Car Insurance For Young Driver

You may recently have read one of the many articles published announcing that several leading motor insurance providers have taken the decision to refuse quotes to young drivers.

Leading brands such as Swiftcover, More Th>n and Esure have apparently decided that young drivers are more trouble than they’re worth.

And when you look at some of the statistics being thrown around you can see where they are coming from:

• An eighteen year old is three times as likely as his/her parents to have an accident whilst driving.

• 17-25 year olds hold just 10% of all driving licenses but cause more than 20% of car accidents.

• One in three young male drivers will write off a car in their first year of driving.

• 25% of the convictions for causing death by dangerous driving are for drivers under 20

You can read even more of these “alarming” statistics here and here.

Other car insurance companies to take this step include; Sheilas' Wheels, Marks & Spencer and AXA and with more providers likely to follow suit this isn’t a small problem than can simply be ignored.

Now why these articles and stats make for good reading the truth is there are many young drivers out there, who drive responsibly and safely, who are suffering higher car insurance premiums due to actions of the minority.

Car insurance premiums for young drivers have historically always been high and this latest development will only make it more difficult to secure a reasonably priced policy.

But as the title says, all is not lost; there are many steps young drivers can take to help lower the cost of their insurance, such as:

• Avoiding modifications

• Driving a car with a smaller engine

• Going on your own insurance and building up no claims bonus

• Taking the Pass Plus course

• Offering a higher voluntary excess

• Shopping around online

• Limiting your mileage

• Looking for rapid bonus schemes to build no claims bonus more quickly

• Paying upfront rather than monthly

• Improving security

• Looking for worthwhile cash back offers

• Considering specialist insurance companies

• Insuring Third-Party Only if the car is relatively cheap

All these options are covered in greater detail in our ultimate guide to young driver car insurance.

Your Car Insurance Claim Is Rejected: So What To Do For The Next ?

Recently we covered how motorists can best deal with the situation of making a car insurance claim. But what if your insurer rejects the claim, what should you do then?

It is not uncommon for insurance companies to either reject a motor insurance claim or reduce the payments they make.

There are several factors that can trigger such as event:

• Your insurer may come to the conclusion that you were largely (or even entirely) at fault if your claim is related to a theft from the vehicle or of the vehicle itself

• Your car insurance policy may contain a clause witch invalidates the claim

• It is decided the claim should be settled under another policy such as your home contents insurance (particularly in the case of theft from the vehicle)

• You provided information that was untruthful or inaccurate

• You are unable to provide receipts to backup claims of theft of items from your vehicle

• The book price of the car is considerably less than the money you've invested in restoration or enhancements

With any insurance policy your insurer will expect you to disclose any information that could be of importance to them. You are obliged to do this even if the details are not requested; this is known as “utmost good faith”.

Insurance companies often use this extremely wooly approach to sharing information to justify rejecting or downscaling claims. Should this situation arise with your car insurance claim there are some important points to remember:

• The small print of your policy carries a lot of weight; study it thoroughly before, during and after your claim (and ideally before taking out a policy in the first place)

• Keeping accurate records of conversations and correspondence along with receipts can make a huge difference in backing up your claim as well as the eventual success of your claim

• The payout figure announced by your insurance company is not set in stone. Rather than just accept the amount on offer you are perfectly entitled to question the payout and put forward you case for why it should be increased

If after all that you still disagree with your insurers decision to reject your claim or the payout level awarded your next step should be to contact the Financial Ombudsman Service.

The FOS acts as an independent arbitrator to resolve conflicts between insurance companies and customers, they deal with thousands of complaints every year.

The first step in complaining to the FOS is to confirm your car insurance claim has been dealt with in full by your insurance company. You can raise your complaint with the FOS once your insurer has provided a letter or final response to your complaint or has failed to do so within eight weeks.

If you need the assistance of the Finance Ombudsman Service to help with your car insurance claim visit their website http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/

Delays in resolving a car insurance claim can lead to massive disruption in people’s lives. Hopefully this post will help make your next claim run more smoothly. We all need help from time-to-time so please don’t be discouraged from contacting the FOS for support with your claim.

Cheaper Car Insurance Only For You

Sounds like I’m promising the world on a stick doesn’t it? In reality I’m talking a couple of minutes to read this post and a couple more spent taking advantage of one of the easiest money saving opportunities available when it comes to car insurance.

All you have to do is SHOP AROUND! And better still you can search for car insurance quotes online almost instantly. I say almost because you will need to answer some questions but it beats answering the same questions over and over again.

Despite the ease of online comparison many people still ring round multiple insurers to find a quote or worse still accept their annual renewal which can be a big mistake. If you’ve got a classic of high performance car then fair enough you might need a specialist insurer but for the vast majority of us a price comparison of car insurance companies can be a great money saver.

Some you will have heard of, big names such as confused.com and moneysupermarket.com have been around for years. Now there is even more choice with sites such as gocompare.com and comparethemarket.com to mention but two.

A simple Google search for car insurance will open up a plethora of comparison services, some will be better than others but the four mentioned above would be a good place to start.

So how do these sites work? Simple, you fill in one form and their search multiple car insurance companies, again some are better than others but you should be looking to get between 30 and 50 quotes inside two minutes which you have to admit is one hell of a time saver.

Give it a go and see how far you can lower your motor insurance quote.