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We all like to save money on insurance and many of us make sure that we move companies annually in order to keep our premiums down but there are still many drivers who simply can’t be arsed and allow themselves to be ripped off. In a chat to an insurance ‘insider’ recently he explained that your existing insurer will generally auto renew your policy the first time with a very modest 5% – 10% increase in premium.

This teaser leads you by the nose into a false sense of security. You think they are a fair and honest company looking after their existing customers. In fact the next time your insurance is up for renewal is when they will load the premium because experience shows that you won’t check the rate so carefully on the second renewal and just accept the increase.

My premium jumped from £400 per annum to over £700 in exactly these circumstances. However, I searched the marketplace and ended up with a much better policy for less than £300 per annum. Case proven. Other revelations from my insider was don’t go direct to the insurer, go via a comparison site as the insurance companies will offer a better deal when they are in competition with others.

I have often suggested that you put a parent, husband, wife, partner or friend onto your policy as a named driver if they have a clean licence as in many cases your premium will reduce as a result. I have only suggested that you add just one name to your policy, even though they may never drive your car, but my insider suggested several named drivers to reduce your premium even further.

It is also annoying when you see that you could obtain a lower rate as a new customer than what you are being quoted as an existing customer by the same insurance company. He suggested that you could wait till midnight when your current policy expires then a few minutes later, rather than renew, you apply for a new policy through the old insurance company claiming the new customer discount.

Another piece of advice was not to simply apply for third party cover thinking you can save money on the premium as it is now becoming common knowledge that an insurer will quote a cheaper rate for fully comp than third party, fire and theft insurance.

When questioned he explained that rather than this being a rip-off there is a solid reason. It would seem that most people taking out fully comp insurance will tend to be older, safer, experienced drivers whereas those taking out 3^rd party insurance tend to be younger, inexperienced, less safe drivers. Hence the higher premium.

Finally, and this is one of my suggestions, if you park your car in the street at night as opposed to in your garage, don’t lie about it as the premium can often be lower if your car is parked in a well lit street as opposed to your garage in which a thief could take his time to steal your car once he has broken into the garage. As with many things in the motor trade they are often not as they seem! By Graham Hill

Now here is something really interesting that proves you can learn something new every day! And this piece of information could affect every single driver with his own insurance as well as companies running fleet cars. It all came about after I read a question regarding 3^rd party damage, following a car accident, when the damage is caused to local authority owned property.

For example if you were to hit a road sign or street light or maybe smash into a bollard or worse still damage barriers or even the road surface. I was shocked to read that a company running a fleet of vehicles was billed £46,000 for barrier repairs without realising the length of the replacement barriers.

The warning was raised by claims management company actually called Claims Management & Adjusting. They had found that in particular fleet operators were being targeted by local authorities for some obscene repair costs. As it turned out the claim mentioned was for a much shorter stretch of barrier as the authority had claimed in yards but the length was only a third as the measurement was actually in feet, not as stated in yards.

After pointing it out the claim was written off. The claims company also claimed a success when an invoice for £56,000 worth of re-surfacing work was challenged after obtaining information under the Freedom Of Information Act that showed a larger stretch of road had been repaired for £750.

It would seem that not only are there a few disproportionate claims for damage but Highways England has allowed certain contractors to decide upon charges and repairs without further reference as long as the claims were under a threshold, commonly £10,000. This caused me to look further into this situation and what a can of worms it turned out to be.

Most people are of the opinion that you only have to report an accident to the police and your insurance for the following reasons; if someone has been injured (report to police and insurance), there is a claim going to be made against you by another motorist (insurance only) or you are going to make a claim on your insurance for damage repairs to your own car or your contents/passengers (insurance only).

However, knock down a bollard and cause little or no damage to your car you may think that this is the responsibility of the local authority and simply drive off. In fact you have caused damage to a third party’s property so by driving off you could be committing a criminal offence. But then you may think that no-one saw you so where is the evidence but with CCTV cameras and people with mobile phones everywhere you may find that several weeks later you receive a bill for the damages.

But having not reported the accident to your insurance company within a certain period (see your policy) they may no longer be obliged to pay out. It seems  that it can take several months for a local authority to make a claim against a driver. Whilst I’m told that every car insurance policy will cover you for third party damage, that isn’t just someone else’s car or someone’s front wall, it also covers you for what is known as ‘street furniture’ which includes road signs, bollards, hoardings etc.

But if you fail to meet the terms and conditions of your insurance policy or they can prove contributory negligence you could be facing a hefty repair bill. In addition you are obliged to stop after an accident and pass your details to anyone involved or the owners of property that has been damaged. If there are no casualties you don’t have to involve the police.

However, if you have damaged privately or authority owned property you must report the accident to the police if the owner of the property is not available to take the details from you. So as you can see this is a bit of a minefield and what may have seemed like a minor accident could potentially leave you thousands of pounds out of pocket! By Graham Hill

I know we all get a little irritated when we see the sign ahead slowing us down to 40mph and the 3 lanes we were happily trundling along about to reduce to a mere single lane but I didn’t realise that when this happens that the roadworkers are in serious danger.

Not of being run over by an inattentive speeding motorist, although this does happen, but in danger of being duffed up by a motorist who feels annoyed that he has been slowed down, abused, spat at, hit with all sorts of projectiles etc. Labourers near Wivanhoe in Essex have been subject to increasing violence from passing motorists whilst creating a new cycle lane, with one motorist caught brandishing a knuckle duster.

The local council has now followed other councils with similar problems and issued workers with police style body cameras to hopefully act as a deterrent as well as provide proof in the case where an attack takes place leading to a prosecution. Other councils suffering similar problems are in the North East and Midlands leading to the issue of these cameras to workers. Reports of attacks range from workers being punched to being shot at with an air rifle.

Ten companies that carry out roadworks have reported 441 incidents in one year alone, including 174 physical attacks. With this scale of incidents it probably won’t be long before all roadworkers are issued with body cams and even portable CCTV to record any illegal behaviour or attacks by motorists.

A sad reflection on our society when people are just doing their jobs. And if you want to duff up someone find the health & safety pen pusher who decided to cone off 5 miles of road for a hundred yards worth of repair work! By Graham Hill

You will probably remember the sad case of the Glasgow refuse truck driver who fainted at the wheel resulting in an accident causing six people to lose their lives and several more to suffer injuries.

The driver had suffered fainting attacks since 1976 but this was unknown to his employer who was held responsible, as any employer would, for the actions of their employee and for allowing him to drive their truck in the first place.

This was still the case even though they claimed that the driver had not told them of his condition. But this raises an interesting point because I only recently found out that it is unlawful for an employer to ask a job applicant about their disability or health until after they have been offered the job.

How crazy is that? However, you can apply for the medical records on the applicant, provided he or she agrees, under the Access to Medical Reports Act 1988. The medical practitioner (normally the applicant’s GP) is then obliged to provide the records requested.

If you are an employer who either provides company vehicles or pays employees to drive their own vehicles on company business by way of a car allowance or pence per mile, you have an obligation to ensure that they have the appropriate licences and do not suffer from health conditions that may affect their driving.

As an employer you are able to carry out regular assessments on drivers to ensure that they are still fit to drive. And as an employee if you have a condition that may affect your driving you are equally obliged to make your employer aware. By Graham Hill

There’s an app for that is rapidly becoming part of everyday conversation. Having created an award winning app myself that enables users to compare lease deals or simply to evaluate a deal to see if it represents good value, I know that app boundaries are limitless.

The latest app relating to motoring is aimed at younger, less than responsible, drivers that could help to prevent an accident, reduce their insurance premiums and help parents to worry a little less. The app has been created by employee tracking specialist, Romex. The app uses the driver’s phone to detect whether the car is exceeding 4 miles per hour via the phone’s GPS system.

At this point the app locks the device disabling calls, texts, emails and social media accounts, amongst other distractions. It can also monitor the speed the car is travelling at and the time spent driving. The company already has a similar product available to fleet users as part of its telematics systems to help companies and drivers to comply with legislation.

The maker has announced that the new app could be available as early as May 2016. Sales director, Steve Arscott explained, ‘It’s called distraction prevention, we’re approaching younger drivers because they’re the ones most likely to be glued to their phones.’ There will be a charge for the service and it will work alongside another of their apps called Guardian, which allows parents to monitor where their youngster is and whether they have been speeding – just as companies can do with their fleet drivers.

The company is optimistic that they will find an insurance company to partner up with, providing users with a rebate on their policy. The Guardian app can be extended to non drivers for worried parents who want to know where their off spring are. I’m sure it will lead to some very interesting debates between parents and children! By Graham Hill

Just to prove my point regarding my insurance premiums, law firm Thompson’s Solicitors, has produced a report that shows that over the past 5 years insurance claim payouts have decreased whilst premiums have increased allowing the insurers to pocket £7 billion since 2010.

In response the Association of British Insurers (ABI) has hit back claiming that Thompsons, a claims solicitors, are upset with Government plans to end the right to cash compensation for minor injuries like whiplash and to increase the upper limit for small claims court personal injury cases to £5,000.

Thompsons reported that premiums between 2010 and 2014 had dropped in real terms and motorists were paying less in 2014 than they were in 2010 but cumulatively premium income increased by £353 million whilst insurers saved £7 billion in payouts. There has been a net drop in the number of motor claims made of 4% but the net cost of claims incurred is down by nearly 30%.

The ABI refutes the claims made by Thompsons and suggest that savings of £1 billion have been passed on to motorists. Who’s right? I don’t know but I would suggest that much of the increased income is down to people not thoroughly checking their insurance renewals. By Graham Hill

Having just renewed my insurance I have first hand experienced of the way that crooked insurance companies are trying it on through the ‘auto renew’ con. I had the paperwork through explaining that they had researched the market on my behalf in order to achieve the best possible rate which in fact increased my premium by a third.

But by expressing the new premium in monthly terms on the face of it the figure could have easily been overlooked and being lazy I could have continued on with the same insurer. But having checked the previous year’s premium I was staggered and immediately jumped on comaparethemarket.com (free cinema ticket every week for a year – there’s my dates off match.com sorted for the next year).

When I saw the premiums I was staggered. I was about 40 quotes down the list before the premiums were anything close to the quote from my existing insurer. In fact the quote I went for with the RAC was about £100 a year less than the premium I paid last year. I had a similar experience with Mcafee for my computer protection insurance. I paid the Argos shop £19.99 for one year’s protection last year.

When it came up for renewal they were going to hit my credit card to the tune of £89.99. When I phoned to say I didn’t want it they said they would reduce it to £45.99. After checking with Argos I told the lady to shove it. I believe that if you sign up to auto renew a policy of any kind, if the premium increases by more than say 5% for whatever reason it should be clearly explained and you have to opt in rather than opt out. Rant over! By Graham Hill

Here’s an interesting dilemma. Customer buys a new car, it could be any car but in this case it’s a VW Golf. The car is fitted with Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) and Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB) which basically stops you from accidentally running up the bum of the car in front.

As the car was in Ireland the costs are in Euros which I have conveniently converted to Sterling to save you checking exchange rates and grabbing your calculator. I’m like that! Anyway, the driver’s ACC warning light lit up on the dashboard. No I wouldn’t know either!

The light surprised him as nothing had happened other than the fact that he was driving the car normally. Off he toodled to the main dealer who said that the system was damaged, possibly from an impact. The cost to replace the ACC was going to be £1,145 and as it was the result of an impact the replacement would not be covered by the warranty.

As he hadn’t had an impact and as he had managed to safely drive a car for many years without this latest gadgetry he asked the dealer to simply disable it. The driver, Ben Smith, was told that the dealer couldn’t disable the set-up and because it was a serious road safety issue they wouldn’t let him drive the car away without signing a consent form. This is when it gets interesting.

He had the car towed away for an alternative inspection by an independent garage as he felt he was being forced into having work done that may not be necessary. He was shocked to learn that, according to the independent inspection, no damage had been caused to the unit, instead the report, according to Auto Express who saw the report, found that three sensor bracket sensor nuts had come loose, causing messages to appear.

The report also claimed that the bracket VW claimed had been broken was not the one found in the car. The fix cost Ben £46. OK one would assume that the dealer was trying it on and that they would apologise and Ben would continue driving his car in the knowledge that he won’t accidentally ram the car in front. But no! Auto Express contacted VW who explained that a mount was found to be broken (not according to the independent garage) as well as a cracked camera.

Not mentioned by the independent examiner. Of the independent fix VW said ‘Without repairing the vehicle as per manufacturer guidelines and calibration of the ACC system after replacement, (it wasn’t replaced by the way), the repair hasn’t brought the vehicle back to manufacturer specification. VW cannot guarantee that the vehicle will operate as the manufacturer intended.’ This implies that Ben could lose his warranty cover because he didn’t pay to have a repair carried out that wasn’t needed in the first place.

That is frightening but what wasn’t mentioned in the piece was the Government backed arbitration service called Motorcodes. This is what they say on their website: Motor Codes is the government-backed, self-regulatory body for the motor industry. Its voluntary membership of thousands of garages is committed to maintaining high standards covering new cars, the administration of new car warranties and car service and repair.

So as always I am providing more information than a major motoring magazine. If Ben gets in touch with Motorcodes they will have to look into his complaint and will give a legally binding ruling. The web address of Motorcodes is: http://www.motorcodes.co.uk/ By Graham Hill

If you are one of those who uses a mobile phone whilst driving without a Bluetooth hands free kit be prepared for extra points on your licence and an increased fine if you get caught.

New proposals from the Department for Transport (DfT) will increase the number of points to 4 which means that under the totting up rules if you get caught 3 times you will automatically lose your licence, previously you had to be caught 4 times.

After seeing an increase in accidents involving drivers using mobile phones whilst driving the Government has decided to take action. Not only will the points increase to 4 but the fixed penalty fines will increase to £150 from £100. HGV drivers will see their points increase to 6 if caught using a mobile phone whilst driving.

Most new cars come with Bluetooth so yet another reason why motorists should lease their cars – well what did you expect me to say? By Graham Hill