinations are rated as a mix rather than as a list, which is why an addition can lower…
· 3 min read
Young Drivers
The car a new driver chooses moves the price more than anything else they control
Vehicle rating encodes repair cost, performance and theft exposure into a single classification, and the…
· 3 min read
Vehicle Costs
Tyres are a running cost measured in millimetres
The only part of a car touching the road is a consumable whose condition governs braking, grip in the wet…
· 3 min read
Cover Types
A modification is anything the car did not leave the factory with
Insurers rate a vehicle by its specification as built, so any departure from that specification changes the…
· 4 min read
Cover Types
Imported and unusual vehicles are hard to price because there is nothing to compare them with
Rating depends on a population of similar cars generating claims data, and a vehicle that arrived outside…
· 4 min read
Claims
What a courtesy car actually promises, and why like for like rarely means it
The replacement vehicle offered after an incident is a service with its own rules about class, duration and…
· 4 min read
Premiums
Careless and deliberate inaccuracies are punished very differently
Insurance law in many markets sorts a wrong answer by the state of mind behind it, and that classification…
· 4 min read
Premiums
Leaving a policy part way through the year is an unwinding, not a refund
Mid-term cancellation involves a charge, a recalculation and sometimes a record, and each of those behaves…
· 3 min read
Young Drivers
Short-term cover solves a problem the annual policy is bad at
Insurance sold by the day or the week is priced on a different basis from an annual contract, which makes…
· 3 min read
Vehicle Costs
How a car is paid for changes what it costs and what the policy has to do
Buying outright, borrowing against the vehicle and renting it for a period are three different financial…
· 3 min read
Cover Types
A motor policy is three documents, and only one of them describes your particular contract
The wording, the schedule and the certificate answer different questions, and most cover disputes begin…
· 4 min read
Cover Types
Driving someone else’s car on your own policy is the narrowest promise in motor insurance
The driving other cars extension, where it still exists at all, is liability only, hedged with conditions…
· 4 min read
Cover Types
Glass is handled separately inside a motor policy because it breaks so often
Windscreen damage is frequent, cheap and usually nobody’s fault, which is why it carries its own excess…
· 4 min read
Claims
When an insurer pays for a repair, the bodyshop is working to somebody else’s estimate
The authorisation behind a repair is a negotiated document, and the delays, the arguments about hidden…
· 4 min read
Claims
Vandalism is the claim with nobody at the other end of it
Deliberate damage by a stranger leaves an insurer paying a loss it can never recover, which shapes how the…
· 3 min read
Premiums
Two quotations are only comparable when the cover behind them is the same
Motor policies differ in excess, limits, conditions, bundled extras and payment terms, so a lower figure…
· 3 min read
Vehicle Costs
What a history check on a used car is actually protecting you from
A vehicle carries recorded facts about finance, insurance losses, identity and mileage, and each of them…
· 3 min read
Vehicle Costs
Doing your own maintenance saves labour, and labour is not the only cost
The hours in a garage bill are genuinely avoidable on some jobs and genuinely unavoidable on others, and…
· 3 min read