Tuesday, September 11, 2007

A Bit More About Car Insurance

There have been a number of comments on the previous thread, that bring to mind the following:-
The Motor Insurers' Bureau will compensate the victims of uninsured drivers for bodily injury and for other losses up to £250,000. This is funded by a levy on every insurance policy, and at present that costs £10-30 per policy issued. If an insured vehicle is stolen and then causes damage the owner's insurance will pay for that damage.
In recent times third-party property damage cover has been restricted to £20 million by most insurers. This follows on the Selby train crash which cost well over £50 million. Fortis was the lucky insurance company in that case, but they were of course re-insured, so the risk was spread across the market, as it should be.
Putting a levy on petrol to cover insurance costs is superficially tempting, but the estimates that I have seen suggest that the cost would be very high, and potentially unfair as safe drivers would pay towards the unsafe ones, with no grading of risk. My car costs about £300 to insure, and I drive about 12000 miles at around 28 mpg, so I would need to pay 15p per litre to break even. A 19 year-old with an old Fiesta would pay about £1750 third-party. Let's say he does 8000 miles at 35 mpg, so he would need to pay nearly £1.70 per litre extra. Not simple is it?

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