Sage advice - csar insurance

[Sol]

If you think about it, the minimum to be sold in the UK is - very low!

The EURO NCAP crash rating is not mandatory. The 2018 Fiat Panda failed NCAP with a ZERO rating, and it is still available to sell or buy in the UK:

https://www.theweek.co.uk/98328/britain-...est-rating

However, since Citroen probably wanted to keep the 4 or 5 star rating they had for the L1 (SWB) bodies, they extended it for the L2 / XL and it didn't do well, so they proceed to fit seats that you shouldn't put children in. Only in Citroen!

[ffrenchie]

Okay, not necessarily Berlingo related but this may be useful to know.

I have just changed the car on my policy - or at least I tried to but Swinton refused to quote for the replacement car!

They contacted other insurers for me who came up with a quote of around £850. For a 2008 C4GP!!! I had been paying less than £300 for my little Berlingo.

So I began the long tedious trawl today of getting online comparison quotes. After a couple of hours of repetitive typing I managed to get a quote about £680.
Every time, I asked why this car was so expensive to insure, and why Swinton would not insure it. Not one of them could offer a reason.

Almost as a last resort, I tried a local insurance broker. What a breath of fresh air! So much easier than all that online typing! And he came up with a quote of about £595 fully comp.

Then the final question  - why so expensive? "Oh that's easy" the guy said. "It's because yours is the seven seater model. Cars with seven seats have far more insurance claims than cars with fewer seats."

So now you know too. Buyer beware!

I think it's a BS reason for higher premiums, it's like saying cars with steering wheels have most claims. Most of the time cars are running round with one or two occupants so do they reduce the risk factor for that ?

[cancunia]

I've just re-insured my Expert Tepee for summer camping. They asked me how many seats as it's possible to have 5-9 seats, not sure if they reduced my premium when I said 5 though. In fact it'll only have 2 seats after the MOT.
I can see how insurers will have an issue with more seats as the claims for personal injury could be higher, but at the same time I can see how they could simply put some wording in the policy if you only declare 2 or 5 seats.

[Gryffindor]

Surely the insurers will have the car's specs and know how many seats it was fitted with when new, or have you "modified" it?

I wonder if modifying is less expensive than keeping all the seats. Might come back to the minibus story I told earlier.

On vehicles with steering wheels, once when I was a bus driver (20+ years ago!), I took over a bus with a full load in a town centre bus station, pulled out and started going round a roundabout, and the steering wheel came off its column in my hands!

I gave it to one of the passengers and asked them to twiddle it for me. Not really!

[cancunia]

Surely the insurers will have the car's specs and know how many seats it was fitted with when new, or have you "modified" it?

It comes with 3 rows of seats as standard, but the 2 rear rows (6 seats) can be removed without unscrewing anything and the front row can be 2 seats or driver's plus a 2 seater bench so that's a minimum of 2 and a maximum of 9 with various options in between. However, as I didn't ask for alternate quotes I have no idea if they'd price them differently.

[notsofast]

I think it's a BS reason for higher premiums, it's like saying cars with steering wheels have most claims. Most of the time cars are running round with one or two occupants so do they reduce the risk factor for that ?

My recent example of insurance company BS:

Until recently my M49 had been insured with Direct Line.  After the first lockdown they wrote to say a refund could be claimed if the vehicle wasn't being used as much - I just had to register on a scheme of theirs and record the mileage.  When I phoned to register for this scheme, they said my vehicle was on the "old computer system", which wasn't part of the scheme.  When I asked to be transferred to the new computer system, they said they couldn't transfer it until renewal time.

What's worse, at renewal time I discovered that if I transferred to the new computer system, the premium would be about £225. On the old system - which I'd been on for 20 years - it was £370. Same company, same vehicle, same driver. They never wrote to tell me about that.

It's now insured through Lloyds.

[Gryffindor]

I wonder if you could claim the difference back - small claims court?

[notsofast]

I wonder if you could claim the difference back - small claims court?

I hadn't thought about that.  My guess is they'd just say I accepted the price offered, even though I didn't know they were obviously offering much lower premiums to other drivers.  I suppose I could get legal advice - my union offers 30 mins free.

[Gryffindor]

Good luck. Do lots of prep to save the 30 mins.