how much was your gti insurence??

[joesgti]

soooooo - I pay $1100 Aus per annum.
29 male
had 5 fines in about 10 years - not sure how your points system works. One of my fines was for doing 110 in a 60 zone though - that cost me about $500!!! 

where abouts in oz do you live??

[Horney]

‘Fronting’ on car insurance policies deemed 'false economy'
18/09/2007
Two-thirds (66%) of parents would consider breaking the law to save money by insuring their child’s car in their name, according to new research from insurance price comparison website Gocompare.com.

Managing Director, Hayley Parsons, said: “With car insurance premiums reaching their highest ever levels, it’s only natural that parents would want to help their children get on the road. But I was surprised that so many were prepared to lie to their insurance company to do so.”

Insurers are no longer turning a blind eye when parents take out a car insurance policy and add their child – who is actually the main driver – to the policy as a way of lowering costs; a practice known as ‘fronting’. Some insurers have even changed their underwriting criteria in response to this by charging for the highest risk driver on the policy, even when this is not the stated main driver.

“Not telling the truth about who is the principal driver is a fundamental breach of trust and is technically fraud, which may result in a policy being cancelled and any claim refused,” said Ms Parsons.

Those caught ‘fronting’, can be charged the correct premium as a lump sum, or could have their policy cancelled altogether. Cancellation, which has to be declared on future policies, also raises the price of future car insurance as many prospective insurers will refuse cover.

Insurers can refuse to pay-out for any claims or can settle a third-party claim and recover the cost from the parent if caught out. Furthermore, if the insurer declines a claim, the young driver could be seen to be driving without insurance. This could lead to high fines and six penalty points (an automatic ban for new drivers).

“As well as being illegal, ‘fronting’ is a false economy. Insurers are wise to the practice and many now set the price according to the age of the youngest driver on the policy. In the long run it is better for young drivers to hold insurance in their own name to build-up a valuable no claims discount,” Ms Parson added.

Gocompare offers tips for keeping car insurance premiums at a minimum that do not include breaking the law, such as using a car with a low the engine capacity, ideally an engine size of less than 1200cc, avoiding models with letters after it, such as ‘i’, and ‘gti’, as well as avoiding vehicles with any modifications from the standard manufacture. The company also encourages young drivers to take the Pass Plus course, which can help to reduce car insurance prices.

Find out more about comparing car insurance deals and use the Gocompare Car Insurance site to look at a range of car insurance policies.

[Horney]

Admiral Press office 
 
Insurer reveals most common lies and issues a warning to motorists
 
Around one in ten motorists lie to their insurance company when they buy their car insurance*, and although the magnitude of the lies vary, anyone who does lie runs the risk of having their insurance policy cancelled.

Leading insurer, Admiral has compiled a list of the five most common lies people tell when they take out a policy, and it is warning motorists to tell the truth or risk losing their cover.

Admiral managing director, Sharon Clarke, said: “Too many motorists think they can lie to get cheaper insurance.  They think it doesn’t hurt anyone and it’s worth the risk, but in reality they are committing fraud.  An insurance policy is a legal contract and we have a number of ways of finding out if people have lied to defraud us.”

The five most common lies motorists tell their insurers are:

Withholding motoring convictions. This is by far the most common reason why policies are cancelled.  People with motoring convictions tend to be bad drivers and so pay more for their insurance. If they have had a motoring conviction of any kind in the last five years, they must tell their insurer.
Undisclosed modifications to the car. Modifying a car so it affects its performance or appearance means it is no longer a standard model, and therefore a different risk.  Motorists must tell their insurer of any modifications either they or a previous owner has made to the car.
Insuring a young person’s car in the name of an older driver. This is known as fronting and usually involves a parent insuring their child’s car. Young people are a higher risk for insurance companies because they have more accidents. The insurance must be told who will be the main driver.
Withholding previous claims. Motorists must tell their insurer of any accidents or claims they have had in the previous three years.  Even if the claim is settled or wasn’t their fault. The insurance company has a right to know their insurance history.
Unacceptable licences. Some insurers will only insure someone with a certain type of licence.  Admiral will only accept full licences from the EU and a few other countries. People with a provisional licence must tell the insurer and have a named driver with a full licence on their policy.
In some cases, insurance companies can find out someone has lied while they are making a claim, they then became liable for all the costs incurred in the claim themselves.  So far this year, Admiral Group has cancelled 306 policies in this way because it has discovered the policyholder lied when they took out the policy. 

Sharon Clarke, said: “Insurance companies have become much better at detecting fraud in recent years and have a number of tools at their disposal.  It is the job of the underwriters to investigate policies and claims they are suspicious about.  They check documents are authentic and if necessary instruct investigators.”

 
 
 

[Horney]

02.10.07 Insurance firms crack down on lying parents
Recent developments suggest that car insurers are becoming stricter with their policies, after an increasing number of parents were found to be lying in order to get their children cheaper cover. Only recently a survey showed that ''one in ten people'' lie to car insurers, with one of the most common lies being courtesy of parents who say that they are the main drivers of their child's car. The situation is indeed serious as, in a new survey by price comparison site Gocompare.com, it has been revealed that ''two-thirds'' of adults have considered doing this in order to slash premiums.

Though no one can deny that parents are of course thinking in the best interests of their children, all parents are warned that this practice, which is often referred to as "fronting", is fraudulent and if uncovered will almost certainly result in a claim being declined and a policy being cancelled. In fact, not only does the activity of fronting put the policy at risk, but it is said that the young driver could face fines of hundreds of pounds, receive six penalty points, and even have to resit their driving test. All parents must ask themselves whether the small reduction in premium costs is really worth the risk of having a policy cancelled in the case of a serious claim or restrictions placed on their child's driving.

In order to be stricter on activities of fronting and limit them as much as possible, various companies have now introduced new questions and amended their existing policy. For example, Churchill, which is one of Britain's first and biggest direct motor insurers, has just amended its “young additional drivers” policy and put in clearer questions about the main driver of the car. Furthermore, from now on they will also check who is the registered owner of the vehicle.

Similarly, another major motor insurance company Esure has amended its policy and now bases its premiums on the highest-risk driver. This means that even if a parent claims that she is the main driver of a vehicle owned by her 19-year-old daughter, the premium will be based on the daughter and not the mum.

All these new measures mean that it has become more difficult for parents to lie in order to get cheaper cover for their children. For those parents worried about the high costs their young children will face due to being labelled "high-risk", there are various legitimate steps you could take to cut down costs as much as possible. For example, young drivers can install black-box technology in their car which will charge them according to how much they drive. Similarly, some companies such as Norwich Union are cutting down their premiums by up to a third for young drivers who leave their car at home at night. This is due to statistics which show that young drivers are more likely to have an accident between 11pm and 6am.

[Horney]

All interesting reading I think you will agree. I hope none of the insurers mentioned above are yours as with all these new rules coming in you could find you can't afford to insure your car when you come to renew.

Sorry if I come across as having a go but I am! Everyone breaks the law to a certian (Slightly speeding etc) but this is far worse. Imagine you get cuaght after a claim, get your policy canceled and have to re imburse someone £1,000's of pounds for the damage to their car/person. You'll have to sell the car to cover it, if it's still in one piece. Also whoever the main driver on your policy is will have a cencelled policy against their name, once you have this it can be very hard to get cover at all let alone at a good price. I'm not sure they'd be too happy with you for that!

Insurance is there for a reason, yes it's expensive but if you ever need to use it (Like I have done) then you're damn grateful you've got the cover you need.

Nick

[Hurdy]

I'd say that is fairly comprehensive proof . Thanks for that Horney.(Nick)

[martinb]

Sometimes feels like i'm banging my head against a brick wall:

is it just you on the policy or do you have your mum or dad on it as named drivers, this brings the cost down massivly for new drivers but can be dodgey if its in their name and not yours especially if the car is registered in your name. Watch you for this common error as it could get you in trouble if your in an accident.

Very true, insurers are now getting wise to this. Its called "fronting" where a parent fronts the risk to get the price down even though the young driver is the registered owner and main user. If your insurer believes this is the case in the event of a claim you could land up in trouble, its usually pretty obvoius (eg Mummy has a nice sensible mk5 dsl but then just happens to want to insure a modified mk2 which just happens to have her son on as a named driver but its her car and she will still be the main user etc......ok so yeah im sure there are the odd occasions where this is the case but its not very likely is it?  )

That is VERY cheap!

Only thing is, i notice on the other thread you said its under your dads name? Be a little carefull insuring like this, a lot of insurers will not pay out in a claim or will cancel a policy if they think it is a "fronted" risk (ie your car but insured under parents name to get it cheaper).

If you are the registered owner and/or main driver of the car this must be disclosed even if you are down as the named driver on the policy.

Also i would probably get in touch to double check the quote, in my experience of online quotes they are often unreliable and can change when you ring up to pay (hence why i tell people to ring us even if the have had a quote from our website).

We would not touch a risk like this and have found it is such a growing problem that we will not even quote parents with a child as a named driver unless the child is over 25 (and even if we did we always rate on the highest risk driver so its pointless).

Joesgti - given your driving history it sounds like you have been lucky to get away with it so far and i am very suprised that your/your dads insurer has not picked up on it.

Martin

[joesgti]

i apologise as i am wrong, i thought my car had a policy under my dads name and i am second driver. after reading what other people were saying i showed my dad this thread, he told me that it was actually a buisness policy under his name and i was a named driver under the company policy, so i can drive any of the company cars fully comp as i work for the company, so it was £800 to add my name to the policy.

i apologise for any confussion, 

[Horney]

Aha now that makes perfect sense. Apologies if I seemed to singling you out but this stubject really gets on my tits as I've always paid my own insurance since I was 17.

Nick

[Phil mcavity]

JoesGTi......also make sure youve declared the mods to the car, because yours has been chipped, different wheels etc etc.