increased payments for change of address?

[sorry_not_today]

Hiya, I hope somebody can shed some light on this for me. I've recently moved back in with my parents and rang my car insurance company (smart people budget) to tell them my change of address. The lady I spoke to said my monthly payments would increase - I have to pay over 10 pounds a month more than what I'm paying now. When I asked why, all she said was that she "didn't really know" but she was "guessing" that it was because my new address was a higher risk area. She never properly looked into it for me though. It might be right but I had insurance with the same company for the same car when I lived here before, and was never told the area was high-risk. Also I was never made aware that changing my address at any time would potentially cause my payments to rise.

 

When I moved out my insurance wasnt affected like this, and I've not made a claim, broken down or anything that could affect my payments. The only thing that's changed is literally my address.

 

Basically I'm not sure if they're trying to swindle a few extra bob out of me or I just didnt realise that things like that can happen. Can anybody let me know either way please? Any advice will be very much appreciated!

xx

[foolishgirl]

Hi Sorry

 

It's true that your postcode has an affect on your insurance premiums but if you are sure that you did not 'benefit' when you moved from your parents' address, it does seem that odd that you are now penalised for moving back there. Could the area could have been insurance 'recatergorised' in the time you were not living there?

 

I suggest you either phone & ask to speak with a supervisor of write in & ask them to explain the difference.

[sorry_not_today]

Hi, thanks so much for the reply. I did hear that my premium could be affected but out of the two areas I have lived in I really think my previous address was a higher risk area.

I'll definitely call them again or write to ask for a further explanation on it, but as long as I know it's ok for them to do that then I suppose I can't really complain.

Thanks again for the advice on it anyway, really put my mind at rest.

xx

[gyzmo]

Just to comment, the staff member will probably not be privvy to underwriting information, even though knowing such information or having access to it would probably increase ability to provide customer service.

 

Even so, checking the infomation out would probably mean taking time, making phone calls etc and would probably result in missing targets.

 

The link below gives a fairly basic and rough idea as to how postcodes work with insurers, though I would not vouch for the accuracy of the actual information.

 

Car Insurance Explained - Car Insurance Postcode Groups - Postcode as rated by Car Insurers

[Wulfyn]

From a quick glance those rating groups seem very basic and some of them are very much out of line with my experience. It is not uncommon to have over 50 different rating groups in an insurance product, and these can and do change over time. For example your old address may have been reclassified as a higher risk area whilst you were away from it.

 

 

Ratings can change for a large variety of reasons - technical cost, competition with other insurers, limitation of exposure, willingness to sacrifice profitability for volume etc.

[havinastella]

As Gyzmo stated

 

'The link below gives a fairly basic and rough idea as to how postcodes work with insurers, though I would not vouch for the accuracy of the actual information.'

 

 

Jogs