Insurance Attorneys

The cost of insuring your car in the UK can vary by up to £330 depending on where you live, research from the AA revealed today.

Overall, the average cost of insuring a family car came has fallen by £4 this year to £360. However, according to the results of a survey by the AA, the UK’s biggest car insurer, the price varies widely across the country, ranging from a low of £235 in the Isle of Man up to £567 in parts of Manchester.

The AA survey, which was based on the cost of insuring an average couple with clean licences driving a mid-range Ford Focus, pinpointed three places in Greater Manchester - Wythenshawe, Prestwich and Middleton - as the most expensive places to live if you want to insure a vehicle. Chelsea (£564) and Finchley (£563) in London and Liverpool city centre (£560) were next on the list. The Isle of Man came out has the cheapest premiums in the UK, but Brora in the Scottish Highlands (£261) and Portsmouth (£262) were also very good bets.

Source : shopping.guardian.co.uk

A new car insurance policy has been launched that will offset 100% of the customers’ CO2 emissions for the duration of their policy, as well as make a contribution towards tackling global climate change.

Created by insurance intermediary Budget, ibuyeco allows customers to offset all of their carbon emissions by paying a small additional fee.

Payments are based on the type of vehicle and the estimated mileage details provided by customers. Emissions are calculated using guidelines from several key groups and bodies, including DEFRA whose guidelines are used by other government departments when appraising their policies.

Using this method, the typical family car mileage of between 10,000 and 12,000 miles per year would require an offset fee of roughly £20, for example.

ibuyeco managing director, Matthew Gledhill, said: “ibuyeco is a practical solution for those people who cannot simply give up using their car.

“People recognise that sometimes creating a carbon impact is unavoidable, but they still want to do something about it.

More : guardian.co.uk

There has never been much love lost between motorists and insurers, but as the number of cars written off rather than repaired continues to rise, so too are the volume of insurance payouts being disputed.

The number of cars written-off is fast approaching half a million mark or 10% of all claims. In the case of bikes, it is estimated that around 60% are written-off rather than repaired. And, one in every 75 write-off claims is disputed.

Source : guardian.co.uk

Tesco has emerged as the top new entrant in the personal finance market, according to research by Mintel on ‘non-traditional providers’.

About 11 million people in Britain now use supermarkets, the Post Office, car breakdown firms and other new players, for savings accounts, credit cards, personal loans and other financial products, and Mintel predicts that the number will reach 16 million people - a third of the adult population - by 2009.

Tesco Personal Finance has won 4.6 million customer accounts and runs a 50/50 joint venture with the Royal Bank of Scotland. It showed pre-tax profits of £160 million in the year to February 2004, up 67 per cent on 2003, a level likely to rise significantly again for 2005.

Tesco is followed by Saga and Sainsbury’s with 2 million customers each. Sainsbury’s holds savings deposits of £2 billion. Other successful players include ARG Financial, Kwik-Fit Financial Services, and Virgin Money, which, says Mintel, ‘all moved into the black in 2003/04 and expect ever better results in 2004/05′.

Consumer awareness of these providers is high and Mintel predicts that some of the providers will increase their market share ‘considerably’ in the next few years. Their typical consumer ‘targets’ are married and cohabiting ABs - of which 42 per cent hold or have held some sort of account with a non-traditional provider.

Source : guardian.co.uk

There’s a catch, of course. You have to pay for these extras so even if you hate the way insurers boost your premiums for fender benders that weren’t your fault, think before you buy.

Click here to visit FOXBusiness.com’s Insurance page.

Allstate is selling two premium policies, the Gold Protection and Platinum Protection plans, in 37 states.

Gold plan drivers pay an extra 5% to 7% on average above the standard policy. They receive a $100 reduction on their deductible for each year they are accident-free up to $500 and a guarantee that their premiums will not increase after a first accident.

The Platinum plan costs 14% to 15% more than the standard policy and comes with “accident forgiveness” for multiple accidents and a 5% discount on your premium while you remain accident-free.

The new car replacement add-on costs another 2% and is intended to cover drivers for the rapid depreciation of a new car. If your car is totaled within three years of its purchase, Allstate will buy you a new one, rather than pay you the depreciated value.

Source : foxnews.com

Progressive Corp. and GMAC Insurance are now offering discounted rates to customers who log fewer miles, according to Lavonne Kuykendall of The Wall Street Journal. The premise of the programs is simple: The less you drive, the more you save. The catch is that the plans aren’t available to all drivers.

GMAC’s plan is being offered in 34 states. To participate you have to own a GM car that comes equipped with the OnStar navigation system. It verifies your mileage by automatically reporting the car’s odometer reading at the beginning and end of your policy term. Motorists who drive less than 2,500 miles a term can save as much as 54% on their bills, according to Kuykendall.

You don’t have to own a GM car to participate in Progressive’s TripSense plan, but you do have to live in Minnesota, Michigan or Oregon, and you have to be willing to install a small device in your car to track your miles. Unlike with GMAC’s program, customers must download and report their own miles to receive discounts. Progressive also tracks other driving habits to assess your risk. The reward, reports Kuykendall: Users can shave 5%-25% off their bills by using TripSense.

Source : foxnews.com

This past week’s Bulls & Bears: Gary B. Smith, Exemplar Capital managing partner; Pat Dorsey, Morningstar.com director of stock research; Scott Bleier, HybridInvestors.com president; Tobin Smith, ChangeWave Research editor; Joe Battipaglia, Stifel Nicolaus market strategist, private client group; and Peter Schiff, Euro Pacific Capital president and author of “Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse.”

Trading Pit: Dems Di$$ Economy: Are They Right Or Wrong?

Democrats dissing the economy, warning you how bad it is out there. But do the numbers tell another story?

Gary B.: It’s a great economy! Unemployment is low and household net worth continues to grow. Things are pretty great for the economy.

Source : foxnews.com

Colorado’s 30-year-old car insurance system will expire this year. Insurance companies are ready to let it go, but one Weld County politician is scrambling to make a last-minute save.

Rep. Tambor Williams, a Greeley Republican, sponsored an insurance reform bill that was killed earlier in the session. She is now sponsoring a Senate bill amendment that would maintain the state’s no-fault insurance system. The amendment will be heard Tuesday by the House Business Affairs and Labor Committee, on which she is the chairwoman. If no bill is signed into law, the state will automatically revert to a tort, or fault-based, system.

With less than a month left in the legislative session, Williams argues that it’s not time working against the chances of reform but special interests. It’s crucial for voters to tell legislators what they want to happen so reform doesn’t get bogged down, she said.

One of the special interests that has been deeply involved in this session is the insurance lobby. Joy Keyser Pickar has been traveling from the Greeley office of State Farm Insurance Cos. to the Capitol to lobby for an overhaul of the system, something she said Williams efforts won’t accomplish.

More : greeleytrib.com

Most of us don’t think much about car insurance. We eyeball the policy every year, fiddle around with a few changes to bring down the premium, and then forget about it until the bills come. And come they do — each exactly the same amount, no matter whether we’ve driven across the country or left the car in the garage.

Doesn’t sound right, does it? Mileage — like factors such as age and driving record — has long been correlated with accident risk. The more you drive, the higher the chance of a crash.

But unlike a driver’s age and record, how far you drive is not much of a factor in determining your premium. Some companies do offer low-mileage discounts, but these don’t come close to capturing the actual difference in accident risk between high- and low-mileage drivers. Todd Litman, director of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute in British Columbia, has done extensive research on the relationship between annual mileage and insurance claims. His studies suggest that if other risk factors — such as age of driver, time of day, and type of driving — are constant, then accident risk tends to increase in a roughly linear relationship with mileage. Translation: If you drive twice as much, you’re about twice as likely to have an accident.

Source : grist.org

The price of car, house and business insurance is rising, two leading insurers announced yesterday, and by as much as 26% for certain types of policies.

For some former customers of the collapsed Independent Insurance company the rise in premiums is even greater. According to Royal & Sun Alliance, insurance premiums have doubled in some instances for businesses which were previously covered by Independent Insurance.

Bob Mendelsohn, chief executive of RSA, said that the overall average increase in commercial liabilities insurance was 26%.

When it came to personal policies, he said car insurance premiums had risen 11% while household premiums had risen by a less severe 4%, partly because the insurance industry is waiting for progress on improving flood defences following the deluge of claims last year.

CGNU’s Richard Harvey, said car insurance premiums were rising 16%, with household premiums 4% higher.

While car insurance is rising, it is doing so at a lower rate than last year. Competition for business has kept insurance premiums low in recent years but as that has started to subside the cost has started to rise.

More : guardian.co.uk

Admiral Group, the direct car insurer that targets young people and city dwellers, is preparing to float on the stock exchange for an estimated £600m in the autumn.

The flotation, if successful, will give chief executive Henry Engelhardt a paper profit of £84m. It will also bring a windfall for Barclays Private Equity - which bought Admiral in 1999 for £80m - and the employees, whose total shareholdings will be worth about £50m.

The Cardiff-based company, which owns internet insurer Elephant, female specialist insurer Diamond and Admiral car insurance, also announced that its underlying profits rose 29% last year to £71m, while turnover increased 13% to £427m. It said it has increased its number of customers by 15%.

“I believe Admiral is arguably the most efficient and, pound for pound, arguably the most profitable insurer in the UK car insurance market,” said Mr Engelhardt.

“This means we can pass savings back to our customers while still growing the business profitably.” The company’s 1,500 employees participate in a profit-sharing scheme which gave them a £2.5m bonus last year.

In the accounts filed at Companies House, Mr Engelhardt wrote that he was “wrong” the year before to predict that the car insurance market would go downhill. He had said the market was at a “precarious point, teetering on a precipice”.

More : guardian.co.uk

Competition among car insurers could slow down increases in premium prices, a report claimed today.

According to market analyst Datamonitor, drivers renewing their insurance in 2001 faced quotes which were around 17% higher than they had been the previous year. However, it expects annual increases in premiums of only 6% or less this year.

The group said that newcomers to the market (such as supermarkets) and increased pressure from banks will force traditional insurers to keep prices competitive, putting an end to steep increases in the cost of cover.

“Motorists can breath a sigh of relief,” said James Greenwell, the report’s author. “The days of sky-high car insurance premiums increases are over for the foreseeable future and common sense will prevail.”

He cautioned against talk about a price war among insurers, and said this would be premature, as most firms were still pushing through price increases to cover the rising cost of motor claims. However, such increases would be smaller than motorists have been used to, he added.

“Price is always a decisive factor for consumers, but insurers will be able to resist slipping back into price-based competition for a while,” Mr Greenwell said. “Profitability levels have improved, large insurers have no need to get involved in a damaging price war and they are looking to push through controlled premium increases to cover claims costs.”

Source : guardian.co.uk

Sainsbury’s Bank this week re-launched its car insurance division, promising average savings of £180 - although you’ll have to be with a particularly expensive insurer to save that much.

The supermarket giant has been spurred on by what’s been happening down the road at rival Tesco, which last year stormed through the car insurance market, scooping up more than a million customers.

The Sainsbury’s car insurance deal is being offered in conjunction with esure, and the supermarket says it repriced the product last year in a bid to become more competitive.

Sainsbury’s Bank spokeswoman Joanne Mallon says: “We are not targeting any particular market in the same way that other firms do - young drivers, older drivers - those without a no-claims bonus will all be quoted a highly competitive price.

“One of the changes we made at the end of last year was to extend our underwriting capacity to enable us to offer excellent prices across the market. The aim of the current advertising campaign is to make our customers aware of what we have done,” she says.

Jobs & Money undertook a snapshot survey, and found that the supermarket’s prices are indeed very competitive - although as each quote for Britain’s 26m cars is different, it’s impossible to say if the insurer is competitive across all classes of business.

In April, we asked several of the new entrants for a quote on a family estate car for a London-based 40-year-old college lecturer and home-working wife. Both have a clean driving record and maximum no claims bonus.

Then, the cheapest prices for fully comprehensive cover were £437 (Elephant) or £385 (Quinn Direct) - depending on whether we protected the no-claims discount or not.

More : guardian.co.uk

Royal & SunAlliance, the insurer known for its morethan brand, has hoisted the for sale sign over the only part of its American operations still open for business, in an attempt to stem US losses.

While the specialist motor insurance operation which is being sold is profitable, the American business as a whole lost £274m in 2004.

RSA, which has embarked on a radical restructuring over the past 18 months, sold its life arm last year to focus on general insurance in Britain, Canada and Scandinavia.

Overall, the insurer made an operating profit - the figure closely watched by the City - of £456m in 2004, up from £140m as a result of the plan being implemented by chief executive Andy Haste to shrink the business by selling off unprofitable parts. Stripping out goodwill, claims provisions and reorganisation costs, the operating profit was £188m, down from £196m in 2003.

The improved profits and cash position allowed the company, which in 2003 tapped shareholders for £1bn in a discounted rights issue, to raise the dividend to 4.61p from 4.52p. It is the first time it has been raised in five years and the new management team indicated it would rise at least in line with inflation in future.

The shares, which were trading at around 150p at the time the rights issue was announced 18 months ago, fell 2p yesterday to 84p.

Mr Haste has shut all RSA’s American operations apart from the motor business, which made £30m profit last year. Lazard has been appointed to advise on the motor arm sale, which could release £100m of capital to meet continuing claims in America.

Despite being shut to new business, the American arm continues to be a drain on resources. The insurer put an extra £160m towards reserves last year. It has been dogged by claims for hurricane damage and asbestos.

The company warned yesterday that it could not quantify its US asbestos liabilities because of a surge in litigation. It admitted that it expected to see more claims from companies which previously had only peripheral links to asbestos.

It cited an approach from General Motors last year and said it expected that such approaches “will continue for some time to come”.

George Culmer, the finance director, sought to demonstrate that RSA had put its problems with regulatory capital behind it. It was now as well capitalised as Aviva, he said, and had £600m of surplus capital under new regulations.

Under its own measurements it had £1.5bn of surplus capital. There was an £800m shortfall when Mr Haste took the helm nearly two years ago.

Analysts at Cazenove, RSA’s broker, noted that it was not clear how much surplus capital it might need above the regulatory minimum but concluded that the group’s capital problems were now behind it.

Source : guardian.co.uk

After her car accident, Sarah Capps suffered from a sore shoulder and back. What she thought were common pains turned out to be six herniated discs.

Were it not for the protective medical coverage that every Florida car insurance holder must pay for in a policy, Capps would never have known in 2004 about her more severe injuries. Just starting a new job, she didn’t yet have health insurance and couldn’t pay for the doctor visit on her own.

“If there wasn’t anything there I wouldn’t be getting help,” said Capps, a program organizer for the Florida Consumer Action Network, which supports the continuation of Personal Injury Protection.

Also known as Florida’s no-fault law, PIP is set to expire in October if lawmakers do nothing — which is what the majority of the powerful insurance lobby wants to happen. The system is wrought with fraud that artificially drives up costs for insurers and consumers, they said, and is broken beyond repair.

The Senate Banking and Insurance Committee on Tuesday rebuffed those claims, unanimously approving a bill that attempts to reform PIP and extends it until January 2009.

PIP currently covers up to $10,000 — 80 percent of medical expenses, 60 percent of loss of income and a $5,000 death benefit — for a driver no matter who is at fault in an accident.

Source : forextv.com

Fourth-quarter car insurance rates rose again, according to the AA’s British Insurance Premium Index.

The price for comprehensive car insurance rose in the fourth quarter to an average of 805.70 stg for a year’s cover, compared with 762.70 stg in the previous three months.

The ’shoparound’ rate — the average of the three lowest quotes — rose 1.96 pct to 467.892 stg from 458.81 stg.

Car insurers have been suffering somewhat from increased competition and higher claims inflation, although rates have been higher recently, buoyed by Aviva PLC’s late-August decision to raise prices by around 16 pct.

Premiums for third party, fire and theft cover, typically bought by younger drivers, rose to 999.45 stg, or 0.12 pct, compared with 954.16 stg in the previous three months, continuing a long-term rise in rates.

The shoparound rate rose 2.51 pct to 547.67 stg from 534.26 stg in the previous three months.

Building insurance rose 1.26 to 209.02 stg from 207.10 stg in the second quarter, while contents insurance continued to fall, down 0.56 pct to 147.28 stg from 152.06 stg.

The shoparound rate for building insurance rose to 142.31 from 138.13 stg in the third quarter, while that of contents insurance declined by 0.65 pct to 83.95 from 84.50 stg in the previous quarter.

Source : forbes.com

Mapfre SA said it and Cattolica Assicurazioni SpA’s have decided not to take forward their proposed car insurance joint venture Mapfre Cattolica as the deal has not received authorization from insurance sector regulator ISVAP.

In a statement, Mapfre said the two companies will continue to study new avenues of both industrial and institutional collaboration, and added that it intends to maintain its current 8.5 pct stake in Cattolica.

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Source : forbes.com

Mapfre SA said it has reached a joint venture agreement with Cattolica Assicurazioni SpA to create a car insurance company, in which the Spanish company will hold 50 pct stake through a investment of 473 mln eur.

The agreement will lead to the creation of Mapfre Cattolica Auto next year through the merger of Cattolica’s Duomo Assicurazioni and Unione Assicurazioni units.

The new company is expected to be the fifth largest automobile insurance company in Italy, with a network of over 1,400 agents, initial sales of around 1 bln eur and corporate assets of 400 mln eur.

More : forbes.com

Allianz AG is to launch this weekend online car insurance sales via its online platform Allianz 24, Financial Times Deutschland reported, citing no sources.

As there are no insurance agents involved in the sale, rates on these insurance products are seen up to 30 pct lower than average in the fiercely competitive car insurance industry, the newspaper said.

It said the company declined to comment on the matter.

Source : forbes.com

Most days you’ll find them on the phones helping customers with car insurance, but over the next few months, some of Progressive’s best and brightest call center employees will perform a different kind of service: planting trees in the communities where they live and work. The Progressive Group of Insurance Companies, the third largest car insurance group in the country and eighth largest in California, is celebrating its 70th year in business by planting 70 large trees in each of its six call center cities. Progressive is teaming up with the Arbor Day Foundation to plant the 420 large trees in parks primarily located in underserved inner cities.

“Our ‘70 Years, 70 Trees’ events are about putting down even deeper roots in the communities where a lot of Progressive people live, including here in Sacramento,” said Dave Luther, human resources manager, Progressive. “Planting trees is a way for us to give back to the customers and communities that helped us achieve this significant milestone in our history.”

Over the next three months, Progressive volunteers will plant 70 large trees between six and 15 feet tall in six communities including Cleveland, Tampa, Austin, Colorado Springs, Phoenix and Sacramento. Progressive and the Arbor Day Foundation consulted with local park officials in each location to identify the parks most in need of additional trees. The tree species being planted in Seymour Park on November 7 include the California Sycamore, Valley Oak, California Black Oak, Armstrong Maple, Chinese Pistache, Frontier Elm, and European Hackberry.

More : forbes.com