Refused Car Insurance?
- Problems with getting a quote?
- Turned down by an insurer?
- Not sure how to proceed?
Live in a bad postcode? Having insurance problems?
There are certain areas of Great Britain that generate an abnormally high level of car insurance claims. The reasons for these are usually:
- Exceptionally bad traffic conditions
- Restricted parking
- Criminal damage
- Car theft
- Fraud.
How does you this affect you?!
People who live in the worst affected postcodes will probably find that their premiums will be a lot higher than the average ones, and they may even be refused insurance altogether, particularly if they have other risk factors such as convictions or a claims record.
Heavy traffic congestion can cause a higher level than average of minor accidents because of the sheer number of vehicles on the road and the resultant frustration of stop – start driving when motorists may be impatient to get to and from work or business. Unfortunately even fairly minor scrapes can result in quite expensive insurance claims for bodywork repairs and repainting.
Restricted parking facilities, where people are faced with the necessity of parking their cars on the road for much of the day, can lead to, again, minor accidents if other motorists drive a little too close to them. It also makes the cars a much easier target for vandalism or theft, either of the cars themselves, or their contents.
Unfortunately vandalism can affect many cars at a time, with malicious individuals walking down a row of them and either damaging paintwork with a coin or other hard object, or damaging tyres with a sharp object. Again these problems can be expensive to put right.
The major cause of blacklisting however is fraud. Fronting; in other words pretending that someone else is the main driver of a car, whilst it is in fact driven mainly by a younger person or someone who would normally attract a higher premium; is one problem. However so called 'cash for crash' scams, where accidents are deliberately staged, are the main issue. Organised gangs can rake in millions of pounds from these, and insurance industry insiders put the total cost of fraudulent claims is being several billion pounds.
Exactly which postcodes are blacklisted is a very closely guarded secret. However the worst affected areas are said to be in Bolton, Birmingham, Bradford, Manchester, North London, East London, Blackburn, Liverpool, Southall and Oldham.
This can be very frustrating for honest motorists who live in these areas but unfortunately insurance companies work out their premiums based on statistics, which means the innocent suffer along with the guilty. Price comparison websites can be fine tuned to filter out people from these areas and either give them exceptionally high quotations or refuse to offer them at all.
There are still insurers who are happy to provide reasonable quotes for many motorists who live in these high risk areas. If you have found that you have an exceptionally high car insurance quotation, or worse still none at all, you might well have a happier experience if you contact a specialist broker, who can put you in touch with them.