More insurance increases

[wombat88]

I wrote recently about a big hike in insurance premiums for our little motor boat...now I have the renewal in for our dinghy.

Towergate have sent me a renewal that shows a jump from £18.50 to £38.13 including a customer service charge of £15.

It would have been nice if they had explained why, it is not a lot of money but I supposed I am forced to go to the bother of shopping around....

 

[smithy]

I had a big increase with Towergate too, they told me it was down to the large number of claims others had made. I shopped around but most companies didn't want to know because my boat was over 40 years old or they wanted a survey. I ended up with little choice but to go with them again.

 

[dunedin]

I wrote recently about a big hike in insurance premiums for our little motor boat...now I have the renewal in for our dinghy.

Towergate have sent me a renewal that shows a jump from £18.50 to £38.13 including a customer service charge of £15.

It would have been nice if they had explained why, it is not a lot of money but I supposed I am forced to go to the bother of shopping around....

For the insurer there surely must be a minimum premium needed simply to cover the admin costs of sale, setup, payment, insurance tax etc - before any money can be put aside into a fund to cover claim costs. I would guess that £18.50 is way below even these admin costs. I doubt if £38 even covers these costs.
To be a realistic model for an insurer the minimum premium probably needs to be £50 + actual insurance premium + taxes.

 

[DownWest]

Think your self lucky. Over here, my ins for a 15ft sailing dinghy went from €50 to €250 in 10 yrs. I don't think the rate of inflation was near that. The same year it hit 250, our house ins went up by 20%. No explanation and I have never claimed on any insurance. Told them to get lost ( which is not so easy here) Moved to another firm with considerable savings.

 

[colind3782]

I seem to be bucking the trend here as my premium with GJW has dropped by some £30!

 

[Chiara’s slave]

All our insurances have remained much the same. Our biggest one is the Dragonfly. That went down £10 on 1st renewal. As we have got ourselves a 10% NCD, I suppose that is an increase. We don’t feel too hard done by over it.

 

[ashtead]

Not certain I understand what a customer service charge from a broker is about when they receive large % commission from the insurer for acting for you. I would be tempted to challenge them unless it’s for say credit costs or a mid term change. Roughly30 %of your premium goes to the broker . Remember costs are likely also to have increased though due to increased FOS levies, more FCA focus on customer outcomes leading to increased compliance costs. It really makes little difference as to process for distribution as to premium even with vanilla products so often brokers will want to turn business away by increasing those commission charges up to 50% which is what TG are doing here.

 

[Adios]

For the insurer there surely must be a minimum premium needed simply to cover the admin costs of sale, setup, payment, insurance tax etc - before any money can be put aside into a fund to cover claim costs. I would guess that £18.50 is way below even these admin costs. I doubt if £38 even covers these costs.
To be a realistic model for an insurer the minimum premium probably needs to be £50 + actual insurance premium + taxes.

I insure a sailing dinghy and a SIB through Craft insure i think for £39. Its all automated which keeps the cost down for the reasons you say. They insist on you declaring you have a full survey for anything over 23ft and don't insure anything over 50 years old. Towergate insist on a survey over 25ft.

 

[MoodySabre]

My GJW went done by £30 too. As said, there has to be a minimum. £23 and and a fee of £15 sounds rock bottom.