Here's my longgg tale - sorry if you've read it before, but as it took ages to write, I thought its better keeping it in a separate, relevant thread;
New to the driving game, me and my dad tried insurance companies and couldn't believe the quotes - £2000ish - which was ridiculous at the time.
Finally got a quote from Tesco - explained it to us - and told us the only realistic way to insure young drivers is in a parents name, which we did. £642. My dad was still pissed off helping me out with this
When I was 18, a silly cow decided to crash my car and write it off.
It was modded abit - exhaust, alloys, K&N, alarm.
The car was in registered in my name.
Policy was in my dads name as a main driver, me as a named driver - he never used it.
^^^
Now devil I know you will have kittens about that, but thats how it was.
Anyway, they took my car, rang me up and complained about the mods, gave me a shit valuation saying scrap value, beyond repair blah blah... i sent off print outs from autotrader of similar cars - sent it back with my V5 and MOT's etc... They rang up complained about the V5 in my name not my dads.. Anyway they paid me out, lower than i wanted - but everything dandy.
3 Months later I got a letter from some women saying she had bought my car have I got any spare keys and alarm fobs. I sent her them but said could you kindly let me know how much you paid and where it was from and did you know it was a 'total loss' according to my insurance. Well the bottom line was she paid nearly double what I got paid out and was not aware that it was a Cat C damaged car!
So thats the tale on car #1.
3 Years later same kind of set up, but a standard car and 'my dad' had gained 3 years NCD on the policy i was using. Some piss head crashed into back of it. My insurance took it, pissed and moaned about it been registered in my name and said it was modified because of the standard GSI front bumper? Anyway after a shit valuation I had to send off autotrader print outs and proof of value like receipts etc. "Its a total loss blah blah". Getting no where so I was forced to accept £2000 less than it was worth - no doubt they could make another profit. So, even though it was not my fault - I lost out. OK I kept 'my' 3 NCD, but I lost my car and got ripped off.
So as you can see, in my experience, ive broke all the 'fronting' rules and have been paid out because the bastards will always make a profit on you. Maybe I got lucky, I dunno but its paid off for me. I would rather go to Court for driving without insurance than pay these robbing twats more than I feel they deserve.
OK, you say what if some lad at 17 goes hits a £80,000 car, whats 4k to that? Well there are (as of 2003-probably a lot more now) 32 million cars in the UK. If everyone paid a reasonable amount for insurance - as in £400, that would be £12,800,000,000. Lets say there are 100 insurance companies in the UK - there are probably loads more but 100 should be a set limit to where there is competition and choice. That would leave each company an annual income of £128,000,000. So with that £128million they get each year, they could afford to pay for the £80,000 car (and the whiplash claims).
I know its bullshit and will never happen because its worked out on risk factors such as occupation and postcodes, but you get the idea. Some pay £300, some pay £500.
There needs to be a justifiable reason to charge someone 4 thousand pounds for basically piece of mind if you hurt someone (third party). As said - my thoughts on TPF&T and Comprehensive is they're there just to rip you off. Just been young should not be a reason. There are terrible drivers all over (*cough* women, and certainly old people) and these don't pay thousands more. Maybe I shouldn't stereotype - but neither should insurance.
I will try anything to get insurance as cheap as I can - now fortunately I can afford to pay for a policy in my own name because it's a reasonable amount - not thousands - but I would never feel sorry for an insurance company and think "oh if I hit someone and hurt them the poor insurance company will loose out" (obviously id be more concerned about the accident anyway).
As said in my previous post, what you appear to be saying is;
If insurance companies decide they do not want to pay for your claim (which is their legal duty) - they can decide if you are or are not (in their opinion) the 'main driver' (to which, there is no definition) and the only proof they have is by asking your neighbours and/or checking if you have in your possession another car in your household?
So to summarise, I conclude; Insurance is legalised fraud, so the cheaper you can get it the better - if that means 'manipulating' their term of 'main driver' then so be it. It's worked for me and saved thousands.
People need to make up their own mind, but im afraid, just as insurance will continue to rip young drivers off, young drivers will manipulate the system to get a realistic insurance premium.
