Posted in: Uncategorized | 6 Comments | Posted on January 12, 2012 by geusebio

Its time for me to renew my insurance. But that’s okay, this years insurance was a managable £1000 or so, working out at about £100 or so over 11 months. And other than some.. incidents.. where my insurer, Hastings decided that I hadn’t paid them, called me, took payment, and then promptly forgot about it. They then uninsured me for non-payment, forgot to tell me, then left my car in insurance limbo for a week once I called them, irate, where it may or may not have actually been an insured asset, in the underwriters eyes. Oh yes, Hastings is merely a reseller.

Recently, I moved into my first rented home – A nice 2 bed apartment made in 1996 behind a security gate (all very James Bond this plipper nonsense!), in Ashton-under-Lyne, nr Oldham. (For locals, this is where you’ll be going uh-oh.)

So now its time to renew my insurance, and change the address all in one go. My current renewal is around £740 this year, a relief of £260 on last year. Quite a prize for another whole year of not running into any little old ladies or mowing down children, whilst managing not to set off any of those pesky Revenue-Collection-for-the-Traffic-Wombles-Christmas-do machines or any of the other multitude of taxes that one can expect to incur driving a car.

No speeding fines, no accidents, not even a scratch (exception being a friend denting my wing with an Ikea trolly ಠ_ಠ ) for a year, and another year of no-claims being earned. Huzzuh. A triumph.

Nope.

I’ve moved to another postcode. I knew it’d go up somewhat, I’ve moved to The North (it really is just the one place, anyone who’s dared venture past Watford Gap can attest). I was expecting a premium increase, of maybe £200 on last years, given I’ve just had another years no claims bonus, you’d have thought that’d have eaten up some of the increase. No such luck.

Oh good god. £2795. For car insurance. I live in a nice house, in a nice neighbourhood that has unfortunately gotten itself into an OL7. Nobody wants to touch me & my car. I drive a Ford KA, which is, in car terms, a rollerskate. Its one above a golf cart, one below a proper car as most people would see it, but they still want £2795 to insure it. The blue book value for this car is £5400, apparently, and they want a big chunk of that to insure it. This is, unfortunately, impossible. Its also, interestingly, exactly what I’m paying for the damn thing in finance to ford. £232 per month. Impossible. I simply cannot stump up that much cash per month. But the best bit is, because its over £2000, nobody wants to do insurance finance on it either.

Its a hatchback, not a hummer, how much of a mess could I possibly make?

Meanwhile, in merry old Oxfordshire… Things are more sensible.. My current, if flakey insurer (highlighted) was leading the pack, wanting £751.38 for a years coverage, an amount I could actually afford to pay in one go, luck prevailing.

All that is different, between these two prices, is the first section of my postcode. OX26 to OL7. The post code lottery is alive and well.

Not a hope in hell of me finding insurance with reasonable terms then. And so begins the searching.. It wasn’t just money supermarket trying to stick their grubby hands in my wallet (through the seat of my pants, it seems, via my kidneys and liver). So, like many others, I presume, began to fiddle with the parameters that control the fee.

At first I tried to change the mileage.. then where I parked it. Trivial changes in price. All I could really do was go for a big change.. I upped the excess. Doubled it. Tripled. Quadrupled.. That’s as far as I could push it. I basically have to pay the first £1250 of any claim that occurs. For anything short of a write-off, that’s basically the same as being uninsured. The only thing my now-premium of £1370.22 would get me, is a clean pass when the inevitable ANPR police car reads my registration. For anything else, even the base purpose of having insurance on my vehicle, its about as useful as a chocolate tea pot. A very expensive, gilt-and-truffles teapot.

For £1370.22, I could go amateur racing. I could pay off ¾ of my debts. For £1370.22, I could buy myself a nice couch. For £1370.22, I could stroll into the Shell garage on Stockport road, buy myself a Jerry can, fill it with 10 litres of the North Sea’s finest, and take a black cab the entire way to whatever pissants office who decides who gets shat upon from far above by the car insurance cartel, and merilly slosh the fragrant scent of Shell Fuel Saver 95 as if I was watering the plants, before letting the entire building burn, content that some justice had been done. And still posted my own bail. And damages. But I digress. £1370.22 is still rather a lot of money.

So I’ll tell you what we’re going to do about it, sick of being ripped off, squeezed and screwed over. Nothing. Again. Ever.