Horrific Rise In Insurance

[JRB]

I insured my daughter to drive my car when she was at home. At the time she was teaching drama to school children and was described as being a teacher. When I came to re-insure the car she was happily back where she wanted to be, regularly working on stage and TV. She has had her licence for 12 years and has never had a problem but because her profession was now described as "actress" my premium sky rocketed. Does anyone understand why this should be?

[jackthehat]

People who rely on their physical appearance are likely to make large claims should they be injured.....Insurers load the premiums because of this.

I blame Merle Oberon....

[jackthehat]

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1301&dat=19370318&;id=Je1UAAAAIBAJ&sjid=EJIDAAAAIBAJ&;pg=1747,2842370

[douglas9401]

I think insurance companies see anyone involved in the entertainment industry as living a Bacchanalian lifestyle with sex, drugs and rock and roll adding to their risk of accident.

Chance would be a fine thing.

[SirOracle]

People normally socialise with their peer groups,so it is likely that passengers in her car could be actors.

Any TP claims for injuries to them may be extremely costly,compared to "normal"people.

[soapnumpty]

I work in insurance and I know that occupations in the entertainment industry are very costly for insurance, probably for the reasons given above.

[shoota]

Surely this is prejudice at its worst?

Why do people not kick up a stink about this form of prejudice?

[hc4361]

It will also be because actors don't have a regular place of work so travel to different places; actors work irregular hours and may do a lot of night driving; actors may do a very high mileage; actors may have to park in high risk areas in respect of theft and vandalism

[New Judge]

Whether it is prejudice or not is debateable.

It could be argued (as was recently undertaken by the EU in the case of differing premiums for male and female drivers) that to assess the risk of any group by means of gender, age, sexual orientation, occupation, or race (or indeed just about anything else) is prejudicial (that is, the companies are prejudging the risk of all members of a group based on their experiences of a few).

However, insurers need to assess risk. It's what they do to set their premiums. So unless they are going to charge all their policyholders the same amount regardless of their age, driving experience, the car they drive, their driving record and so on, they need to be able to group people into risk categories. Just about any way this is done is prejudicial. It's quite obvious that some young inexperienced drivers will have an incident free record. But many won't. So all of them are placed in a higher risk category. Insurers cannot wait to see how their driving history turns out before setting their premium and only bump it up if they have accidents.

[spacechimp]

I don't know how much truth there is in the explanations others have given, or how eye-watering a premium you're talking about or if this is likely to help or even be practical for you...

But is it possible a car with better occupant protection would receive a lower premium?

[ToraToraTora]

It's not prejudice shoota it's underwriting. Insurance companies have access to vast databases of stats and they know the risks of any aspect of insurance, occupation being one, location being another, past driving record, etc etc. That's why they want an arm an a leg for teenagers because they know that they hit things, simple. Would any of us in low risk categories be happy to subsidise the higher risk ones? Nope? thought not.

[Old_Geezer]

If insurers succeeded in assessing risk perfectly no one would get insurance since the premium they paid would simply cover the claims they were going to make, plus the insurers' profit on top. The industry would be ruined. So there is only so far one can sympathise with the risk assessment bit. Maybe the question is what to take into consideration and what not. Perhaps the main driver (no pun intended) for deciding these things ought not be one's profession but one's past record ?

[=rizla=]

Try http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/insurance/car-insurance-job-picker/ , to see if any more professions are more accurate for her

[SirOracle]

My reason given is the correct one,as per the professional examinations of the Chartered Insurance Institute.

Just think for a moment and consider the vast sums that would have to be paid if four passengers were say professional footballers (earning over £10000 per week,who could not play football again.

Then compare that with say four teachers eg.

[TWR]

JRB, There is no loyalty regards Insurance as far as I'm concerned, if you find cheaper, go for it.