UK car Insurance premiums rocket 50% in 2023 – riskier roads, sicker drivers, price gouging by insurance companies? – NO! because of rises in the wages of repairers, paint, spare parts, labour
Bit of a ramble, looking at the recent massive increases in car insurance costs in the UK. Ed Dowd has alluded to this several times for the same phenomenon in Hawaii. Chances are it is happening globally. The cost of insurance is sky rocketing.
British motorists are being hammered at every turn. If not fuel prices, congestion charges, ultra low emission zones, 15 minute cities fuel duties, road taxes and the need to provide massive subsidies for EV’s, now there is another. The cost of vehicle insurance. Keep in mind that whilst insurance does not attract Value Added Tax of 20%, it does attract Insurance Premium Tax of 9.5% - tax vampires gotta vamp - so a 50% hike in premium attracts a further 9.5% tax increase – see how that works?
Some reporters have picked up on the rising insurance rates in the context of EV’s
Insurance Premium Tax and Insurance Costs - Admiral.com.
The Conservative Woman (TCW) commented on a Guardian article.
‘Driving an electric car should be a win-win, saving money and the planet. So David was shocked when the insurance on his Tesla Model Y came up for renewal, and Aviva refused to cover him again, while several other brands turned him away. When David did secure a new deal, the annual cost rocketed from £1,200 to more than £5,000.’
So, the insurance premium for an EV increased by more than 400%. Maybe the particular driver had other “issues” unique to his driving habits?
Anyway, the article focussed on the rising cost of insuring EV’s.
Note that EV’s do not pay road tax until 2025. The road tax system is horribly complicate but gravitates to a standard rate of 180 pounds a year for the UK’s 33 million cars – raking in the odd 6 billion pounds (that goes into the general pot and is not necessarily spent on roads).
Maybe insurance companies are cognisant of the high risk of EV batteries, especially when mixed with sea water!
1. The battery just explodes
2. The vapour cloud vents into the passenger compartment and then explodes
3. Unconfined vapour cloud explosion (outside vehicle and then explodes (includes above or below ground car parks and home garages
4. Flare like flames – where the vapour cloud vents outside the vehicle and then ignites – shooting flames a few metres long
Those points taken from this video by a true blue Ozzy here:
Fremantle Hwy: Mercedes EV battery burns ONE MONTH later | Auto Expert John Cadogan - YouTube
The TCW article goes on with this quote from the Guardian:
‘A recent cost of living bulletin from the Office for National Statistics revealed that the price of car insurance – which for many Britons is one of their biggest household bills – is up by 52.9 per cent in the last 12 months.
However, this average masks bigger increases for electric car owners, according to Confused.com. Its figures, derived from quotes, show that insurance premiums for electric vehicles are 72 per cent – or £402 – higher than this time last year, at a typical £959. Meanwhile, for petrol and diesel car drivers, the increase is 29 per cent, or £192, taking the figure to £848.’
Ok, maybe the cost of insurance for EV;s should be jacked up to reflect their “non-ricking time bomb” status – but why should the cost of all care insurance get jacked by more than 50%?
There are a little under 33 million cars in the UK, but only a little over 700,000 EV’s registered. So, around 2% - after all the hype and promotion of the last decade – one car in 50 is an EV.
What has the rate of accidents been before and after the C19 period you might ask? Well, as it happens, we have this:
Reported road casualties Great Britain, annual report: 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
It is not fatalities that are driving increases in insurance premia.
The UK government website does a good job of pointing out the impact of lockdowns on fatalities and breaks down the numbers so they can be compared to 2019 levels, before the scamdemic. The focus is on road fatalities, not all accidents, fires or thefts. (Motorcycle accidents were up more than other vehicles).
If not fatalities, what could have prompted the insurance companies to increase rates by 50%?
“Considering road collision rates per billion miles travelled, the final estimates show:
328 billion vehicle miles travelled in 2022, a return to travel levels seen in 2019 prior to the COVID-19 pandemic”
5 road fatalities per billion vehicle miles travelled in 2022, up 2% compared to 2019”
Around the same 328 billion miles travelled as 2019. Maybe there are more accidents, fires or thefts? Perhaps hiding an elevated risk of cardiac or other attacks whilst driving?
We had this from Statista here:
Motor vehicle theft in England and Wales 2023 | Statista
A small increase in 2022/2023 but way below levels of a few decades ago.
“There were 130,521 motor vehicle thefts in England and Wales in 2022/23, a large increase when compared with the previous year.
Despite recent increases in this type of offence, there were still fewer vehicle thefts than there were in 2002/03 when there were almost 307,000. This was followed by a steep ten-year decline which saw vehicle thefts reduced to just 70,000 in 2013/14.”
So what is the cause of the hike in insurance costs?
Here’s a piece from “Auntie” – the propaganda mouthpiece of the Cult – the BBC
Car insurance hits £500 a year for average UK driver - BBC News
“Motorists are paying more than ever to insure their vehicles with the industry claiming inflation and a massive rise in vehicle repair costs are to blame.”
“One insurer alone quoted a 40% rise in labour rates between June 2022 and January this year, with the cost of many replacement parts increasing by up to 21%, the ABI said.
Auntie also published this a while back:
Cost of living: Car insurance pushed up by paint and energy prices - BBC News
“Rising paint prices and higher energy costs were among the reasons for a leap in the cost of motor insurance late last year, a trade body has said.”
So there you have it. Rising costs of paint, higher energy costs needed to repair vehicles, a 40% increase in labour costs and a 31% increase in spare parts,
Makes you wonder why someone doesn’t make a car that people can maintain themselves more easily right?
Onwards!
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“Rising paint prices and higher energy costs were among the reasons for a leap in the cost of motor insurance late last year, a trade body has said.”
Not entirely, not by a long straw.
As with private medical insurance, the "arrangement" made between the providers and insurers is a commercial juggling performance to see how many golden balls can be maintained in the air before becomeing financially unsustainable.
Fees to the end-point industry will be arranged on the basis of what insurance co. can afford from a ponzi scheme that eventually skewers the punter, being very little more than an unproductive risk promoting middlemanaging 'handler'.....I am reminded of 'futures brokers'.
Insurance companies appear to by doing what insurance companies do, namely, rorting the punter, largely based on fear. The industries thrive while the company survives and the punter is eviscerated. Then there is a plague of ESG virtue signalling insurance corporates ready to comply with the eradication of private car ownership.
.....And still the sheeple and mushrooms doze.
probably doesn't have much effect, but there have been more than a few crashes caused by drivers having heart attacks or being incapacitate in some other way since the rollout of you-know-what.