How do insurance companies work!

[scott_150cdtisri]

i just got an insurance quote from elephant and it turned out to be £515 for me and the wife. Then i thought how much cheaper it would be without her on it....................it was £730!!!!!!

[lesj]

Hi Scott, basically if you look to drive say 20K a year, then the insurers would 'split' the mileage between you and the wife. As ladys are safer drivers (their policy not mine) then your quote is £515. But with just you doing the 20K then the risk and therefore the policy increases.

When my lad passed his test it was cheaper to put him on the insurance for my 2 yo, 100BHP, £8K, Vectra 2ltr DTI than a 10 yo, 70BHP, £300 Cavalier 1.7TD. Mad or what

[scott_150cdtisri]

it certainly is! she hardly drives it anyway and i thought i would get it quite cheap as i only do 10k a year if that

[dave45040]

i just got an insurance quote from elephant and it turned out to be £515 for me and the wife. Then i thought how much cheaper it would be without her on it....................it was £730!!!!!!

The Elephant motor premium that is offered is dependant on the rates offered by the consortium of insurers that is led by the Great Lakes Re-insurance company, hence it will work in a similar way to how a conventional broker works except the policy that you receive is under the Elephant Banner.

Although some insurers would anticipate a named spouse (or common law wife) to drive some of the mileage per year, their statistics would probably show that on average they tend to drive a lot less than half the annual mileage, due to the proportion of the claims that come in whilst the spouse is driving.

What is more likely is that, of the companies that Elephant / Great Lakes use to 'build' their policies around, there are some companies that will not insure male policyholders / drivers alone, hence when an additional female spouse / common law partner is added, more companies are available to quote from and the lower premium is arrived at. This can sometimes even be the case when the spouse / partner only holds a provsional licence too (the only difference to the policy being that the excess for the 'novice' driver is higher).

A 'GOOD' insurance adviser / broker should know all the permeatations available on policies to help drive your premiums down. If you haven't got one of these, an hour or so playing with quotes online should, in most cases, be sufficient time to allow you to save yourselves some money.

[mickruss]

hi scott i was 700 pound for my wrx sti when i put my wife on it went down 2 345 its mental lol

[scott_150cdtisri]

mmmm scooby!!!!

[Faz]

Wonderful world of statistics, formulas and risk assessing... if you know how they work then you can play it smart