Hagerty Traditional Auto insurance -- A directory of Their own Benefits as well as Restrictions

Extractor auto insurance from the niche insurance provider offers lots of advantages of individuals people that personal as well as generate the muscle mass vehicle, vintage vehicle, or even additional traditional or even unique curiosity automobile. These types of guidelines provide far better protection with regard to less cash than the usual regular car insurance plan. There's a great deal to think about, although, when you compare extractor auto insurance businesses. Every organization offers its advantages as well as drawbacks, which is essential that you discover the insurance provider that provides the very best match for the scenario.

Hagerty Traditional Auto insurance may be providing niche extractor automobile insurance coverage because 1991, as well as is among the biggest and many well-known extractor auto insurance businesses. They're vehicle enthusiasts on their own, so that they realize the actual insurance coverage requirements associated with additional traditional vehicle proprietors. Their own guidelines provide:

-- Decided Worth protection -- you obtain the entire covered quantity in case of an overall total reduction -- An array of deductibles, through $0 or more -- Solitary legal responsibility cost, that will save a person cash about the high quality for those who have several traditional automobile covered -- In-house statements administration -- the majority of statements tend to be dealt with from Hagerty with a extractor auto insurance professional, 7 days per week through 04 via Oct -- Repair center of the option -- you're able to pick the store you need to manage any kind of maintenance -- Immediate brand new buy protection -- a brand new add-on for your selection is actually instantly protected as much as $50, 000 -- Vehicle display healthcare compensation -- customers as well as their own members of the family obtain pre-determined healthcare protection when they tend to be hurt in a vehicle display

Hagerty Traditional Auto insurance offers unique guidelines with regard to protection throughout an energetic repair, with regard to business-use recommendation, protection throughout abroad delivery, as well as international legal responsibility as well as home harm for your vehicle for an occasion abroad. You will get extra protection for the auto resources as well as collectibles, extra components, as well as motorbike security gear protection. Hagerty also offers an automobile membership legal responsibility plan.

The actual optionally available Hagerty In addition plan provides much more advantages because of its people, such as crisis roadside help as well as flatbed towing protection, the membership towards the Hagerty journal, as well as use of the actual "Ask Hagerty" concierge support. They're energetic promoters upon legal problems associated with the actual extractor vehicle pastime, along with a part of the actual regular membership costs visit assistance The actual Enthusiasts Basis, which supplies scholarships in order to businesses trying to protect the actual pastime via training along with other paths.

Hagerty comes with a few limitations, although, upon that as well as exactly what qualifies for his or her insurance coverage. Motorists along with several or even 2 small visitors infractions or even mishaps previously 3-6 many years might not be eligible. The automobile can be used on the restricted foundation, likely to automotive-related occasions or even an intermittent enjoyment generate. Should you generate your own traditional vehicle frequently or even really much, you may be much better away thinking about another niche insurance provider that does not location limitations how a lot a person generate your vehicle. Like the majority of others, your automobile should be saved inside a completely surrounded as well as secured storage you should definitely being used. As well as like the majority of additional extractor auto insurance businesses, you'll want the "daily driver" that's covered inside your title along with your own traditional vehicle.

Insurance plans are for sale to the majority of vintage as well as traditional vehicles, road supports, muscle mass vehicles, army automobiles, vintage fireplace vehicles, tractors, motorbikes, plus some reproduction vehicles. Nevertheless, Hagerty doesn't provide insurance coverage with regard to Cobra replications ., off-road automobiles, numerous Pro-Street vehicles, any kind of automobile designed with nitrous, dune buggies, industrial automobiles, or even motorbikes which are altered with regard to overall performance. These people perform provide guidelines with regard to a few of the "late design classics", unique, unique curiosity, or even restricted manufacturing automobiles, so long as they're becoming handled like a vintage and therefore are powered on the restricted foundation.

Hagerty Traditional Auto insurance is a good choice if you as well as your automobile fulfill their own skills and also you do not generate your vehicle prolonged miles every year. I'll quickly end up being including content articles upon additional extractor auto insurance businesses, along with various skills as well as limitations. Check out my personal additional content articles, as well as ensure that you pick the traditional auto insurance organization which suits your requirements the very best.

With regard to more in depth home elevators exactly what to consider inside a traditional car insurance, go to United states Traditional Auto insurance. For any listing from the best traditional auto insurance businesses, visit Traditional Auto insurance Businesses.

Keith Farren is definitely an ASE Licensed Grasp Specialist having a BALONEY running a business Management, an associate at work level within Auto Technologies, as well as more than two decades associated with encounter within the auto business.

Grundy Traditional Auto insurance -- Their own Benefits as well as Restrictions

Niche insurance coverage from the traditional auto insurance organization provides numerous advantages for individuals who personal as well as generate extractor vehicles. Businesses which focus on vintage auto insurance will offer much better protection along with reduce rates than the usual regular car insurance organization, however the much better protection as well as reduce rates include a few limitations. There are plenty associated with facts to consider whenever selecting a traditional car insurance supplier, so it's essential that you research your options and discover the actual vintage car insurance supplier that's the greatest match for you personally.

Grundy Globally is actually 1 insurance provider which focuses on extractor auto insurance. They've been running a business because 1947 within Horsham, PENNSYLVANIA simply northern associated with Philadelphia. Because their own starting, Grundy Traditional Auto insurance offers protected more than 1. 5 zillion extractor automobiles, plus they are among the quickest developing traditional car insurance businesses. The dog owner is really a vehicle extractor as well as restorer themself, getting received honours from a number of the actual main extractor vehicle occasions in america. Their participation within the pastime assists him or her to comprehend the actual desires as well as requirements associated with additional vehicle enthusiasts.

Grundy Traditional Auto insurance may be the inventor from the Decided Worth plan, where the insurance provider and also the new driver arranged a good decided worth about the automobile prior to the plan is actually started. When there is an overall total reduction, the vehicle proprietor gets the entire worth from the vehicle, rather than exactly what the actual insurance provider chooses the vehicle had been really worth following the truth. Grundy may guarantee any kind of 12 months automobile, actually past due design vehicles so long as they're employed for display, pastime as well as enjoyment reasons just. A number of other extractor car insurance businesses is only going to create guidelines with regard to automobiles of the particular grow older or even old.

Grundy just utilizes underwriters by having an THE. MICHAEL. Greatest score associated with A+ or more, meaning the businesses are extremely steady monetarily. They provide legal responsibility as much as 1 zillion bucks, and also have just one legal responsibility cost with regard to enthusiasts along with several automobile. Grundy's vintage car insurance guidelines possess numerous built-in protection benefits, including towing as well as work costs, vehicle display healthcare compensation, automated 30-day protection with regard to brand new purchases, as well as protection with regard to losing extra components. These people have "Trip Interruption" protection with regard to expenses sustained from the break down in route to some display (such because transport, accommodations, as well as dinner expenses). 1 function which Grundy offers that lots of other people don't is actually their own "Inflation Guard", that instantly boosts the quantity your automobile is actually covered with regard to through 4% every year.

Such as every other classic auto insurance supplier, Grundy offers a few limitations. Your vehicle should be saved in the secured storage you should definitely being used; you'll want a regular car owner automobile for every certified car owner inside your home as well as the traditional automobile; and also the vehicle should be within superb situation. The automobile ought to just supply with regard to extractor actions, however 1 function which models Grundy aside from a number of other traditional vintage car insurance companies is actually which they don't possess a usage restriction. Numerous vintage traditional auto insurance businesses possess limitations which range from 1, 000 kilometers as much as 6, 000 kilometers each year, however along with Grundy Countrywide you are able to generate the vehicle in order to as numerous faraway vehicle exhibits while you such as without having stressing regarding going above the annual usage restrict.

Grundy offers specific insurance coverage with regard to repair stores. It offers Decided Worth protection for that Garagekeepers part of the actual plan, rather than the Cash Worth protection which additional insurance firms provide. Given that they do not provide this particular plan in order to popular crash restore stores, the actual rates tend to be less than they'd end up being for that frequently insufficient safety the niche store will get from the regular insurance carrier.

Grundy Traditional Auto insurance includes a great deal to provide for that vehicle extractor. Regardless of whether you'll need muscle mass auto insurance, vintage auto insurance, or even extractor auto insurance for any past due design niche vehicle, Grundy can offer a good Decided Worth plan which will in all probability meet your requirements. Nevertheless, they're one of a variety of traditional car insurance companies available. Perform a few investigation upon a number of different niche insurance firms to obtain the one which is actually befitting a person.

For more information regarding extractor auto insurance as well as exactly what to consider inside a traditional car insurance organization, go to United states Traditional Auto insurance. For any listing evaluating typically the most popular extractor car insurance companies, click Traditional Auto insurance Businesses. You may even want to consider going to Traditional Auto insurance Estimates.

Keith Farren is definitely an ASE Licensed Grasp Specialist having a Bachelor's associated with Technology running a business Management, an associate at work level within Auto Technologies, as well as more than two decades encounter within the auto business.

New classic car insurance proposals are a step in the right direction

CLASSIC car connoisseurs of the younger variety are being promised some good news by a company specialising in insurance cover for their prized machines.

Footman James announced at the Classic Industry Forum, held this week at the Heritage Motor Centre in Gaydon, that it's come up with a new set of terms and conditions for enthusiasts aged between 17 and 23, which aim to make the dream of owning and running a classic car more accessible to genuine petrolheads.

Andy Fairchild, the company's managing director, said: "We have been working hard with our insurance partners to establish a range of criteria that will assist us identify the true classic enthusiast.  Young drivers who purchase classic vehicles as a means of obtaining cheaper insurance are not, in our opinion, true classic enthusiasts and a risk that insurers will not take on – a decision that we fully support."

"One of the ways of establishing true enthusiasts, in our opinion, is down to whether they are members of a car club.  We have, therefore, selected this as the primary qualifying criteria for the product and as a result, the product will initially be available to members of pre-selected clubs only."

As someone who's struggled with classic car policies before, and known of a case where a young enthusiast's quote for a classic Mini shot up from £600 to an eyewatering four grand overnight due to a company's change of underwriter, I'm supportive of any efforts to make classic cars more accessible to a new generation of genuine enthusiasts, rather than just cost-cutting youngsters who see classics as a way of cutting corners on their car insurance.

So, what's at stake for young enthusiasts? For the new terms and conditions, which come into effect next month, the company say enthusiasts must meet the following criteria:

•     The owner must be a member of one of the pre-selected clubs

•     The car must have been manufactured in or before 1985

•     The owner must have use of or own a second vehicle for everyday use.

•     The owner must limit their mileage to 3000 or 5000 miles per year.

•     The owner must have a maximum of one non-fault claim or minor conviction.

•     The car must be parked off the road or garaged

Which seems fair enough (although how that'll help one girl I know, who owns a 1972 Mini as her only car but who otherwise meets all of Footman's criteria, I've no idea), particularly as it'd stop the scourge of "crash-for-cash" one insurance expert told me about - teenagers buying a classic car on the cheap, crashing it deliberately and then hammering the insurance companies for the resultant compensation. Classic car insurance, logically, should be for classic car enthusiasts - people who cherish their old cars, no matter how old the owners themselves are.

However, the acid test will be whether what Footman - and, no doubt, other classic insurers when they inevitably follow suit - are proposing actually translates into cheaper and more accessible cover for genuine classic car fans who are being hammered through no real fault of their own.

Classic cars are a passion which we twentysomethings are happy to pay out for, but not when it's over the odds.

Are you a young classic car owner who's struggling to get cover? Let us know what you think of the proposals by sending an email to david.simister@hotmail.co.uk or by leaving a comment below...

My classic car insurance nightmare

ALL I got from the world of car insurance was the ambient noise of a call centre. That and a helping of Fleetwood Mac after being put on hold again.

I've written before about the mental mindfield that is insuring your motor. I moaned about how a company refused to accept two claim-free policies held consecutively over 24 months as being a legit two years' no claims. I've pondered why it is premiums only ever seem to go up, and I've reported that even the Government have probed the murky workings of this strange industry.

So I wasn't surprised when I discovered the renewal quote for the classic car policy covering my MGB GT had gone up. Again.

Even though I'd been tootling to and from car shows for the best part of two years without so much as a scratch the cost of a year's cover had gone up by £30 from last year, which was itself £30 more than the year before that. I know full well that classic policies don't accrue a No Claims Bonus in the same way as your run-of-the-mill policy would - that's part of the reason why it's so much cheaper - and £200 a year's hardly a deal breaker, but in the interests of getting even a slightly better deal I thought I'd do a bit of shopping around.

First call was to my insurer's chief rival, who said they were sure they'd be able to find me a better deal and immediately fired off the questionnaire you always get when phoning for cover. A quick blast of Fleetwood Mac after being put on hold later and they had the answer; it was £150 dearer. Not surprisingly, I politely declined.

But here's the interesting bit - rather than sound apologetic and let me get on with my Saturday afternoon, they put me through to another insurance company, who gave me the standard insurance questionnaire a second time, and when they couldn't find me a quote, they put me through to another insurance company. It was like a bizarre game of Pass The Parcel, where someone racking up a huge phone bill has to be passed around before the music - Fleetwood Mac, which seems to be the soft rock band of choice for people putting you on hold - stopped playing.

After 35 minutes on the phone, I was getting just a little bit annoyed. So you can imagine how I felt when insurance salesman number four offered me "a competitive quote" of just £520. I'll say that again - a "competitive" quote of just £320 more than I'd started with. I was furious, particularly when I pointed to him out my renewal quote was less than half the price of what he was offering.

"Is it really?," he replied sarcastically.

Don't get me wrong. I've nothing against the principle of car insurance - it's a legal requirement and you can, after all, never be too careful - but the way the industry operates makes little to no sense. These are the same people who refused to acknowledge my better half's six years of faultless driving because it wasn't British enough, and the same ones who upped the price of covering a mate's souped-up Mini from £600 to an eye-watering four grand because they'd changed their underwriter. They're the same people who once asked another pal for £8,500 to insure a Ford Capri worth less than £500 when he bought it, so it shouldn't really surprise me that, in their eyes at least, a £520 quote is "competitive" to someone who's been offered exactly the same thing for £200.

I couldn't help but conclude the UK's car insurance industry isn't a group of people or companies but just a single mysterious machine, bereft of common sense. It made no difference to them that I'm a member of the Institute of Advanced Motorists, have four years of No Claims Bonus on my everyday motor and only ever use the MGB for smoking to shows and back. As far as they were concerned I was a journalist (one of the highest risk professions there is), a twentysomething (one of the most dangerous ages to be) and a male (which used to mean I was the most dangerous gender, until a European court ruling forced them to think otherwise).

It finally came to a head last night, when yet another insurance company rang me up, didn't even give me enough time to tell them I was in work and would they mind calling me later on, and immediately put me on hold for another helping of Fleetwood Mac's finest.

I hung up.

Incidentally I'm a huge fan of Fleetwood Mac - Rumours is one of my favourite albums. I just resent the car insurance world using Don't Stop and Dreams as their phone holding tunes of choice...

Owning a Jaguar XJR is a stupid idea, no matter how cheap the insurance

THE woman from Confused sounded a bit, well, confused. When would I be interested in taking up insurance on a supercharged V8 Jaguar?

It's very nearly November, which in the Life On Cars household means enduring the expensive ordeal of insuring both a £300 Rover and a Mazda MX-5 at roughly the same time. With each year of driving around and not claiming for the cost of a crumpled heap of metal in a hedge my insurance has got a little bit cheaper, but I'm still paying more the cost of a year's insurance for the ancient Rover than the cost of the car itself.
Slightly depressed by that realisation, I turned to that opium of car enthusiasts, eBay, and immediately came up with a far more suitable banger. All 3.2 litres of a Jaguar XJ8, and mine for £750. I very nearly headed for the Buy It Now button, but then I clocked the wheelarch rot and a service history with more gaps than a jeans shop. So I moved on to the next offering.

Big mistake - I'd found a tidy T-reg Jaguar XJR, which back in the day would have set golfers back a cool £51,000 but was here, in the great Arthur Daley forecourt of cyberspace, for £1,750. True, it had 124,000 miles on the clock but it looked to be in good nick, and the thought of having 370bhp at my leather-lined, wood-trimmed disposal seemed tempting enough to look past the prospect of getting less than 20 to the gallon. It is, Jag people will know, a fabulous car; refined and graceful enough to wear the Big Cat badge with pride, but blessed with a 4.0 litre V8, beefy alloy wheels and sports trim and suspension for added zestfulness. Petrolhead heaven, basically.

Drunk with delight, I idiotically went to an insurance comparision website to find out how much it'd cost a twentysomething male working in journalism - which in insurance terms is about as dangerous a profession as they come - to make sure it was beyond my aspirations of automotive avarice. It wasn't. Someone as hamfisted as me could insure Coventry's finest, fully comp, for a shade over a grand, which unlike the Rover is less than the car itself cost.

I woke up the following morning and knocked the idea on the head, having realised in the cold light of day that having a supercharged Jag outside the house would be a stupid, expensive idea.

The only problem is, the insurance companies keep ringing me up now and suggesting otherwise!

UPDATE: An earlier version of this article included a picture of the special edition XJR 100 rather than the standard XJR. This has since been amended.

More training for young drivers is a good idea, but then so is cheaper insurance

WORDSWORTH might have written things differently if he were reincarnated as 17-year-old in 2012, trying to get fully comp on a secondhand Fiesta. Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very expensive.

Impoverished young poets need not worry though, for help is at hand. That august body, the Association of British Insurers, has come up with some new suggestions to stop 17-25 year olds, who make up an eighth of Britain's motorists but of a third of those killed in car crashes. They're also, by and large, the most likely drivers to be a bit skint and yet the ones who get hammered the most by the singing man from the Go Compare ads.

In a nutshell, the ABI would like to ban intensive learner driving courses, insist that all youngsters spend at least a year at driving school, with the option to start at 16-and-a-bit, and that for the first six months they aren't allowed to take their mates out with them. Oh, and the amount of alcohol they'll be allowed to have their system will be absolutely none. Zilch. Not a drop.

Having vivid memories of being driven by a tailgating teenager in a cream-crackered Peugeot 206 down the M6 on a snowy day one winter, I can completely understand why the ABI are so keen on bringing in measures which effectively protect younger drivers from themselves. I'm old and wise enough to understand the benefits of things like defensive driving, but I'm still young enough to recall some of the extortionate figures insurance companies asked me when I tried to get a quote for a Mini 1000 which could barely crack seventy.

I reckon it's got to work both ways. Sure, I'm all for 17-year-olds learning more about their driving - in fact, chuck in a few Scandinavian-style lessons about car control while we're at it - but those who pass what'd be a far harder test should be rewarded with realistic premiums they can actually afford. To be fair to the ABI, they say they'd like to reward younger drivers with lower premiums, but really they should be actively encouraging it rather than passively saying how nice it'd be. Carrot, stick, and all that.

It'd be good to see new drivers spending the money they're spending now on ballooning car insurance on, say, decent tyres. The line "I understeered lonely as a cloud" doesn't really have a ring to it...

2nd most brilliant article I've read in months, another from Dep - O Magazine... "When, what and how much was your first car? Why that car? How much did it cost to insure?" by Gerald Hughes

Excepted from http://www.dep-o.co.uk/features/do-you-remember-the-first-time/

"Our fondly remembered first cars were notable for a couple of things – even at the time, they were old, decrepit and most importantly, cheap.

Ten year old cars then were not like ten year old cars now. I would quite happily jump behind the wheel of a 1996 Mondeo tomorrow and drive the length and breadth of the country. In the mid Eighties, you wouldn’t jump into any decade old motor for fear of falling through the rust compromised floor, and any trip was only to be tackled when fully equipped with a tool kit, gallon cans of oil and water, and plenty of second-hand spares chucked in the boot. And on the back seat.

Back in the days of dodgy mullets, snow wash denim and George Michael being straight, we both found ourselves driving cars that are now regarded as proper ‘classics’, but then, they were old bangers that no-one wanted. Both of us had a budget of about £300, and we both ended up getting the cars (I paid about £120 for my 1973 FIAT 850D at auction, his auntie gave him a MkI Escort Estate of similar vintage) and insuring them for the money we’d saved. Sounds incredibly cheap, but we were both broke and canny. But to put it in context, my brother had paid £300 the year before for a very tidy, MoT’d MkI Escort two-door. Read it and weep.

Fast forward to the future. The modern equivalents of our first cars are in a different league – they handle and brake better, rust tends to be cosmetic, and even the most basic will be loaded with driver comforts, security devices and safety aids. Alright, plastic bumpers tend not to wear the years too well and they will no doubt go a lot faster. But Gaffer tape and a little restraint are wonderful things. It’s also interesting to note, that because of the way society has changed and our expectations have altered, the cars now are almost as cheap – pick up the local rag or spend ten minutes on eBay, and I reckon £500 will get you a very usable car.

So we get to the heart of my dilemma. I’m 17. I have £1000. I buy my £500 car (Ka, 106, Cinquecento, Nova/Corsa, Micra…). What are my chances of getting it insured with the remainder of my budget…? Ridiculous? OK, double the budget and try again. We’re not even getting close. And my question – why and when did the world change so much that first time or younger drivers have to find these frankly ridiculous sums to insure their cars?"

I want to put emphasis on the fact that the insurance for these better quality and safer cars is quadruple the cost for dodgy old rust buckets with no airbags, no power steering, no power anti lock brakes, no crumple zones, no safety bumpers... why is that? Just my thought, not part of the article I found.

Read the rest, and check out the comments too http://www.dep-o.co.uk/features/do-you-remember-the-first-time/

AAA car insurance wants you to get a quote, and will enter you in a free gas giveaway ($15,000 worth)

From my experience, and not as a customer because I have Allstate insurance, AAA is the 2nd best for cost, 1st for service, and I have no doubt will beat Geico, State Farm, and Farmers... they already proved that those other companies are more expensive. No one has proved to me to have better customer service for on the phone or roadside.

http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2012/06/if-you-want-to-save-money-on-car.html for the posts I've done that show the different amounts that car insurance companies quoted me.

A quote takes about 10 minutes, and they will want a phone number, make one up. An email, make one up. You will need to have insurance as of the time you call for a quote, because you have to tell them what you currently have as coverage limits, and getting a factual comparison isn't going to happen if you are not insured... all insurance companies penalize you for not paying some insurance company. They don't care who gets your money, they insist that you pay for insurance... because if you aren't cuurently paying someone, you are likely to be a bad prospect for paying for a new company to cover you.

So, get a recent insurance coverage bill from your car insurance, and try for the free gas giveaway. It'll take 10 minutes, and won't create email spam or phone calls. Just keep in mind to not give your phone number or email, make one up or give your ex's, or your in laws.

It's official. Car insurance is a rip off

AN MP and Life On Cars reader described excessive industry charges for car insurance as ‘dispicable and absolutely criminal'.

Southport MP John Pugh said he was calling for residents who'd been hit hard by excessively quotes and premiums to get in touch with him after he was shocked by the findings of a survey by the Office of Fair Trading found that insurers and garages were working to drive up prices and that the cost of getting cover had gone up in some cases by as much as 40%.

Mr Pugh said this week: “This sort of behaviour is despicable at the best of times, but in a recession when people are struggling to make ends meet, it’s absolutely criminal. "I've heard tales of courtesy cars being provided for a man who broke both legs in an accident and people who have been out of the country on holiday because it pays insurers to do a deal on with hire firms. There is clearly something rotten in the state of the car insurance market. The ordinary motorist is picking up the tab and it is about time action was taken.

"I would therefore like to ask Southport residents to send me their car insurance ”horror stories“ to submit as evidence to the Competition Commission. This is a great opportunity to clean up the car insurance market, and the more damning the weight of evidence the better."

Mr Pugh also cited the example of one of his constituents being charged £26,000 to insure a secondhand Citroen Saxo, despite the car itself being worth £1,000. The commission, led by Merseyside MP Louise Ellman, said that following the results of the OFT investigation that she was now looking forward to the Competition Commission working to reform the car insurance industry, and said evidence suggested that insurers, claims management firms, solicitors were exploiting motorists and inflating premiums.

"We found evidence to support the view that various features of the private motor insurance market prevent, restrict or distort adequate competition in ways that do not deliver a fair deal to motorists. The OFT’s provisional decision to refer the highly dysfunctional UK market in private motor insurance and related goods or services to the Competition Commission for full investigation is a major step forward.

"Like the OFT, we found evidence to support the view that various features of the private motor insurance market prevent, restrict or distort adequate competition in ways that do not deliver a fair deal to motorists. I will propose to the Transport Committee that we participate in the consultation announced today to make the strongest possible case for the referral. I now expect car insurers and the other firms involved to co-operate fully with all stages of this process."

If you live in the Southport area, MP John Pugh would like to hear your car insurance horror stories. Share them with us by sending an email to david.simister@champnews.com or leave a comment below, and we'll pass on any correspondence to John Pugh MP. Please include your contact details.

A FEW tips on how to avoid getting stung by excessive car insurance quotes:

 • Shop around and don't go for the first quote you find. With plenty of price comparision websites offering quotes from a wide variety of insurers, you can avoid paying over the odds.

 • Sharpen up your skills. Motoring organisations like the Institute of Advanced Motorists often offer their own insurance schemes for those who pass safer driving courses, meaning you'll not only be less likely to have an accident but quids in too.

 • Swallow your pride and avoid sporty, high-powered cars if you're keen to save on insurance costs. In the 1980s there was a long-running joke that GTI stood for Guaranteed Theft Item, but it had its basis in truth. Lots of people like hot hatches, sports cars and off-roaders... including car thieves.

 • Consider whether you really need to claim. If your car's only lightly damaged, there's a chance the rise in your premium if you claim will actually be more than the cost of getting it repaired at your expense.

 • Tell your insurer too much rather than too little - they're often able to offer you discounts on things by offering you specialised policies, such as if you own more than one car. Oh, and don't lie - insurers will often refuse to stump up if they find any discrepancies.

 • If you're smitten with an older model consider a classic car policy, which have more stringent limits on mileage but can save you money compared to more conventional insurance.

 • Don't insure it in your sister's or your girlfriend's name. Not only is this technically fraud but the savings women have been getting over men are set to outlawed later this year anyway, after an EU judge argued that female quotes being cheaper than male ones was a form of gender discrimination.

 • Don't pay monthly unless you have to. It might seem more manageable but in most cases it'll actually cost you more, so you might as well stump up and pay it off it one go.

 • Be alarmed - not with the cost of car insurance, but in terms of how secure your motor is. Fitting a device like a Tracker or beefing up your car security might be pricey, but often insurers will offer you cheaper insurance as a result.

 • Don't be a journalist. Reporters, and other professions like estate agents, sales reps, and entertainers are all considered more likely to claim, and have to pay more as a result.

Why using ANPR to catch out insurance cheats at petrol stations will never work

CONFESSION time, then, chaps and chapettes. Who out of this week's readers is driving around without their car insurance being up to scratch?

Apparently, just under 10% of the region's motorists are driving around without bothering with the pesky business of paying for cover, which means statistically at least one of you hasn't gone got any. After all, insurance is unbelievably expensive these days. It's also almost completely unfathomable and sold to you by an opera tenor who unites people from all walks of life because they all, without exception, would love nothing more than to have him removed from our TV screens for good.

Car insurance is confusing and expensive and as a result loads of you just can't be bothered with it. Even the Government, as I've mentioned previously, realise it.

Yet Whitehall's latest idea to crack down on the uninsured drivers - which I'm absolutely not one of, by the way - isn't going to work because while it's good in principle, it's got more holes than one of Jamie Oliver's colanders. As a bit of a self-confessed Dragons' Den addict, I just know that if it was some young business boffin's invention it'd be shot to pieces with just a handful of snide remarks from Duncan Bannatyne and a bad joke from Peter Jones. However, it's the Government who are suggesting it, so I will at least try to take it seriously.

In essence, they're on about fitting ANPR cameras, which can recognise car numberplates, to every petrol station in the country in a bid to spot uninsured cars as they pull in to fill up. The technology, which already works a treat on police cars, will then automatically tell the petrol pumps not to give the offending driver any fuel. And presumably give Plod a bell at the same time.

It's a great idea in principle but - Bannatyne mode activated - it will be horrendously expensive in practice, and it'd have to fitted to each and every one of Britain's 8,000 or so filling stations across the land. It'd also encourage even more crooks to clone car numberplates, siphoning would shoot up, and I can just see the court case where the one law-abiding driver, who the cameras clock by mistake, successfully sues for defamation after the system insinuates he's an insurance cheat.

It is, for all those reasons and a couple of others I can't squeeze into one Life On Cars column, a badly-thought out waste of what is basically YOUR money.

I'm out.

The great British insurance ripoff

LIFE ON CARS has been innundated this week with responses from readers who say they are being crippled by the soaring cost of car insurance.

Last week we reported on a Commons enquiry which has been set up to investigate the rising cost of premiums, particularly for younger drivers, and residents from across the region have got in touch to share their thoughts on the issue.

Maureen Gladhill reported difficulties in getting quotes for her two daughters, and said:

"I feel that it is onerous and extremely difficult to pass a driving test nowadays and yet the greedy insurers still penalise young drivers, I feel so sorry for our young people, hammered with extortionate tuition fees, no job prospects and hammered by the insurance industry, it is about time for a parliamentary enquiry.

"I expect the insurers will claim the amount of claims (fraudulent or otherwise) account for premium increases, but I know that the government has tightened up on no win no fee with the new insurance portal system, so come on."

Last week a Transport Select Committee was set up in Westminster to look at the cost of car insurance, armed with new research which suggests a whopping 96% of younger drivers feel they are being "priced off the road" due to high insurance premiums.

A reader from Maghull, who did not wish to be named, agreed with that view and said:

"I fear these insurance companies are seeing an easy target within the driving community not only with young drivers but all drivers in general.

"All in all its a complete rip off. Not only for being young, male, female the car you drive but also dependent where you live. You are discriminated for where you live which I also feel is totally unacceptable. It's a joke and although i dont agree with having no insurance and driving around, I can see why it's an option. The insurance companies need a strip tearing from them and told to drop their prices."

The car insurance industry responded to the Parliamentary enquiry by saying that the rise in claims from personal injury lawsuits and an increase in uninsured driving had helped to drive costs up.

Otto Thoresen, director general of the Association of British Insurers, said:

"Rising claims costs from personal injury claims, excessive legal costs, insurance fraud and uninsured driving, coupled with lower investment returns in recent years, have unfortunately led to rising motor insurance bills for many customers.

"In fact the motor insurance sector has not been profitable for the last sixteen years because the amount paid out in claims and expenses has been greater than that received in premiums."

Younger motorists have reported paying premiums which are hundreds - if not thousands - of pounds in order to get insured, which has led to worries being discussed at the committee that increasing numbers of motorists are resorting to driving with no insurance at all.

Sue Bruce was another parent who complained of crippling prices to insure her children, and told Life On Cars:

"I have paid £3,500 for my 18 year old son to be on the road in this Citroen C1 which incidentally is not much more than the car cost. I do appreciate that the insurance companies have to cover themselves for the small amount of young people that do drive erratic on the roads, but when my daughter passed her test the insurance was £1,900 which is a big difference.

"Maybe these insurance companies. could come up with some kind of scheme where they would accept the driver paying monthly then earning some kind of a no claims bonus month by month therefore making it more affordable for young drivers to get on the road."

Is car insurance for the young too expensive?

A PARLIAMENTARY committee led by a Liverpool MP has come to the same conclusion most motorists already know; that car insurance is crippingly expensive for younger drivers.

This week the Transport Select Committee has reopened its inquiry into the cost of car insurance, armed with new research which suggests a whopping 96% of younger drivers feel they are being “priced off the road” due to high insurance premiums.

Liverpool Riverside MP Louise Ellman, the committee's chairperson, said:

“I am extremely concerned about these results, which show that young drivers think they are being priced off the road because of the high cost of motor insurance. It is shocking that so many young drivers are considering breaking the law – by driving without insurance or changing the details they provide to insurers – in order to get a cheaper premium.

"It's revealing that most young drivers are also unaware that many insurers receive referral fees in order to deal with claims they make. This highlights why the committee called for referral fees to be made more transparent in its report on the cost of motor insurance earlier this year."

However, insurers continue to charge younger drivers higher prices than their older counterparts, and point to high accident rates to justify them - Department for Transport statistics show that although people under 25 make up just 12% of those on the roads, they're involved in more than a quarter of the accidents.

Are you a younger driver being hit by the cost of insuring your car? Or do you think the accident statistics justify the prices? Share your thoughts by sending an email to david.simister@champnews.com

Classic cars make financial sense. Honest

THIS week, I'm contemplating starting my midlife crisis at least a decade early. How young - or old - do you have to be to own a flash convertible?

Ironically, I've been pondering this dilemma, pint in hand, because the cost of driving a family hatchback around is soaring. Petrol, the last time I looked, was a scary £1.36 a litre, but the real rise is the one which doesn't get reported very often. The cost of car insurance, whisper it quietly, has rocketed over the past two years.

There is method in the madness, and I know this because I already own one old sports car. A year's fully comp in my everyday runaround, an elderly Rover 200, is £700, which is twice what I paid for the car. Logically, you'd reason the cost of me running around in my MGB, which is faster, more valuable and infinitely more treacherous on a wet roundabout, would be in the thousands for a dangerous twentysomething like me. But it isn't. It's £150 a year.

Why? Because the MG's covered by a specialist classic car policy, which limits me to 6,000 miles a year (what I'd usually drive anyway) and classic car owners are considered by the insurance industry not to be throttle-happy hedonists, but careful drivers who lock their toys away in garages and trailer them to shows. The upshot is that the cost of normal car insurance has shot up and classic insurance hasn't.

Because I've made the mistake of being young, insurance is the single biggest car expense I have, so the idea of saving money to keep an old classic on the road rather than the Go Compare tenor on the telly is wickedly tempting. I would love, for instance, the idea of an original Mazda MX-5 in the garage, which is both old enough to be considered a classic and reliable enough to actually get you to work.

It's not even as if you need it to be a two-seater sports car either, because there's no reason you couldn't get the likes of a Golf GTi or an original BMW M5, which you can just about pretend are practical family cars, if you've got dogs or kids to haul around. Even the very first Renault Espaces, which are now well over 25 years old, can get classic cover if you ask the insurers nicely enough. Sure, they might cost you more than a knackered old banger to buy, but in most cases a carefully-chosen classic will go up - not down - in value.

All you need now is some cheap petrol to run them around on. Oh wait...

Phwoar!

NOW that I've got your attention I'd like to talk to you about new laws the Government want to bring in outlawing owning an uninsured vehicle. It won't take a moment. Honest.

I immediately baulked when I read this report in this morning's Telegraph, which says that Road Safety Minister Mike Penning wants to make owning a car that isn't insured - as opposed to just driving one - an offence.

Crumbs. I own a car that isn't insured. Chances are, if you're doing up an old classic and it's been sat solemnly in the garage over the last few months, so do you.

It may have been The Telegraph's exclusive but I was relieved when I read the BBC's slightly more accurate version a couple of hours later; yep, if your car's on a Statutory Off Road Notice, or SORN, you won't be affected.

Naturally, being a journalist myself it's probably not in my interests to point out misleading articles - I've probably written a few in my time - but if you've read The Telegraph's article and got the jitters over the idea of a fine from the DVLA, don't worry.

At present it is illegal to drive a car while uninsured. The penalty for doing so is a maximum fine of £5,000 and six to eight penalty points. The police have the power to seize, and in some cases, destroy the vehicle that is being driven uninsured.

Under the new system, it will be an offence to keep an uninsured car. But - as the Department for Transport are now at pains to point out - owners who have a Statutory Off Road Notification, enabling them to keep their uninsured car, would not be affected.

Anyway; the Porsche 918RSR is the car you see in the pic above and just happens to be a hybrid that puts out 767bhp. I'll have mine with insurance, please.