Posts tagged lying

Young Driver Insurance – To Front or not to Front?

Oct 22nd

Posted by Dave Wilson in Car Insurance

2 comments

young driver insurance
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!

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8 Fibs You Tell Your Insurer at Your Peril…

Sep 12th

Posted by Dave Wilson in [...]

No comments

Lying is a major problem for insurance companies. But it could be even more of a problem for the drivers who lie in order to get a cheaper premium. They may well find out that their deception is detected only at the time they need to make a claim.

Some of the most commont pork pies people are tempted to tell their insurance company:

  • Business use – not declaring business use for your car. This is especially tempting to part timers and home workers, but if you use your car for business purposes you need to tell us.

  • Withholding motoring convictions – in some cases convictions will add nothing to the premium, in other cases they will add a smaller or larger amount, but Adrian Flux can offer you a good value quote, whatever your history, so don’t risk driving around on invalid insurance – you’ll only pick up another conviction if you’re caught.
  • Withholding criminal convictions – where others can’t quote, Adrian Flux can. Again, don’t risk invalidating your insurance.
  • Fronting – insuring your car in the name of a parent or older relative. This is probably one of the most common lies told to insurance companies. This is why quotes are always rated on the youngest named driver. Honesty is always the best policy.
  • Undisclosed modifications to the car – Adrian Flux can cover pretty much any modification going, from body styling to nitrous kits. Some mods add nothing and might even reduce the premium. In any case we will cover all your modifications on a like for like basis, so please tell us about them all.
  • Lying about your claims history – If you’re not detected when you take out the policy, you will be found out if you have to claim again. Insurers now have very sophisticated software, introduced to combat organised fraud, which analyses claims for patterns – all the insurance companies share the claims data to cut fraud to a minimum.
  • Incorrect licence – some drivers will claim a full UK licence when they actually have a licence from another country. Not a good idea if you want the insurer to pay out in the event of a claim.
  • Giving an alternate address – I heard of one case where a young man who lived and worked in central London had told the insurance company that his main address was in a Swansea suburb, where his parents lived. The massive savings on his car insurance were more than negated when he had to make a claim and investigators found out the truth.

If you are tempted to lie because you feel you may be refused a quote, then come to Adrian Flux. We can find an insurance policy for almost any driver, but you should always tell us the whole truth, or you policy will be worthless when the time comes to claim, even if the thing you lied about is irrelevant to the incident. We will always do our very best to help you, and unlike companies that provide quotes from a computer screen, our underwriters can take all factors into account when calculating your premium. Give us a call on 0800-083-8833.

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