VAN INSURANCE NEWS ROUNDUP: 7 DAYS ENDING 23 MAY 2014:
Nowadays it seems like there’s always an easy way to lose your van insurance or car insurance, but don’t worry – it will only get easier to do so in the future.
Right now car insurance companies have been looking for new and interesting ways to invalidate your cover, and they’ve found a new whipping boy: the practice known as fronting. It involves taking out an insurance policy on a vehicle, claiming to be the primary driver, and then actually letting someone else drive it the majority of the time whilst they are listed as a secondary driver in order to save them from taking out cover themselves. It’s quite common amongst families where children of driving age would have to pay through the nose for a policy of their own, but it can be used in almost any similar situation such as a contractor letting an employee motor about in the company van without having to pay an increased rate.
Well insurers are having none of that and have announced that they’re on the lookout for such behaviour. Being found out about your fronting is grounds for invalidating your car or commercial van insurance, so don’t get caught; the cost of trying to get cover after having that on your record is going to be much higher than the few quid you save by fronting in the first place. Never mind the fact that insurers ramp up their premium prices to practically criminal levels – do insurance companies think that they don’t have a bit of responsibility for the practice? Probably not, the arrogant bastards that they are.
Speaking of arrogance, a news report this week revealed how there are plans in the works at most major insurers to eventually transition to a more integrated telematics-based framework instead of the current model that’s in existence now. Now for what it’s worth telematics has its place – those willing to provide an insurer with their detailed real-time driving records in order to prove they’re not pillocks behind the wheel earn a discount for being safe drivers – but it’s an opt-in situation at the moment. Switching things around where telematics becomes the norm and any drivers that don’t want their every move recorded by a little satnav-like device under their dash will be penalised by higher rates hardly seems fair to me!
Then again nobody seems to care about the privacy implications of such a development, least of all insurance providers. All they’re after are ways to cut the cost of providing cover to consumers in order to maximise their profits so of course they’re going to ‘encourage’ motorists to switch over in droves. Meanwhile it’s just another nail in the coffin of your right to privacy. I hope those extra quid help you sleep better at night knowing that Big Brother’s watching you like a bloody hawk!