Car Insurance

[SpuffMonkey]

I was looking at renewing my car insurance today and was on the phone to a company (I like to haggle!) and they asked for my estimated mileage (as usual) - I don't do a lot of miles now and said 4000-5000 - they replied "Well which is it?" - I said - "I don't know its just a guess, because I don't know where I'll drive in the next year". After thius they said that it was really important that I erred on the high side because if I drove more miles than I had estimated and didn't inform them so that they could adjust the premium, I'd not be insured.

 

I've never heard that that was the case in all the years I've been driving - does anyone know if its true?

[hardtailstar]

Yeah if drive over 10 thousand miles im not insured. It's been like it for as long as I can remember.

[LukeRowberry]

Someone borrowed your car and drove it on their insurance didn’t they...

[admars]

If you check one of the online providers/aggregators there's various windows/bands, the argument being the more miles you do, the more likely you are to have an accident (let's ignore the argument the more miles you do the more experienced you are so less likely to have an accident )

 

Remember, it's an insurance company, if they can wiggle out of paying out they will

 

Some things you need to tell them, but they won't always put the price up, for example I had Social domestic and pleasure, and added commuting when I needed to drive to work, then later phoned up to include occasional driving to other sites as part of work, which had to go on the policy, but didn't increase premium, but if I hadn't told them, and had had an accident driving from one site to another, they wouldn't have to pay out.

[Michael]

Thing is (which I've never really understood) - insurance companies request an estimated number of miles, yet they don't request your existing mileage at the point of insurance application.

 

So how do they know for sure if you've gone over your quota? Simply dividing the mileage but the age of the car is neither accurate or practical, so how do they do it?

[ZeroHour]

So how do they know for sure if you've gone over your quota? Simply dividing the mileage but the age of the car is neither accurate or practical, so how do they do it?

 

Is it recorded on your MOT test certificate? I think it's on mine if I went to check.

[Michael]

Is it recorded on your MOT test certificate? I think it's on mine if I went to check.

 

Possibly and they could cross check that. Would make sense I suppose.

[fiza]

It is recorded on each MOT so they could look online and see if they really wanted to. There are so many apps now that allow you to check for free.

[crc-ict]

Checking on the MOTs isn't reliable though.

 

I've seen MOTs where the tester has made a mistake in recording the miles (obviously so, like adding an extra digit, creating a vehicle with something like 750,000 miles recorded!), and there will be cases where cars have new speedometers fitted etc.

[CAM]

Mileage has always been on car insurance as long as I remember. My premium went up after moving and going from a 6 mile per day commute to 44 miles.

 

All you do is work out the distance on Google Maps, double it to account for return journeys then add a bit more on top for non-commuting use.

[Gibbo]

I found a bug in the mileage section of online insurance quotes which made it cheaper.

 

Mileage is (or was) always UPTO xxxxxx miles.

 

I always did my insurance upto 12,000 miles. One year I was doing more so I changed it to 14,000. The premium went down by £20.

 

I changed it to 16,000. It went down again. Same at 18,000 miles. But then it started the premium creep back up.

[sted]

im sure car insurance quotes and just powered by random number generators at times

[synaesthesia]

I was told a couple of years ago the threshold was up to 6000, then 10,000 so it didn't actually matter what numbers you put inbetween, wouldn't affect the premium; but some companies can be right dodgy gits (see Hastings and their multitude of sister companies) and just like to be a pain in the backside to prove a point to you!

[rich_tech]

I thought you always put more than you need to at that part, I tell mine 22000 miles, I do a little over 19/20,000 miles a year here (80 miles a day around trip to work), for some reason here, my insurance renewal is the week before christmas, so its extra painful

[JATSO]

I always tot up my milage that I do for work and add a 1000 on and add 3000 for personal use. I have to have business cover because I claim my work mileage back between sites.

My mileage is about 11000 per year all up.

[cobra427col]

I'll throw this into the mix... I guestimated 8,000 miles a year on my bike when I bought it new.. so far my insurance co havent checked as it's not needed an MOT being less than 3 years old... (they never even asked on renewal)

[MatthewL]

For years I was 12000 or there about's was never questions, when I came to renew a few years ago I upped mine to 30000 and surprisingly it didn't affect me.

 

Insurance is just a put the numbers in and see what results you get, they screw you over and you have to play them. I've pretty good at it now and tend to get what I want. Still expensive but better options.

[DanTheLacky]

I thought you always put more than you need to at that part, I tell mine 22000 miles, I do a little over 19/20,000 miles a year here (80 miles a day around trip to work), for some reason here, my insurance renewal is the week before christmas, so its extra painful

Mine is December too, I get paid on the 25th every month... guess when they take hundred of pounds out my account.

 

I always put a few thousand extra on my insurance just in case, can just imagine going to claim and them saying "apologies but you have done 10,002 miles, you are only insured for 10,000".

[difinity]

I've been asked for my mileage every time I renew.

I was careless enough to have a minor bump last year.

I rang my insurance who rang the DVLA who then joined the conversation to check my license was in order. There were no checks or questions asked about my mileage.