Just been informed my (less that 4k miles a year Classic Car) Premium with Adrian Flux will be up by 30% this year....!!
Any recommended suitable alternatives ??

Household Insurance policies increased similarly this last year of course, based on the 'increased price of re-building materials'
although that makes me wonder what the policy/claim ratio is...

So, is this just me or are there a whole new bunch of rip-offs / cons / excuses being used to baselessly exploit us all further now ?

What are the oddest excuses you have heard ?? (One broker I queried mentioned Brexit !!)

I've got a trade policy and when that came up for renewal, the broker said that my current insurer didn't want to renew it as I had two Range Rovers listed on the policy and they get stolen too frequently. I pointed out that new ones do but mine were 26 and 28 years old and I could probably leave them parked up with the keys in the ignition and still nobody would steal them. He went back to the insurers who agreed to renew on the understanding that they would 'review' the premium if I added any newer Range Rovers....

But, although there has been a lot of publicity about insurance prices going through the roof we had an interesting insurance story a few weeks ago. My other half has a 2007, Mercedes SLK280, 3.0 litre V6, 7 speed Tiptronic gearbox, all the usual toys and rated for 155 mph top speed. She's 55 years old, with over 10 years NCD and no convictions (not even a speeding ticket surprisingly knowing how she drives it). Last year the best quote she could get was with Direct Line at only £163.50 for fully comp, way lower than any other company quoted to the point we even queried it to make sure it was correct. Direct Line will put you on auto-renew unless you tell them otherwise and a few weeks ago, she gets an email thanking her for renewing her insurance. To check the details and download a copy of her up to date certificate, she had to log in to their website so she did to see how much it had gone up by. Result, £163.50, exactly the same as last year. I know they can no longer charge existing customers more than new ones but I'd like to know why hers hasn't gone up at all?

Thanks for your input Richard: Everyone else on here must be happy with their new premiums ?!

Talked with Adrian Flux today (who now seem to have a Customer DIService department): Seems their Under-writer is now Aegas
who seem 'less sympathetic' towards Classic Cars than before - although this was (once) their core business; Their (rude) 'Agent' did
indeed state this was due to Range Rovers having a bad theft record now - and discussions about their newer (dire) keyless entry
and ignition systems were basically ignored by her: Next was the 'Post Code' discussion, and again via the local rozzers I know that it
is also the newer keyless Hyundai / Kia etc that mainly are being stolen.... not the few P38s; Surprise Surprise !
WE all know that if 'more seriously' damaged older cars are just written off of course as 'beyond economic repair'.....

Long and the short of it is there is just a basic list of excuses - presented as reasons - to further rip us off...and so not about 'relative risk' at all ?!

EDIT: The other thing of note -for those unaware- is that No Claims Discount protection no longer actually protects your No Claims Discount....
In that if you have an incident/accident even though it is no fault of yours you will still lose some of your No Claims Discount......
So perhaps 'protection' just means something else now in small-print 'insurance-world' ?

Try LV. I have just put my P38 back on UK plates. When I last insured it in the UK in 2020 it was £309 (also from LV) & this year it's £368 which seemed reasonable to me. Using the comparison websites the cheapest quote was £459 from eSure with most around £550 or more. To be fair when I inquired about adding my wife who only passed her test last year LV wouldn't insure her whereas I could get insurance for £600+ from Quote Me Happy or £650 from Aviva. I estimated my annual mileage as 10,000.

davew wrote:

Long and the short of it is there is just a basic list of excuses - presented as reasons - to further rip us off...and so not about 'relative risk' at all ?!

EDIT: The other thing of note -for those unaware- is that No Claims Discount protection no longer actually protects your No Claims Discount....
In that if you have an incident/accident even though it is no fault of yours you will still lose some of your No Claims Discount......
So perhaps 'protection' just means something else now in small-print 'insurance-world' ?

The simple fact is the person on the phone doesnt set the premium and are indeed just providing "excuses". They cant see inside the algorithm, but they are likely to be aware of the various things that feed into it. I'm not really sure what else you expect them to say? Would you prefer they just shrugged and said "no idea"?

The premiums are derived mathematically based on the various criteria you provide. Its entirely about relative risk, which is why you pay more if you live in an area with lots of theft or drive a vehicle that gets nicked a lot, or are in a demographic that crashes their cars more etc etc.

The insurance industry lost money in 2021/2022. Rising costs mean they need to pay out more to settle claims, that money comes from the people paying for the insurance. They are not a charity, and ofcourse, if their costs are higher than their income, they are going to respond by raising prices. Also supply constraints over the last few years mean repairs take longer so they end up paying out more in hire car fees etc, or even moving to write cars off because the repairs will take too long.

As for the NCD protection, that is almost certainly explained in the policy booklet. Different insurers will apply different metrics as to how they deal with NCD if you have a claim. Some insurers only remove a set number of years even if its completely unprotected. Further, the fact you've had a claim will cause a significant increase to the base premium before the discounts are applied, so your still going to be paying more, even with all your NCD.

Aragorn: Suffice it to say that I only provided part of the long (and frankly disrespectful) conversation I had with the broker's agent, and, as you asked.... I would have preferred not to have had to listen to her excuses but it seems they would not allow me to speak with their algorithm directly....!
'Thank you' for your other patronising remarks too ... eg. I was very shocked to hear that Insurance Cos. are 'not a Charity' - but thank you also for apparently being an apologist for their clear exploitation/s now....

Moving on... Note that I fully understand how Profits & Loss works in Business and also all about risk (relative or not) etc but the most important part of this is, for instance, that if LR now have a reputation for their 'keyless' cars being stolen that does not constitute a 'reason' to load up P38 Premiums disproportionally. Similarly I know just what models of cars are being stolen locally too, and they are not old P38s either, but now I am just repeating what I already explained above !

Yes, I know what NCD Protection is and how it works - I was simply stating that it only partly Protects it now, and was, as I said, 'for those unaware' !
Such Ts & Cs change ... and attention may not be drawn to this for us by the Insurance companies, hence my warning !

The 'excuses' provided by the Insurance industry for raising premiums so much remain disproportionate if not actually appalling

https://www.independent.co.uk/money/why-has-car-insurance-risen-so-much-b2391334.html

UPDATE: Although I (eventually) received an apology from Adrian Flux for their (unpleasant) 'Customer Service' agent
I found Footman James to be much more 'old school'- and cheaper too: They also have an interesting 'FLEX' product so
that you can add a Modern car to your Classic Car policy (if you are so inclined) !

You cd also try NFU... My P38 was shunted in the rear by an Admiral driver a couple of years ago - their insurers would only pay me cash for what was a refurb of the back bumper, tey refused/ were incapable of fixing it. Then it got hit by a Hastings driver (while parked) they were going to hand me to the same claims agent as the Admiral guys... so i declined to use the other party's insurer (and will do so next time too) and used mine - NFU. They took the car away, fixed it, and sent it back, no fuss. I like an insurer that will walk the talk... They are also "old school"... you can actually have a conversation with them. That said They still managed to increase my premiums by about 20% - they're all at it