Premiums
Which rating factors you can move, and which are locked in for years
The variables behind a motor premium sort into three groups by how quickly they can change, and only one of…
· 4 min read
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 year’s claims has to be collected from this year’s customers before anyone knows who…
By Tara Mukherjee · · 3 min read
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What a protected no-claims discount actually protects
Protection preserves the number of years on your record after a claim; it does not preserve the price, and…
· 3 min read
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Paying monthly is a credit agreement wearing the same name as the policy
Instalments split one annual contract into two: the insurance itself, and a loan that funds it, each with…
· 3 min read
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Why a renewal price rarely matches the price you were first quoted
A renewal is priced against a different problem from a new-business quotation, and most of the movement…
· 3 min read
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A proposal form is a set of questions the price is built on, not paperwork
Every answer given at quotation becomes a statement of fact the contract rests on, which is why an…
· 4 min read
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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
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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
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A claim keeps affecting the price long after it has been settled and forgotten
Claims history is asked about over a multi-year window and it feeds the rating model separately from the…
· 3 min read
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The arithmetic behind deciding not to claim for a small amount of damage
Paying for minor damage yourself can be cheaper than claiming, but the comparison involves more moving…
· 3 min read
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The annual mileage on a quotation is a forecast, and it gets checked after the event
Nobody knows in advance how far they will drive, but the figure is treated as a statement of fact, and the…
· 4 min read
Premiums
Occupation and address are rating factors because of what they correlate with
Neither question is about who you are, and both are best understood as compressed descriptions of where a…
· 4 min read