Motoring Discussion > In praise of an insurance broker	Tax / Insurance / Warranties
Thread Author: Harleyman	Replies: 27

Tue 10 Oct 17 00:40   In praise of an insurance broker - Harleyman

For the benefit of the motorcycling part of our community, though they also do classic cars and possibly modern ones too. After over 25 years with Carole Nash, and having become increasingly fed up with dealing with ever less knowledgable people in their office who were increasingly parrotting from a prepared script and had zero knowledge of motorcycles, I ended up with Peter James Insurance, a small outfit in Oldbury, West Midlands. Much cheaper premiums, agreed value and AA recovery included, UK and Europe. Final straw with Carole Nash was when I changed one of my bikes halfway through a policy year, and not only was the premium for the new one ridiculously high but they also wanted to charge me £35 for adding it. Just bought another BMW (1977 R100RS) and it was added without surcharge, and with a surprisingly modest fee of £29 for the six months remaining, with no fuss whatsoever. Very impressed, and I highly recommend them. www.peterjamesinsurance.co.uk/ Last edited by: Harleyman on Tue 10 Oct 17 at 00:41 Reply to this message | Report message

Tue 10 Oct 17 07:04   In praise of an insurance broker - R.P.

Do they do multibike ? Reply to this message | Report message

Tue 10 Oct 17 08:13   In praise of an insurance broker - Fenlander

>>>Just bought another BMW (1977 R100RS) What colour is it? Restoration or ready to go? That model and the R90S were two of the bikes you'd always stop and look at in my young days. Reply to this message | Report message

Tue 10 Oct 17 09:40   In praise of an insurance broker - Cliff Pope

I've been with Peter James for several years for classic car insurance. They are knowledgeable, understanding, and very competitively priced. They do multi-policies. I get two vehicles (but I could add more for the same price) for £108 pa. It's a bit less than last year. Agreed values, two named drivers, commuting if I wanted it, unlimited mileage. I've toyed with adding my main car as well, as it now qualifies as a classic, but I think you have to have one car on ordinary insurance. Also I'd forfeit my NCD after 2 years, and one is cautioned to stick with an insurer as age creeps on. Reply to this message | Report message

Tue 10 Oct 17 10:25   In praise of an insurance broker - Manatee

>> Also I'd >> forfeit my NCD after 2 years, and one is cautioned to stick with an insurer >> as age creeps on. Because classic policies don't accrue NCD? I fell into this. I had an old Land Rover for a few years, then a 1999 MX-5 for the last 6 - so a second car in my name for about 10 years. The MX-5 had been on a classic policy since 2014, last premium was £94. I sold the 1999 MX-5 and bought a 2017 one. Despite having had no claims at all on the second car, and none on my main car since 1999, I could not get any NCD on the 'new' MX-5. Mazda insurance initially quoted £320, on the basis that they would mirror my main car NCD. This was withdrawn when I added my named driver (wife) who had a claim in 2014 on her own car and the quote became £900+. Lancaster (who had arranged insurance the MX-5 for a couple of years) quoted £466. Eventually got it done with Quotemehappy for £340. Reply to this message | Report message

Tue 10 Oct 17 11:02   In praise of an insurance broker - Zero

I have a 340 quid quote for the Beemer, slightly cheaper than the longboat, with LVE. Had to dump the reversing sensor destroying missus off a while ago, she doubled my premium. Ruddy women drivers Reply to this message | Report message

Tue 10 Oct 17 11:20   In praise of an insurance broker - Duncan

>> one is cautioned to stick with an insurer >> as age creeps on. >> Is that still true? www.money.co.uk/car-insurance/car-insurance-for-over-80s.htm Didn't the Govt. bring in legislation outlawing discrimination against drivers on account of age a little while back? Reply to this message | Report message

Tue 10 Oct 17 11:30   In praise of an insurance broker - CGNorwich

No. It is perfectly legal to use age as a risk factor in calculating premiums. Reply to this message | Report message

Tue 10 Oct 17 11:57   In praise of an insurance broker - Cliff Pope

Not just risk justifying the premium, it is said that over 70s find it hard to persuade a new insurer to accept them at all. The advice is to stick with your existing company, who generally will go on insuring you forever. I have a cousin, one of 506 drivers in the country, still driving aged over 100. She only drives locally, shopping and taking old people to the day centre, but I doubt if she could get cover with a new insurer. With my genes I need to plan (well) ahead. Reply to this message | Report message

Tue 10 Oct 17 12:25   In praise of an insurance broker - No FM2R

If I remember correctly the argument against using gender in motor insurance rating was that it wasn't true. Quickly and roughly, the argument was that to say females were a better risk was inaccurate. It was accurate to say that midwives who drive less miles in smaller cars were a better risk, and those are mostly women. But they were using gender as a shortcut to detailed rating. Consequently these days overall women pay less for motor insurance, but because they are more usually members of lower risk groups, not because they are female. Quite sensible really, given that the decision was made by the EU. It probably has made insurance fairer, though it wouldn't surprise me to learn that overall it had raised premiums for men and lowered them for women causing a greater disparity than there was before.. Anyway, so insofar as age is concerned then insurers need to show that age itself is a factor, not simply a "shortcut". And I guess that up until now they have been able to. As an older person one can find requirements for a new policyholder a bit harder than those for an existing policyholder. Medical examination requirements for example. Or perhaps acceptable health risks. However, once you have been accepted by an insurer then I doubt that how long you have been them will actually matter or have any effect going forward - be that 1 year or 10. On the other hand, if you're happy and it ain't broken, then why try to fix it. Reply to this message | Report message

Tue 10 Oct 17 16:26   In praise of an insurance broker - Robin O'Reliant

I wonder if ethnic origin is taken into account by insurers? Not that they'd dare admit it if it were. Reply to this message | Report message

Tue 10 Oct 17 17:00   In praise of an insurance broker - No FM2R

>>I wonder if ethnic origin is taken into account by insurers? Even if such a thing were acceptable, why would an insurer want to do that? Reply to this message | Report message

Tue 10 Oct 17 17:57   In praise of an insurance broker - Robin O'Reliant

>> >> >> Even if such a thing were acceptable, why would an insurer want to do that? >> If an insurers statistics showed that drivers from a certain ethnic group were better or worse than average they may decide to adjust their premiums accordingly. They do that for all sorts of other reasons. Reply to this message | Report message

Tue 10 Oct 17 18:02   In praise of an insurance broker - Manatee

Insurers don't ask for ethnic origin as far as I can recall, so they wouldn't have these data to apply to their models. Reply to this message | Report message

Tue 10 Oct 17 18:50   In praise of an insurance broker - No FM2R

That was the fallacy in their rating of men & women. Arguably it wasn't that midwives were female which made them abetter risk, it was that the lifestyle and driving habits of a midwife resulted in a better risk. The fact that most midwives were women caused the insurers to rate females lower, whereas they should have rated midwives lower, be they male or female. When they were giving the discount to all females, that included giving a discount to female sales reps, for example. Not that they have reassessed the new approach causes the female sales rep to be rated in line with all sales reps and the male midwife (surely there must be some) to be rated in with all midwives. Ironically this has caused premiums for the majority of women to go down even further, though a few have suffered higher premiums. It has also caused some males to be rated lower and thus the premiums for the majority of males to increase. All of that meaning that to rate by ethnic group would be [probably] illegal and also wrong. They should, and do, look at a greater level of granularity and look at the real factors - could be where you live, could be the job you do, could be your age or lifestyle etc. etc. What is it not likely to be is your ethnicity. Reply to this message | Report message

Tue 10 Oct 17 19:41   In praise of an insurance broker - Manatee

>>That was the fallacy in their rating of men & women. Is that true, that it was inferred from occupations rather than from Mr vs. Mrs/Miss/Ms? It's still a minefield. I was working with credit risk when there was a to-do about indirect sex discrimination - part of the data set was part-time/full-time employment. Because the vast majority of part-time jobs then were filled by women, this was alleged to be discriminatory. Later, in the noughties, there was a big problem with credit bureau files containing very little or no information, good or bad. Increased mobility including immigration of course meant that more people had literally nothing on file and/or could not be nailed to an address with the same result. Predictiveness decreased fairly sharply over a short period. Somebody eyeballed the data and noticed an seeming correlation of defaults to names with a lot of consonants in them. There was a short discussion before it was decided not to pursue that angle. There is some art and judgement involved in deciding which data to use, but statistical methods don't care about reasons or cause. They just look at correlations, even when you collect lots of data and get very granular. We used to joke that we would probably turn down Prince Philip because he was an unemployed tenant. Reply to this message | Report message

Tue 10 Oct 17 20:16   In praise of an insurance broker - No FM2R

>>Is that true, that it was inferred from occupations rather than from Mr vs. Mrs/Miss/Ms? It was simply and previously given by Mr. vs Mrs etc. The EU then said they couldn't do that so they had to focus on other factors. One of those being occupation. But since it then appeared that the low risk occupations [low mileage, off peak hours, local distance etc. etc.] were those often done by women, e.g. midwives and that the high risk occupations [high mileage, long distance, peak hours etc. etc.] were those often done by men. Thus it had an unintended effect; essentially decreased the premium that most omen paid, increased the premium that most men paid, but didn't rate on gender. Reply to this message | Report message

Tue 10 Oct 17 20:18   In praise of an insurance broker - No FM2R

Here, not great reporting, but better explanation; www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/insurance/motorinsurance/11521781/Men-are-still-charged-more-than-women-for-car-insurance-despite-EU-rule-change.html www.theguardian.com/money/blog/2017/jan/14/eu-gender-ruling-car-insurance-inequality-worse www.independent.co.uk/money/spend-save/car-insurance-eu-law-men-women-charge-different-comparethemarket-gender-directive-a7969816.html And so on and so forth..... Reply to this message | Report message

Wed 11 Oct 17 09:04   In praise of an insurance broker - Cliff Pope

>> But they were using gender as >> a shortcut to detailed rating. >> >> Everything is a shortcut, except a black box that measures a person's actual risk mile by mile. The only questions are how accurately does the generalisation accord with reality, and how acceptable is the conclusion in a wider PR or PC context. Reply to this message | Report message

Wed 11 Oct 17 10:22   In praise of an insurance broker - No FM2R

>>Everything is a shortcut, except a black box that measures a person's actual risk mile by mile. >>The only questions are how accurately does the generalisation accord with reality, and how acceptable is the conclusion in a wider PR or PC context. Isn't the whole point of both the EU case and this discussion that those are *not* the only questions? In fact, not even any of the questions. In particular, the methodology and criteria matter, it is not simply about the acceptability of the conclusion. Do try and keep up. Reply to this message | Report message

Wed 11 Oct 17 08:13   In praise of an insurance broker - Duncan

>> Not just risk justifying the premium, it is said that over 70s find it hard >> to persuade a new insurer to accept them at all. Not my friends experience. Reply to this message | Report message

Wed 11 Oct 17 09:53   In praise of an insurance broker - Manatee

>> Not my friends experience. Friend or friends? It's bugging me... Reply to this message | Report message

Wed 11 Oct 17 09:58   In praise of an insurance broker - neiltoo

Acting grammarian here. If it's one friend, it's friend's if it's more than one, it's friends' 8o) Reply to this message | Report message       2

Wed 11 Oct 17 10:01   In praise of an insurance broker - Manatee

Exackly. I assumed he knows that:) Reply to this message | Report message

Wed 11 Oct 17 11:26   In praise of an insurance broker - Dog

>>Acting grammarian here. >>If it's one friend, it's friend's >>if it's more than one, it's friends' Ewe missed this one neil too: " I saw through the snow a guy layed on the road" Reply to this message | Report message

Wed 11 Oct 17 10:44   In praise of an insurance broker - Zero

>> >> >> Not my friends experience. >> >> Friend or friends? It's bugging me... He hasn't got either since Spoons shut down and kicked him out. Reply to this message | Report message

Wed 11 Oct 17 11:27   In praise of an insurance broker - Duncan

>> >> >> >> >> Not my friends experience. >> >> >> >> Friend or friends? It's bugging me... >> >> He hasn't got either since Spoons shut down and kicked him out. >> Funny you say that. My local ex Wetherspoons, The Regent in Walton on Thames, which has been taken by Stonegate pubs, has had a re-furb. It was re-opened by the Mayor. I went in there a couple of nights ago with some friends (www.rentafriend.com) and I must say that it wasn't as good as the old 'spoons. More expensive, smaller portions. Oh dear, oh dear. It was more expensive. Did I mention that it was more expensive? Sob. Reply to this message | Report message

Tue 10 Oct 17 18:52   In praise of an insurance broker - Harleyman

What colour is it? Restoration or ready to go? Mid blue; not an original colour for the RS, more like the blue of the 5 series. Imported from Denmark, all good running order, registered and with MOT. Need a pair of the correct Krauser panniers to complete, got the rails but no cases. Clock doesn't work but I've found a repairer, later larger mirrors, but apart from that semingly well cared for by previous owner, runs nicely without leaks, smoke or rattles. Got lucky actually, the seller (liversedge 2013) had bought it with a job lot of British bikes from a collection, he didn't know much about BMW's so priced it to sell as it wasn't really his sort of thing. I wouldn't have found it had it not been that a chance remark by a friend about the good deal I got on my R80RT a couple of years ago made me curious about current prices; and this bike was on the search list. He'd listed it on a classified at £2600; well cheap for one of these especially as it's a first year model and therefore rarer and more desirable. I've hankered after one for years, having admired them when they first came out, then inspired by LJK Setright's praise for them in his "Cogswapping" column in Bike magazine it went on my wish list;but they were expensive then and very much an "older gentleman's" machine in image. Now that I'm approaching one of these criteria i decided it was time to scratch the itch. Can't go wrong at that price even if I don't end up liking it. Last edited by: Harleyman on Tue 10 Oct 17 at 18:54 Reply to this message | Report message