Mustdriveslower

Hi Guys,

The first post by Penny should have been done by me! Hence the wicked error of even mentioning the TT at the bottom of the post which I am glad Pen edited off!

Sorry for swearing at you!

You will be pleased to know that AV is the value used for all claims.

Concerning: "A question if I may?.....For my car to be a total loss, it would have to be uneconomical to repair. Is the value used for this calculation still the 'agreed' value ?"

The answer is yes.

​We also have a retained salvage option (subject to write off guidelines) so if you prefer to keep the car even if we look to write it off you have that option. In my experience most people try and keep the salvage, but at least it is an extra option..

Now I have a wonderful "insurance man answer" on the gender question. Girls are now paying the premium for blokes.........

Joking apart, the EU directives on gender neutrality was expected to reduce male rates on motor, what do you think happened Yes female rates went up as the industry took an opportunity to make some money! Believe it or not the motor market runs at a loss and there is only the glimmer of hope. I hasten to add we make money off you kind people. We have actually seen a slight reduction in some rates but the biggest change is in postal codes. We do have more and more that we simply are not allowed to write business in!

All the best to you all and thank you for using us those of you who do. We are always looking at our rates, but don;t, indeed can;t play the game that some do which is "negotiate! a rate. It really annoys us to be able to offer our competitive rate to have the current insurer simply match it less £10 to get the biz. We call it "crowbaring" the rate. We wish our competitors evils (as we don't do it).

All the best to you all!

Hello All,

My User Name is Mustdriveslower for a reason! This is a topic dear to my heart and you will be pleased to know that at LWIB we do not need to know if you have been on a speed awareness course unless you want to moan about it with us! There is NO penalisation or loading for one speeding that did not result in more than a fixed penalty. Also for us it is the circumstances that is mor eimportant. 100+ on a clear motorway is not as bad as 38 in a 30 urban area in my humble opinion!

Hello everyone,

The New Year beckons and we are looking at what to do in 2013 in relation to Insurance Add ons. You know the ones.... When you have been on Mr Meercat's site and clicked through then suddenly your cheap premium starts going northwards with the adding of,

Legal expenses,

Roadside assistance,

Breakdown recovery,

Personal Accident cover,

Keycare,

Excess protection,

Mis Fueling Insurance,

Guaranteed Substitute Car,

Uninsured Driver Protection.

Well my question to you all is: "Which ones are you really interested in?" It is important for me to know what you want.

Next question is "Do you simply want the cheapest premium, or is having some extras for free of benefit?"

We are thinking of cutting through the lot of them and offering 2 standards plus options to add the rest if you like them:

Our Standard cover will include the basic legal cover free, which is what most people have, if we include this for everyone we can offer it at a much lower cost to us because so many people have it - advantage is that you don't get the "extras" hit on checkout but are we losing competitiveness as others offer it bare bones and therefore look cheaper initially?

Our Gold cover will have guaranteed substitute car for 14 days even if the car is stolen etc, and Keycare, but that will be an extra £30 or thereabouts. My worry here is that it won't be taken up.

On top of this is the other options mainly Breakdown. I personally think Roadside Assistance is a waste of money and would go for Breakdown and Recovery every time, but what do you all think?

How many of you are interested in these add ons and if you are which ones?

Do I just offer the basic premium without any clever added in parts or are these added elements useful to you?

Please help me form what we are going to offer you for 2013.

Thanks everyone, I appreciate constructive feedback on this.

_{Hello All,}

_{I like the new site, but where has my nice new banner gone with that nice Audii TT on it that you all like so much?}

We like a challenge!

No Sorry, not at the moment as we lost money on them when we did insure them a time before! We are looking into these and Scoobies again, but so far the claims results do not look promising, so it won't be before the Spring that we will relook at them.

Thank you Glrnet. We do aim to please but can't every time of course. Do appreciate that many of you are understanding the difference between the "cheap" call center giant and us small boy Brokers who are specialists.

Thank you again for bothering to post good things about us.

One thing I would like to promote is for the limited mileage polciies (under 7500 miles per year) is that we do offer an agreed value option which is very useful indeed, especially if you have modified your Z or it is a low mileage pampered pet.

Most insurers will offer what the "book" says or lower if they can get away with it. AV means the value is agreed prior to the event. You do have to jump through some hoops and we don't always agree the value you put on the car but mostly we come to a sensible valuation.

We do aim to help and support the cherished specialist Clubs. At the moment this AV option only costs another £25 - a bargain!

Happy to chat to anyone on their car's value prior to going on cover too, so no arguments later!

Thank you! I will reply on the other post more fully. Appreciate this.

Your right folks! There is little point in comparing too deeply one quote against another. The biggest variable however are (for us) where you are (postcode is a biggy!), where the car is kept overnight (garage, road drive), miles driven in a year (less miles less risk), and then you (age job driving experience etc), lastly cover )poo good bad indifferent and if you have protected bonus and agreed value).

One thing I am sure we can ALL agree on - there is no common sense with insurance!!!!!!!!

I like my snazzy new banner - thank you!

 

I don't, it's got an Audi TT on it!

Sorry!

Now, if you go and buy some of my lovely insurance then I will pay for the nice IT man to put a picture of a Z on the banner for you.

(if you click on it and go through to the Cherished Car page then it get's even worse! Horror there are pictures of Supra's Ferraris an R8 and a UR Quattro rally car on that page!).

http://www.lwib.co.uk/schemes/

Yes you are right about the low range gear being better than brakes BUT when you don't know this (and that is why you are on the course) it is a leap of faith to do what the instructor says and not jump on the middle pedal.

In fact thinking about it most of the crashes I have sustained on track are from the misapplication of the brakes........ (message to self - "stop braking you will go faster").

Here to "have a go" when you get closer to putting the Landie back on the road or in your case back on the off road.

Bit off topic (car wise anyway) What's your policy on modified Offroad vehicles? I find there's only a couple of insurers who will touch my Landrover as it's so specialist (winch, lift kit, roll bars etc). Direct Line refuse to even look at it as it has been LPG converted.

 

Cheers

Hi Clarkie,

Off road vehicles are not our "core" market for the scheme we have for the 350/370Z's but we do have a "facility" with a Lloyds syndicate which occassionally comes up trumps.

You off roadies are nutters mind! I have never screamed out loud as much as on an off road course a couple of years ago in a couple of modified diesel Disco's. Forget the motorcycle and car racing at a zillion MPH and knees on the ground, try going down a 1:1 slope without using your brakes - takes a lot more nerve I say!

If you give us a call we can take details and see what can be done with this "facility" we have, but I believe there is a specialist LR scheme for off road competition vehicles that advertises in the relevent magazines. You might like to try them if you haven't already as my guess is that they will be the most competitive.

Do give us a call and we can see what comes up. No promises though. It will be a bit of a lottery as it isn't our specific area of brilliance.

All the best,

Jason

Do you insure Skylines?

 

A lot of places won't touch them

Sorry we won't either.

We got burned (claims outweighed premiums in and lost money for us) on them a time ago and now we don't love them any more. They were not the only ones either, there were several other "burners" for example scoobies. Silly really as I believe it is down to each case rather than a brush tarring all single types, but underwriters tend to lump marques in together.

I had an FQ320 for a time and thought as I was "part of that crew" we would offer insurance on them - got burned there too...... It does seem that certain cars can be targetted for theft and malicious damage just because of what it says on the badge. We did not have a big incidence of actual motor accidents though on any of these three, just the others - still have to pay out though whatever the cause!

I would like to selectively offer insurance on them but at the moment the powers that govern my Insurance life say "no!". If I asked the wife she probably say no as well, so that would be both powers in my life.....

I like my snazzy new banner - thank you!

Why is that?

If you are asking why is it those areas are expensive that is a difficult one to answer in a one liner, but as it in my area of soapbox preaching...........

The insurance industry uses the "Lemming principle" which is that they all follow each other and often straight off the end of a cliff. Two main reasons that we are now experiencing huge premium increases.

Firstly all the cries for "cheap cheap cheap" insurance has made the industry non profitable (yes honestly). Our friends on line have one mantra "get your insurance cheaper", it isn't about quality or value for money it is all about price. The outcome is wild fluctuations on prices as the industry tries to get out of losses because the premiums simply do not match the claims paid out - it is not rocket science but the Lemmings do it all the time.

Secondly on top of the too cheap premiums, we have the "where there is blame there is a claim" culture, which due to our stupid legal system makes personal injuries claiming an easy win for the criminal fraternity.

Two examples of this from our good selves. We had one of our clients drive in the back of a car in slow moving traffic. No damage done to his vehicle and it knocked the number plate off the car in front. Exchange of names and within a week a solicitor's letter making a PI claim. Despite the gent supposedly being "injured", he was seen playing football the very next weekend (with photos) he received 10000 compensation, when it went to court, car damage was under 250. Second case a claim in 2008 same scenario but a much more damage to the cars. Our insured's car damage was 4000 with the other car also 4000 claimed for damage. case was then closed. February this year a PI claim came in for the occupants. Funnily enough there were 5 of them and each one had injuries that had never been intimated before. Payout was..... 6 K each so the claim went from 8 to 38! Both of these stunk to high heaven but our laws make it very difficult for PI claims to be defeated as you have to prove they are not injured and how do you prove a feeling? Broken bones etc yes, and quite right too, but "my neck hurts" or "my back aches" how do you legally defend that?

So we have a lot of suspected fraudulent PI claims, and those areas where they come in have been targeted by the Lemmings Insurance Company. Imagine if your average claim runs the risk of going from 8 to 38! And this is a recent change over perhaps the last three years. Just think of the telly adverts for Mr B J Bloomer and his friends......

Now you could be a very good competent driver, a good risk to any insurer, but if you live in an area where people purposefully brake so you drive in the back of them so they can make claims then I am afraid you will pay for this in your insurance premium, purely on your post code.

We did a test some time ago when we moved a "risk" from our rural Somerset to a couple of these areas and the premiums went from the 300's to the 1500's, and that was our rate that we could not quote as the area was changed to decline by the insurer!

So, sorry for being so verbose, but that is the main reason that these inner city areas are now very expensive at best and declined at worst!

Apologies to all for the long post, but never ask an insurance man a question on his pet subject!

Now just put me in Government and I will sort it out........

1800€ over 30 4years ncb mods or oem did not matter lowest i could get was 900 with no modifications. But have a few... How does that sound like

Not sure how good/bad that is but I guess if you were in Oldham, London, Bradford, Liverpool...... it would sound as cheap as chips.....

My apologies as Ireland meant NI to me not Eire. We have never been allowed to write business in Eire, or France, or Spain......

Do you have any criteria such as age, bonus, experience with rwd etc?

 

Also, would you be competitive for my second car, obviously my zed is currently insured elsewhere and I have no bonus as it's all on the zed

 

Final question, HX3 rated as good or bad with you guys, brentacre tell me it's a good area, sky tell me bad.

Hello Jenic,

Here you go:

Age = minimum age is from 25

Bonus = from nothing, we can also give introductory, mirror (from your first car bonus) and even net (where there isn't any applicable) BUT it is very dependent on circumstances. We are quite picky and only give the advantage of the extra bonus where we feel it honestly applies.

Experience of RWD = a big yes! We all know what it is like going from a FWD car to a high performance RWD! Go and learn on someone else's insurance is my jaundiced view. I need to be insuring true enthusiasts thank you! (remember I am trying to make the insurer profit so we have the scheme next year too!).

Second or other cars in the garage = we love them! We can be quite helpful BUT there are some mad cheap internet rates out there and we do not compete against the dafties out there. We do write quite a bit of "other car" insurance for members. We all know how silly we enthusiasts can be don;t we! It doesn't matter what car you are driving. I t has to be "right"! My wife moans at me when I ask her to park in the corner of Tesco's in her Fiesta diesel - for fear that someone might open a door on it.... We do make good insurance risks though! So why shouldn't we get some advantage from our standards? It can be a bit hit and miss though - the rates that is. The internet is a mad place and some rates for everyday cars are simply that: mad!

HX3 = it seems OK but there may be postal code sub sectors. If you PM me with your secific full PC I can see for you and Pm you back.

what about if someone has nos installed for track use and the bottles are removed for road use?

Sorry Neilp, we don't like NoS end of........ I do like the rush when the switch clicks on though!

Welcome to the club.

 

I will definitely be in touch at renewal time for a quote. I take it you cover 'like for like' on mods?

Good to hear you do agreed value to, not so many do any more.

We do like for like. And try to take a pragmatic approach on modified claims "problems". It does depend on the loss adjuster though (the being pragmatic) and we get involved when a little bit of common sense is needed!

Many years ago when a grey import was an oddity there were problems with those parts not UK available, but nowadays as parts availability is better it doesn't seem to rear it's head as much. The main "problems" are when the modified part is not available or you can't get the exact part. A little negotiation and meeting in the middle works.

As for agreed value, yes we can do this BUT it is on: "a fair market value between individuals" not an inflated retail or "asking price"! Sometimes we make ourselves a little unpopular but because we take a sensible view of values and we do this in house then the insurer still allows it. A lot of schemes have lost their AV ability as the AV's given were silly.

Welcome, setup shop in Ireland please.

We used to offer cover in NI but in the infinite wisdom of a previous insurer they withdrew it. Shame I say as we had some good business going and you guys did seem to be paying a premium over Uk rates. Don't know what it is like nowadays though.

Thanks HassanZ.

I have been having a look around and at the garage dyno and 1/4 mle (although there is only 1 entrant there) and will have a look at the stickies.

You know sometimes i really like my job (get paid to read forums - just wish it was more often).

Thanks again,

Jason

I would like to up knowledge myself with model information and also anything you guys can suggest as regular modifications or extras.

Where can I look? Are there any articles to read?

It is always nice to get a bit of an understanding of what mods are popular and also who are you guys are using for remaps?

Anything you can give me that can help my knowledge will help and be appreciated.

All the best,

Jason

As I am here as a trader please excuse a bit of a commercial, we like modifications. Yes you heard that right.

My attitude is, if you are a real enthusiast, why wouldn't you mod your car. Exhaust brakes remap and all the Bling we like. For me you are not a true enthusiast unless you have modified the car! So with this in mind our insurance underwriting is accepting of, most mods. Not all we don't like NOS or "posey" mods (too big wheels for one), but most else we find acceptable.

I also try to apply some logic. If the car has been remapped and has a lot more BHP what have you done to the brakes to compensate. Just the same if you have upgraded the brakes but not the car why would we charge more - you have made the car safer.....

Try us, we aim to please.

The insurers are getting a tad paranoid on postal codes though. Anyone in the known "bad lands" will have troubles, but if your car is in a garage we will still look at the higher areas with some sympathy.

Well that' s enough of a commercial break!

Our telephone number is 01935 706258.

Oh yeah we do agreed value's too......

Welcome

 

You'll probably be geting a call in Sept,Oct and December. Tooooo many cars me thinks.

There is no such thing as too many cars Chris..... just too many insurance policies to pay for them!

Hello everyone.

Nice to be here as they say!

Hope we can be of service to you at LWIB.

We have been insuring Z's for years but my respect for the new ones has recently increased as two weeks ago I was bashing around Bedford Autodrome and a friend's 370 was doing rather well (for a road car). Bit too quiet for me with road exhausts but none the less very impressive with standard suspension and brake pads etc. Those discs looked good glowing red hot!

I look forward to doing what we can to help make sense of the insurance world, which let's face it isn't that sensible!

All the best to you.

Jason