Cars & Transportation Car insurance - what a scam

[ioppolo]

Home insurance can be the same. Pipe join under the bath gave out a week after we moved in. All went well until renewal time, went up $200 because we'd made a claim.
Went elsewhere pretty quick.

 

[Caesar]

Yeah, before Christmas we had a failure in our sewer line which wasn’t covered by our insurance. $20K later…

 

[FRUMPY]

Home insurance can be the same. Pipe join under the bath gave out a week after we moved in. All went well until renewal time, went up $200 because we'd made a claim.
Went elsewhere pretty quick.

That's what i didnt get - a few years ago all policies went up significantly because 'they had paid out a lot of claims the previous year'.....

AND? I didnt make a claim myself, none of mine should go up. Charge those people who claimed more, not me. The years they make squillions they dont lessen the premiums by much if at all.

 

[ash_1050]

I work in the insurance space, and currently work for a major insurer. Here's a couple of recurring basics that tend to trip people up that you often don't learn until it's too late.

Check your insurance cover includes hire car cover

Hire car cover is pretty important at the moment, as insurers are having issues obtaining car parts from suppliers due to shipping backlogs from covid. If your policy has hire car cover (ideally unlimited hire car cover for no fault accidents) it means you’re not out of pocket while awaiting repairs, which can take in some cases up to 5+ months. You don’t want the stress of paying out of pocket for a hire car during repairs.

Check the agreed value of your car

Every time your policy is renewed the agreed value is automatically adjusted based on an industry guide such as Glass’s Guide or Red Book. At the moment the second hand car market and the Glass’s Guide valuations are a bit out of whack, once again due to covid and supply chain issues for delivery of cars, which has pushed second hand car values up higher than normal. If your agreed value looks cheaper than recent sales of the same make/model on a site like Car Sales, give your insurer a call and see if you can change the agreed value. Insurers have a band (low, medium, high) for the value of each make/model, so there’s normally some wriggle room.

Check your excess figure

Your excess figure is negotiable, you can pay a lower excess in exchange for a higher premium, or a higher excess in exchange for a lower premium. If your current excess seems like it would be a stretch if you needed to pay it tomorrow then consider calling your insurer and asking for a lower excess.

Read your updated policy schedule, especially exclusions

I get it, most policy schedules are 60 or more pages of mundane information that nobody wants to read, but it’s important to understand what you are and aren’t covered for. The cheat way to do so is to skim through and read the section titled ‘Exclusions’ or ‘What we don’t cover’, as this outlines things that an insurer doesn’t cover from a claims perspective. If there’s things there that aren’t covered by your insurer it may be worth doing some research to see if there is an insurer out there who will cover it.

For example you may also not covered for swimming pool liners or covers, damage caused by gradual leaking pipes, damage to your shower base, damage to an unsealed driveway, damage to your garden or plants, damage to your hearing aids, damage caused by your pet etc. There's stacks of obscure exclusions that may apply to your specific circumstances.

Have specified item cover for valuable items

Your policy has a limit for unspecified items, which can be anywhere from $500-$2500 in most instances. If you’ve got a high end camera, watch, ring, art piece etc that is worth more than $2500 and you would like insured for its actual value give your insurer a call and have it added to the policy as a specified item.

 

[FRUMPY]

I work in the insurance space, and currently work for a major insurer. Here's a couple of recurring basics that tend to trip people up that you often don't learn until it's too late.

Check your insurance cover includes hire car cover

Hire car cover is pretty important at the moment, as insurers are having issues obtaining car parts from suppliers due to shipping backlogs from covid. If your policy has hire car cover (ideally unlimited hire car cover for no fault accidents) it means you’re not out of pocket while awaiting repairs, which can take in some cases up to 5+ months. You don’t want the stress of paying out of pocket for a hire car during repairs.

Check the agreed value of your car

Every time your policy is renewed the agreed value is automatically adjusted based on an industry guide such as Glass’s Guide or Red Book. At the moment the second hand car market and the Glass’s Guide valuations are a bit out of whack, once again due to covid and supply chain issues for delivery of cars, which has pushed second hand car values up higher than normal. If your agreed value looks cheaper than recent sales of the same make/model on a site like Car Sales, give your insurer a call and see if you can change the agreed value. Insurers have a band (low, medium, high) for the value of each make/model, so there’s normally some wriggle room.

Check your excess figure

Your excess figure is negotiable, you can pay a lower excess in exchange for a higher premium, or a higher excess in exchange for a lower premium. If your current excess seems like it would be a stretch if you needed to pay it tomorrow then consider calling your insurer and asking for a lower excess.

Read your updated policy schedule, especially exclusions

I get it, most policy schedules are 60 or more pages of mundane information that nobody wants to read, but it’s important to understand what you are and aren’t covered for. The cheat way to do so is to skim through and read the section titled ‘Exclusions’ or ‘What we don’t cover’, as this outlines things that an insurer doesn’t cover from a claims perspective. If there’s things there that aren’t covered by your insurer it may be worth doing some research to see if there is an insurer out there who will cover it.

For example you may also not covered for swimming pool liners or covers, damage caused by gradual leaking pipes, damage to your shower base, damage to an unsealed driveway, damage to your garden or plants, damage to your hearing aids, damage caused by your pet etc. There's stacks of obscure exclusions that may apply to your specific circumstances.

Have specified item cover for valuable items

Your policy has a limit for unspecified items, which can be anywhere from $500-$2500 in most instances. If you’ve got a high end camera, watch, ring, art piece etc that is worth more than $2500 and you would like insured for its actual value give your insurer a call and have it added to the policy as a specified item.

Yeah i have a higher excess to lower the premium. As ive never claimed it in my 20+ years of driving it seems a safe bet.

 

[Cruyff14]

We're up for renewal soon.

It is ridiculous how outrageously priced YOUI are.

 

[Jafa]

As a business owner we have all sorts of requirements on us from customers when it comes to insurance. Even our vehicles have to tick certain insurance boxes.

I have complained in the past about premiums and had them reduced. For some reason this year ended up being cheaper than last year.

 

[74561347]

i moved from metro to regional and my car insurance halved. had no idea it would be that much different.

 

[mill204]

No, insurance is for protecting yourself financially.

If you can afford to pay the bills from an accident great but most people couldn't afford to replace their own car let alone pay for someone's Porsche if they were found at fault

Agree! But if you're main concern is about third parties, there's always the cheaper Third Party Property Damage option.

 

[daddy_4_eyes]

I had a similar situation as yours and I am sure we are not the only ones. After some terrible experiences with car insurance companies, I decided to be more careful next time. That's when I found Car Insurance Quotes Online in Australia - Compare Today | Youi. I love them because they have a very detailed website that helps you and gives you a lot of tips, and also they place there all their promotion they have. If you read everything carefully and pay attention to details, you'll know everything you need and decide whether you need this package or switch to another one.

Your one and only post is spruiking an insurance company on a largely football website.
Seems legit.

 

[Power Raid]

The biggest rort is that if your car is a write off and you get a new car, you need a brand new insurance policy. So if you crash one month after paying your yearly insurance bill, you need to pay for another year on the new car. So you're much "better off" doing it 11 months into your policy. This happened to my friend at work, absolute rort.

just cancel your policy just as you would if you sell your car and you get a refund

 

[ash_1050]

just cancel your policy just as you would if you sell your car and you get a refund

You can't do this. In the event of a total loss the outstanding policy premium is deducted from the total loss settlement, along with the excess. This applies to all total loss car claims.

Any outstanding rego/CTP and salvage may also be deducted, but this is more case by case and for rego/CTP depends on which state you live in.