VAN INSURANCE NEWS ROUNDUP: 7 DAYS ENDING 12DEC 2014:
Brits tired of watching their car insurance and van insurance premiums increase thanks to fraud are calling for in-car CCTV systems to keep an eye on things.
Nobody, and I mean nobody, wants to see insurance rates keep creeping upwards. Whether it’s just to keep your Vauxhall Astra on the road of you’ve got a fleet of Ford Transit vans that need commercial van insurance, the cost of annual cover is one of the biggest sticking point for personal and business insurance customers everywhere.
When it comes to car insurance fraud, scammers have been driving up insurance costs for a while thanks to their making bogus claims left and right, but new research says that if it means stopping fraudsters right in their tracks and keeping premium costs down, 71 per cent of British motorists would be chuffed to bits to have a CCTV camera fixed to their dash.
Now, truth be told that’s an enormous number of Brits willing to turn themselves into little spies for the insurance industry. I know it sounds a bit cynical but isn’t that exactly what’s going on here? You’re willing to trade cheap insurance rates in exchange for acting like the eyes and ears of your insurer, making sure that they don’t end up getting victimised by scammers and fraudsters in the process. I suppose it sounds like a good quid-pro-quo, but there must be some people that are a bit concerned about the constant surveillance we’re all under in today’s day and age – or is it just me?
Yes, yes, I know the old chestnuts – you don’t have any expectation of privacy if you’re out in public, and that you don’t have anything to worry about if you have nothing to hide. Still, it just sticks in my craw about how much surveillance there actually is going on everywhere, even if it does come at a bonus of cheaper insurance rates. It still seems more than a little invasive to me. It just smacks of George Orwell’s dystopian novel a bit too much, with the idea that Big Brother is watching over you to record every little action you undertake that it might not approve of.
Then again, maybe it’s just that I don’t want people to see me scratching my arse in public. That could be it as well, after all.