Bonzer Car Insurance Deals?

G'Day!

The Guardian on Saturday had an interesting piece on the perils of buying your womens car insurance from a so-called "womens car insurance company", such as Sheila's Wheels, Diamond, Ladybird and Diva.

Despite jingly and annoying adverts promising massive savings on car insurance to members of the fairer sex, the Guardian's research found that women might not actually save "a bunch of fivers", by taking out insurance from the self-proclaimed specialists.

Oh no. In fact, they could end up paying a whole lot more.

When they ran a quote through a well-known insurance price comparison site the womens car insurance companies did not fare as well as expected. Sheila's Wheels came out at £26 more than the cheapest quote (the stupidly and expensively rebranded LV=), and poor old Diva wanted a whole £94 more.

But if you're a woman driver, there's worse news to come, when you hear who else beat Sheila's Wheels. Other insurance brands that came out cheaper than Sheila's Wheels included - Halifax Car Insurance, Sainsbury's Car Insurance and esure.

Hang on a minute! Cast your mind back to my previous post "Who owns your insurer?"

Let's check that list again, shall we?

• Halifax Insurance - part of Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS)
  
• Sainsbury's Car Insurance - run by esure (part of HBOS)
  
• esure - part of HBOS - calm down, dear!

Now remember, all of those came out cheaper in the Guardian's survey than "women's specialist" Sheila's Wheels, who are (let's just check their website) - oh, yes "a division of esure" and part of HBOS.

So it turns out that (for the examples the Guardian checked, anyway) esure will charge you less, as a woman, than their own specialist women's "division".

The Sheila's Wheels spokeswoman (Niki Bolton) accounted for this by saying that the Sheila's Wheels policy had bonzer extra features such as:

• Handbag cover (available elsewhere, but almost certainly included in your home insurance!)
  
• Female Friendly garages (remember if you've had an accident and claim on your insurance, it's down to the insurance company to worry about which repairs are necessary and how much work the garage has actually done. Believe it or not, most insurance companies don't tend to deal with garages who habitually rip them off or patronise clients and will have their own network of garages who they trust. Plus climbing onto your moral high horse over patronising attitudes is a bit rich if your parent company is responsible for those Michael Winner ads.).
  
• A 24 hour counselling line for drivers traumatised by an experience on the road. (They don't say if they provide a similar service for drivers traumatised by the size of their car insurance quote)

Spokesperson, Niki Bolton, is also listed here as PR manager for esure and also speaks for First Alternative. Perhaps if the Guardian had asked her to speak on behalf of esure, she might have told you that all of the above "features" are just pointless trimming and that you should get your insurance from esure instead. And presumably if you are traumatised on the road and ring esure in an emotional state you are put through to Michael Winner who simply tells you to calm down, dear. Sadly we'll never know.

As the Guardian found, if you want womens car insurance you would do well to look beyond the big spending advertisers who tell you they can save you big money, but in reality charge you a hefty premium for a pink policy document and some flaky add-ons.

Here at Adrian Flux, our specialist womens car insurance schemes save women up to 35% compared to male drivers. Now that's what I call fair dinkum.

Young Driver Insurance - To Front or not to Front?

I've mentioned fronting in a previous post outlining the perils of lying to your insurance company, but right now fronting - the term for when a young driver insures their car in the name of an older relative (usually mum or dad) - has been in the news of late.

The news is that many insurance companies are getting tough with fronted policies. In fact, several high profile insurance companies have recently stopped accepting fronted risks. And on Saturday a Moneybox programme on Radio 4 (you can currently listen to it here) covered the issue, and has prompted a heated online debate on fronting.

The most worrying thing from a young driver's point of view was the mixed messages coming from companies like esure. Despite the fact that esure currently allow the purchase of a fronted policy, their spokesman said:

"Any act of deception to try to get a lower insurance premium with your insurance company is tantamount to fraud."

If I were an esure customer insured in my mum's name, I would be very concerned about a statement like that. It suggests that if you were to make a claim, you could be in serious trouble. And as if to underline that the whole industry is clamping down on the practice, the head of the Association of British Insurers (ABI), Nick Starling has recently commented:

"Insurance cheats are more likely to be caught than ever before. And cheats will pay a high price as future insurance and credit will be more expensive and harder to obtain."

And don't bother running to the insurance ombudsman either if you're refused a claim over fronting. Says Peter Hinchcliffe, lead insurance ombudsman:

"If you are the parent and you have said you are the main driver and the car has been in an accident, or stolen, at your son or daughter's university, you have got a lot of work to do to explain how that has come about."

So what's the solution?

At Adrian Flux the problem of fraudulent fronting is simply not an issue for our customers. We do not accept any risks that are, or appear to be, fronted. We always rate our insurance quotes based on the highest risk driver, which, the statistics show, is usually the youngest.

If all insurance companies took this line there wouldn't be a problem.

If there were no fronting, there would be benefits for everyone. All middle aged drivers would get lower premiums, because their statistics wouldn't include so many claims by their children.

And believe it or not younger drivers might wind up with a cheaper premium too. No, really. Being insured on your parents policy is all well and good, but the problem with this is that you do not accrue any no claims discount of your own (see note)*. Since no claims discounts are pretty hefty for younger drivers, you could well end up paying less over a period of a few years simply by getting your own policy.

But if all this hasn't been enough to convince you that fronting is a bad idea, then please read this informative post on fronting from the Max Power forum.

Here are some tips for cheaper young drivers insurance:

• Do Pass Plus, IAM or Max Driver - that will save you up to 40%.
  
• Think about insurance when you buy your car - one of our top 10 cheapest cars for young drivers might be for you.
  
• When you get a quote always answer all questions truthfully, otherwise you might be in hot water.
  
• Before you do any modifications, check to see what impact they will have on your premium. Believe it or not, some mods can reduce your premium, and we can offer modified car insurance to young drivers, but be aware if you're planning to fit turbos and a nitrous kit to your Corsa, your quote may well be beyond your budget.
  

*Direct Line do of course advertise named driver No Claims Discount, but in practice this may not be transferable to other insurers, so you could find yourself stuck with Direct Line when you decide to take out your own policy. You might be happy with this but bear in mind that many people think that the real reason that Direct Line hate comparison sites is that Direct Line's prices are simply very expensive when compared with other quotes!