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What is wrong with car insurers? Lots as it goes but one of the headings I’d lop a few under is daft. Let’s take the case of bogus smashes. The ones we read about all the time, known now as ‘cash for crash’ incidents, whereby an accident is staged by drivers resulting in a fraudulent claim. Now if you found a fraudulent claim occurring at say a roundabout or Read more »

Do you feel that your insurer is ripping you off? If you do you’re not alone. In fact the House of Commons Transport Select Committee produced a damning report on the subject recently, giving the cost of car insurance a high profile and forcing the Government to take action. The Cost of Motor Insurance report calls on the Government to force Read more »

A constant problem when customers take out a lease agreement is insurance. You have to cover your car with fully comprehensive insurance. If other drivers will drive the vehicle they must also be covered by the policy and if the vehicle is used for business this must be covered also. The problem is where to go. I still find it amazing that I have Read more »

DVLA figures show that one in ten motorists have points on their licence. The figures have been broken down by age sex and number of points. It also shows that the Government has collected £280 million from the 3.9 million drivers with points on their licence over the last 4 years (the minimum amount of time before points are cleared. That’s out of a total 37 million licence holders. The majority of drivers with points have just 3 points (3.2m). Just under 600,000 have 6 points and 92,000 Read more »

As you know, I try to report some of the most dopey things that happen in the motor industry. This week insurance companies come under fire. As I have reported on several occasions there is a strong move towards having two sets of tyres, one set for the summer and another set for the harsher winters we seem to be experiencing. For some it seems to make sense and I must say in the last dumping of the white stuff I’m sure that if I had winter tyres fitted I would have been able to drive my care Read more »

During the recent cold spell a new type of crime has emerged causing the police to issue a warning. They are advising motorists not to leave their cars unattended whilst they wait for the screens to defrost, following a spate of incidents whereby cars have been stolen whilst left unattended with the engines running. The latest case was a Vauxhall Corsa stolen from a drive in Merthyr Tydfil when the owner left the engine running whilst he went back into his house. In another incident in Thurrock, Essex a man was de-icing his Peugeot when a thief got in and drove it away. The thief crashed the car causing £500 of damage, then ran off. The police have warned that motorists that warm their cars up this way are making it easy for thieves. Known as ‘frosting’ this type of theft will also leave drivers potentially without insurance cover as insurance companies may argue that the driver was not taking reasonable care. Heated windscreens will help to cut the number of frosting incidents but for those who want to clear the frost the best way is with some de-icer rather than leaving the engine running. Do you leave your engine running whilst clearing the ice off the windscreen? By Graham Hill

Related articles

• Car owners warned against ‘frosting’ car crime (money.marksandspencer.com)
• Mother clings to steering wheel after thief steals car as she scrapes ice from windscreen (dailymail.co.uk)

I was talking to an insurance broker recently and he was explaining that because of the competitive nature of the comparison sites the insurance companies are doing everything to keep premiums as low as possible. One of the tricks they use, I reported a couple of weeks ago, has been to vastly increase charges and fees so that they don’t have to increase premiums, the other is of course to avoid payouts wherever Read more »

Research by licence checking company, CFC solutions, revealed that whilst there is a common held belief that young drivers and older drivers have more points on their licences than those in their middle age, it’s not as simple as that. The theory held good and younger and older drivers (17 – 25 & 65+) certainly do have a higher frequency of points on their licences but it was found that those in the 25-34 and 35-44 age groups, when they had points, they were more than in the other age groups. Read more »

Two brothers have finally been jailed after being found guilty of staging 93 smashes at Eden Point in Stockport in Cheshire. Is it me or don’t you think that a couple of alerts should have sprung up somewhere after half a dozen similar incidents happened at the same spot? Ninety bloody three – what was going on? The brothers, Rehan and Rezwan Javed ran North West Claims Centre in Burnley. They paid crooks £500 Read more »

 The Association of British Insurers has warned motorists about car thefts that may not be covered by their insurance. As the cold weather continues drivers are leaving cars unattended with the engine running to warm up as they finish getting ready for work. Insurance companies are saying this is inviting theft and may not cover the loss as insufficient care is being taken by drivers to protect the car and avoid theft. By Graham Hill