Car insurance price clarification guide
How do we calculate your quote?
It may seem like we demand a ton of information from you when you request a car insurance quote from us. But there’s real reasoning behind why we do this.
We ensure we assess you as an individual. We consider all the factors so that we can put together a quote that’s tailored to you. What this means is that, ultimately, we can offer a premium that’s fair.
Here’s a handy guide to what we look at and how we use it to settle on a price that’s right.
How you affect your quote
Your age
Research is regularly conducted across the industry to assess who is claiming. This data consistently demonstrates a clear link between a driver’s age and their likelihood of making a claim. As such, we take age into account and adjust premiums accordingly. Middle-aged drivers tend to be the safest on the road, so insurers can reward them with lower premiums.
Your driving and insurance history
As with almost any insurance policy, we take a look at your claims history - as it’s a key indicator of how much of a risk you are and how likely you’ll be to claim. We offer lower premiums to drivers with no claims since they’re much less likely to claim in future. If you have any motoring convictions on your record, this will increase your premium.
Where you live
You’d be surprised how much your likelihood of being in a road accident varies around the country. We have to take this into account when we calculate your quote. Where you live gives us some idea of which roads you’ll be driving on and their associated risk. We’ll also take a look at crime rates and assess your likelihood of being the victim of car-related crime locally.
Your occupation
What you do for a living gives us some insight into why, where, when and how often you’re likely to be driving. It also might indicate how experienced a driver you are, or inform us of any additional risks – and all of these factors affect your quote.
Your no claims discount (and how long you’ve had it)
Having a no claims discount (NCD), particularly if held for a number of years, strongly suggests you are a safe, responsible and competent driver. It’s a great way to demonstrate trust and confidence between yourself and an insurer, and insurers reward this with lower premiums.
How your car affects your quote
Make and model of the car
Knowing the make and model of your car will help us to assess its security features, value, age and any potential repair costs. How this information affects your premium will vary from model to model.
Age of the car
As cars age, the potential for mechanical failure increases, and the likelihood of a third-party damage or injury claim rises too. That being said, parts and repairs costs tend to decrease for a car as it gets older, and its overall value depreciates significantly. For these reasons, the age of the car is a major factor for us to consider when we put together your quote.
The estimated value of the car
The more expensive or valuable your car is, the more it’s going to cost to replace if written-off or stolen. As a result, newer and expensive cars will have higher premiums. New vehicles also tend to have innovative, complex technology, and this is getting more expensive to repair as systems become more sophisticated.
How you store the car
If you park your car on the street, it’s far more likely to be broken into, damaged or stolen compared with cars kept in locked garages. Making an effort to secure your vehicle in this way can help to lower your premium as the risk of a claim is reduced.
What you use the car for
If you only use the car to pop into town a handful of times a week, your far less likely to be involved in an accident than somebody who drives cross-country daily for their job. Telling us this helps us give you a quote that’s fair. If you use the car to go to the same place at the same time every day, you’re usually a better risk than someone who drives large distances on unfamiliar roads.
How much you use the car (annual mileage)
It goes without saying that the more you use your car, the more exposed you are to an incident occurring on the road, so this is a major factor when it comes to assessing your risk.
How the level of cover you’d like affects your quote
Your quote will largely depend on what you actually want covered. In addition to your standard cover, there are plenty of optional extras. These include breakdown cover, legal expenses cover and replacement car cover, amongst others.
Your desired excess
The amount you’re willing to pay on each claim will raise or lower your premium. If your excess is higher, your premiums will fall since you’ve agreed to take on a bigger share of any costs yourself.
Who you want covered
Covering not only yourself to drive the car - but others - will affect your premium. Their history and characteristics will need to be assessed too.
How the world around us affects your quote
IPT
IPT stands for Insurance Premium Tax. This is a government tax paid specifically on insurance products, by customers. The government is free to increase or decrease the tax rate as they wish, and this will affect premiums.
Fluctuation in repair costs
As material and labour costs increase, this causes the value of claims to increase gradually. Car technology has also become more complex, requiring more extensive and more expensive work when things do go wrong. This means everyone’s premium rises in line with this over time.
Weather
During periods of particularly bad weather, or after extreme weather events, the resulting upturn in claims hits insurers. This hit is averaged out over a stretch of time, but if extreme weather events persist and repeat over a number of years, this may push up prices.
The claims market
If the kind of claims we receive changes, prices will change in order to reflect this. We assess how much we’re likely to be paying out in the future and account for this in our pricing. An example of this type of change in the claims market is the way in which we’ve seen a sharp rise in personal injury claims in recent years, which caused prices to rise across the industry.
