Annual Insurance Rant

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I dont know if anyone else has noticed a increasing insurance scam that online brokers are trying. First time it happened to me I thought I had made a mistake but it has happened twice since and luckily I had the proof

What they do is
1. ask a series of questions online and offer a quote (just as youd expect)
2. Note if you look at the policy before you sign up there will be differences from what you filled out and the system will have completed questions you were never asked in the original comparison - BEWARE you sign up for whats on the policy not what you filled out
3. You sign up and pay your money
4. You get a phone call or are asked to call the broker. The broker goes through your answers to the original web page and questions you in order to find some kind of inconsistency. In my case I had a broker ask me why I hadnt disclosed a claim from 2018 that came up on their database - after 15 minutes of arguing it turned out that it was a claim linked with the house which I moved into in 2020
5. If that doesnt work they will also introduce questions that were not in the original web survey and when you "change" the answer they accuse you of not filling out the form correctly/providing false information.
5. What they then do is re-quote you and increase the fee. You have already paid at least the 1st month and probably also think you have made an error - so you feel obliged to accept the higher quote

Its an absolute scam.
BikeSure did it to me last year and I fell for it
VanDirect tried exactly the same for my truck but I had taken screen shots of the original questions. I refused to pay the extra £400 and they tried to threaten to canx the insurance and not refund. When I said I could prove what I had been asked and how I had answered - they folded.

Be prepared
The insurance industry is full of con-artists and carpet baggers and an even higher level of incompetence
(but you probably all know that already)
 
£500 at Swinton was the best I could get.. had been with Bennetts but they wanted to pull my eyes out for this year.

Far too many greedy barstewards out there robbing people and no one to clamp down on it. Our wet wipe government are no different just expect us to continue stumping up... ☹️
 
I’ve full no claims and mine doubled last June to just under £1k. This year no doubt will just be farcical when it comes to pricing. Carol Nash have never quoted under £1800 when I’ve asked them to quote.
 
just renewed mine for 5 bikes including breakdown just under £400 with VMCC footman james
 
I was with Carole Nash for a 3 bike policy, 2018 S1000RR, 2023 Ducati Monster+ 937, 2005 Triumph Daytona 955i. Renewal was £598 up from £420 the previous year. Spoke to them on the phone, jiggled around with bike values, mileage and excess and got the quote back down to £418. As it was renewal against my card lodged with them and I couldn't put my hand on the same card at the time of the call, they suggested I rang back to confirm that the card details were the same as the one on their system. Completely forgot to ring back. Get a text 2 days after it had lapsed to say that the policy had already lapsed. My credit card details were the same as last year, but the expiry date had been updated by 2-3 years.... damn I forgot that. Quickly rang CN but this time there was no budging, back to £598, take it or leave it. In hindsight it was good of them to text me that the policy had lapsed, I wouldn't have known otherwise. Sorry Officer.....

Tried a comparison website, all the usually bollox and expensive inappropriate one-size fits all multi-bike policies. Then went to Bennetts Insurance online service, filled in everything - they even told me what changes I had made to the bike and which ones they didn't need to hear about, my IAM full membership, my type 2 diabetes, checked the policy, got a quote of £420, the differences between the policies were immaterial to me. Whole process took 10 minutes and I signed there and then.

I think the lesson is, if you're being abused by your renewal quote, generally shopping around often leads to dividends, but not always, and always check the policy immediately before/after purchase as you may well have a cooling off period. If you pay for 12 months in advance, always use a credit and not a debit card. You then have more power if there is an issue and you can ask the credit card company to immediately withdraw the payment if you have a dispute.
 
I pay Bemoto just under a grand for 2 RRs and an R, right on the edge of London, and with a claim from 2021... which really did not affect the premium much, £10-20. Go figure... I don't know if days to expiry affects renewal quotes, but I always sort it as early as I can.
 
One thing to bear in mind that some of the increase is due to electric cars. They are so expensive to repair and even a tiny amount of damage to the battery will write the car off even when new. They have put insurance for electric cars up to the limit the market will take and they are recouping their losses from the rest of the motoring insurance market. J
 
Aye that’s a good point. Fkn electric shitbags. I saw that a brand new Hyundai had it battery cell damaged by something on the motorway. Hyundai quoted £8k more than the price of the new car to replace the battery.
 
Also bear in mind that the UK insurance market is still digesting a (at last reckoning) £50m hit for the Luton Airport car park fire. Well that’s gotta come from somewhere.
 
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