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Car insurance in your Mum's name? Ten tips for Young Drivers

We've mentioned this before, but a recent article in the Independent on Sunday has nicely highlighted how the practice of getting insurance under a parent's (or other relative's) name, known in our industry as 'fronting' could leave you severely out of pocket.

Representatives from Zurich, More Than (Royal Sun Alliance's consumer brand) and Norwich Union (currently being rebranded to Aviva) were wheeled out warning that fronting is a bad idea for all concerned.

Keith Lewis from Zurich said:

"Not only can it lead to a claim being refused but also both the young person and their parents can be charged with insurance fraud."

wheras moreth>n's Keith Maxwell adds

"One of the first things we check when a claim comes in is whether there has been any fronting. It's not a wise move."

So what can young drivers do about bringing down the cost of car insurance. The distinguished panel share some tips:

1. "The quickest way to cut this is by building up a no-claims bonus [in your own name], which can ultimately reduce premiums by half to two-thirds." Keith Maxwell (morethan)

   "This is the passport to cheaper premiums. It's best to bite the bullet and start building it up as quickly as possible," adds Erik Nelson (NU)

   Agreed. It's worth pointing out that although you will pay more in the short term, if you steer clear of too many claims, you will save money in the long run - especially when it is time to leave the family home.



2. "Look at taking the Pass Plus driving course. This advanced qualification can bring discounts of 10 per cent on premiums." Erik Nelson (NU)

   The Passplus course will save you money, but NU seem to be a bit stingy here. Some of our schemes offer a discount of up to 40% for Pass Plus qualified drivers.



3. "We offer a rapid bonus scheme. Basically, you insure the car in a block of nine months, at the end of which you are credited with a full year's no-claims bonus," Erik Nelson (NU)

   What Mr Nelson doesn't mention, is that these "Bonus Accelerator" policies, also touted by Admiral/Elephant, often have a few drawbacks. Frequently they charge you a higher monthly fee for 10 months than you would pay on a twelve monthly basis. Secondly, this undermines the basis of No Claims discount somewhat, and, as a result, some companies are reluctant to accept bonus from these accelerator policies. Companies, which have, in the past included such well known names as .. er.. Norwich Union! Quote from the thread linked above

   "It seems a bit confusing as I got a quote from Norwich Union with 1 years NCB for £327 but when I spoke to them on the phone and tolod them it was a 10 month BAP, they said they didn't recognise it and could only quote me over £500."

   Norwich Union have clearly changed their mind since then.


4. More Than and Norwich Union, have both run "Black Box" powered Pay as You Drive schemes, although, as Mr Nelson explains, Norwich Union have had to cancel these.

   "We had hoped ... that the car manufacturers would start offering the GPS boxes as standard. Ultimately, the expense meant we had to call a pause."

   Another thing we've been saying for a while, is that these schemes are using technology for its own sake - drivers who don't drive as far can benefit from discounts on a limited mileage policy without having to submit to curfews or corporate snooping.



5. "Go for a smaller car in a low insurance group. And consider if you should go with third party, fire and theft cover rather than fully comprehensive, and whether you need the car for commuting or just leisure driving." Keith Lewis, Zurich

   This is all very sensible stuff. If your car is low value (let's face it, most people start off with a banger) TPFT is the most sensible level of cover. We made a list of the ten cheapest cars for young drivers, but there are others that fit the common theme - low engine capacity, small cars with ready availability of cheap parts.



6. "Younger drivers will have an excess imposed, but by agreeing to a slightly larger one, the premiums can be cut." Keith Maxwell (Morethan)

   Very true. A voluntary excess can reduce the premium, but be careful not to raise it too high, as if you have an accident you may have to fork out the amount of your excess before you can get back on the road.


So, some good tips, and some iffy ones from the major insurers, but I have a few more young driver car insurance tips that might help out:


7. Join an owners club or online forum. This can bring you a discount of up to 15% on a policy, easily covering any membership fees with the insurance saving.


8. Take extra security precautions to reap an extra discount. So fit the best alarm you can, and try and persuade your dad to let you keep your car in the garage.


9. Can't find a PassPlus near you? Well there are plenty about, but perhaps you might find a more convenient venue doing the IAM or Max Driver courses. Don't worry - we do discounts for those as well.


10. Be wary of comparison sites. As you've seen above, some companies will try and foist a 10 month 'accelerator' policy. Another advantage to the companies pushing these is that it gives them an unfair advantage on aggregator sites if everyone else is offering 12 month policies - remember they are offering around 17% less cover. It is always best to include a specialist broker or two when it comes to ringing around. You will usually find that you end up paying less over the phone than you do online - despite what you might think.

To speak to a specialist now, you can call us on 08000 83 88 33.

National Customer Service Week!

This week, the 6th to the 10th of October, is National Customer Service Week. Seeing that I'm the Customer Service Manager, it's a great week for me and my team!



We are rewarding the staff this week with prizes for those who receive the top scores following feedback from our clients. As well as that, we're having some fun and games - such as writing a poem about customer service, and designing the ultimate phone. So far the entries have been as creative as usual and of course I'll post some pics when we've decided on the winner. My favourite part of the ultimate phone so far has to be the added button where the staff member can transfer a call to the boss himself! Not forgetting of course the built in nail files, mirrors, and drinks dispensers........ perhaps we'll take a trip to the Dragon's Den! I could make my millions........



Of course, during this week, we want to reward the clients. So there are three prizes up for grabs for anyone that completes our online feedback questionnaire following a call. A £500 weekend away, £100 in High Street Vouchers or £50 in High Street Vouchers could be yours, just be telling us what our service is like!



I'll keep you posted on the results and the wonders of creativity my staff come up with.........



Happy National Customer Service Week!

Please give a warm welcome...

Have you ever tried to write a first post on a blog before, only to discover you're sat there 6 hours later with a blank screen? Yep, sounds like me! "What on Earth do I write?!" has been a question on my mind for a while now. I'm Paul by the way; I've been working at Adrian Flux for 4 years (to the month) and have a wealth of IT and Internet-related knowledge through my ever-progressing career path within the Company. Feel free to wave - that's me in the picture there...

So why am I blogging?

This year sees my gradual move into the Marketing department, where I have managed to bag myself full responsibility of all of our websites (including this one) - from making sure they stay up and running all day long, to designing and developing new features or maintaining existing ones. It's not for the faint hearted though, let me tell you! It would seem this responsibility also comes with the requirement to submit blog posts - hang on, that was never in the job description? Was it?!

You may have also experienced some of my work if you've recently visited the Flux Babes website - as my annual employee review recently pointed out I've provided a new talent for future use by photographing the new Flux Babes all the way back in May!

So that's an introduction - keep your eyes peeled for more posts from me!

Car Insurance Myths #1

One of our colleagues came into the office today and was telling us about a holiday in gay Paris. In the course of the conversation she mentioned that a tour guide at the Arc de Triomphe had told her that no car insurance policy in the world was valid on the crazy ten-lane, twelve exit roundabout / junction that encircles the monument.

This sounded a little unlikely. Even though the junction is clearly more dangerous than most, insurance works on the basis of pooled risk, so it would be highly unusual, and probably the thin end of the wedge, if insurers started singling out even one dangerous junction and excluding cover.

What's more, the policies we offer which provide Europe-wide car insurance cover don't have any such specific exclusion attached to them, so the worldwide claim of the guide was definitely wrong. Some more research was in order.

Checking the internet, there were a lot of other folk who had been told the same by the Parisian guides, and repeated it on their blogs or sites, but no citation of a verifiable source. So I obtained a copy of a policy document from Macif, the largest French car insurance company. Sure enough, there are no specific exclusions listed there, so I made some further enquiries.

It turns out the the truth is rather more prosaic, but no less interesting. Owing to the complexity of the road system around the Arc de Triomphe, the insurers have an agreement to settle all claims on a knock-for-knock basis, with each company bearing 50% of the total loss. This is to avoid the protracted disputes and legal challenges, which would arise when trying to determine who was at fault for the accident.

In fact this is no different to what happens in many situations, in this country and abroad, where fault is hard to determine, or where the expense of determining who was at fault would not be worthwhile.

So, simply, the story is a myth, presumably either something has been lost in translation, or the French tour guides are having fun telling stories to the tourists.

Brilliant Insurance Ads

If only the ads in the UK were as good as these, from Dutch insurance company Centraal Beheer of Appeldoorn. Why can't Churchill, Admiral and Hastings come up with anything remotely as entertaining as these?

Bee-n Stung?

If you've ever felt stung by the rising cost of motoring, spare a thought for the three poor motorists in China who were stung to death by an enormous swarm of angry bees, after the lorry which was carrying scores of bee hives and many millions of bees.

Here is the obligatory pic of the aftermath.



Despite what you may have heard about China, that hazy background is not fog, but is in fact the massive swarm of homeless bees. They are still causing chaos and have accounted for a further three deaths as unprotected motorists have tried to avoid being stung.

The Cleanest Car in the World?

Imagine the scenario - while you're out at the office, you've asked the other half to fill up the car at the petrol station and, hey, while she's there, why not give the car a jetwash?

Something not dissimilar must have transpired here, as filmed by the incredulous occupants of the car behind...

Wonder what her fella said when she got home!

I checked with our claims manager, and he reckons it's rather unlikely that an insurance company would pay out for any damage caused by this kind of idiocy, so please don't be tempted to try it yourself.

How not to do Insurance Fraud

Mark Davis of Schenectady, New York, has provided what is, quite possibly, the dumbest insurance fraud perpetrated in recent years. He rang his insurer to report a broken rear windscreen on his Mitsubishi Eclipse. Problem was it wasn't broken, so when the loss adjuster turned up, he found it intact and rejected the claim.

Clearly this wasn't the result Davis had been hoping for, so he called back the insurance company and asked them to check it again. The adjuster dutifully returned to the car to find that it was indeed broken. Unfortunately for our would-be fraudster, he also found a bunch of witnesses who had seen Mr Davis smashing the window in himself.

So instead of receiving his claimed $3,300 payout, the witless crook can instead instead look forwards to getting up to seven years behind bars.

News reports are here, here, here and here.

The trouble with aggregators...

If you have anything slightly unusual is that they can be completely unhelpful. Seeing that GoCompare had added a few (so-called) specialists to their panel, like A-Plan, Express and Sureterm, I though I'd run through a quote on a lightly modified Nissan Silvia, to see what their prices were like.

Unfortunately, although it happily lets you fill in all your details, it then brings up the supremely unhelpful list below. None of their panel could quote it. Nice one GoCompare!



It just goes to show that if you want a quote on something even a little bit out of the ordinary, you are best off leaving the aggregators for Mondeo man and giving a genuine specialist broker a call. (Our number is 08000 83 88 33)

Solar car sets insurance first

At Adrian Flux, we have never shied away from sorting cover for unusual or one-off vehicles, but, just occasionally, something comes along which is truly mould breaking.

So it is with this, the CUER Affinity:



Designed by some clever bods at Cambridge University's Engineering Department, the Affinity is the UK's first ever road-legal solar-powered car. And the Cambridge University Eco Racing team wanted to test it out by driving from Lands End to John O'Groats.

That meant that they needed to get the first ever motor insurance policy for a solar powered car, and as specialist brokers, were able to oblige, placing the policy with underwriters Trinity Lane Insurance.



Having proved its mettle on UK roads, despite the vagaries of the British weather, there is no stopping the team and the next stop for them is Zero Rally Africa, a carbon-neutral rally across Zambia, Namibia and South Africa, followed by an entry into the World Solar Challenge across the Australian outback. Best of luck guys, and I'm sure yours won't be the last solar powered car we insure.

Hastings lose Battle with FSA

You may have seen in the news the reports of Hasting Direct's massive fine £735,000 fine over some mispriced policies they sold last year and subsequently cancelled with a minimum amount of notice. This has been well reported in the press, including the Guardian, the Independent and the BBC.

What has been less well reported is the shocking mis-selling, lying and sharp business practice foisted by Hastings upon their own customers - the FSA refers to "serious failings in the way in which Hastings dealt with customers after the cancellations", and it was this failure to abide by the principles of Treating Customers Fairly in line with FSA rules, that led to the huge scale of the fine - the main news services have either missed or skimmed over these aspects, presumably because they didn't delve too deeply into the FSA's twenty page Final Notice judgement served on Hastings (106kb pdf file) Most of the info below comes directly from this official document.

I'll admit that reading 20 pages of dry prose is not everyone's idea of fun, but Hastings are probably counting their blessings right now that more of this has not been picked up by the mainstream media.

Before I continue I'll remind you that opinions on this blog are my own, personal thoughts, and not those of the company, but I'll also point out that all facts and quotes below are taken directly from the FSA document linked above.

The story starts back last summer, and you may remember several forums buzzing with the news that Hastings had started cancelling policies with only a few days warning and leaving people with just a few days to find alternative cover, or even less in many cases, when you consider that this was going on in the middle of the summer, when many people would have been on holiday. As an aside, many people on the forums were apparently unaware that Hastings is in fact an insurance broker, and not, as its trading name might imply, a direct writer.

The FSA investigation revealed that there were in fact two separate incidents where Hastings entered incorrect information onto their computer systems which led to them quoting prices that were very low - hundreds of pounds below the true rate which the underwriter, Highway, had intended to be available.

The first rating error, which the FSA refer to as "Highway One", was loaded onto their system on the 15th June last year. Hastings' own IT department spotted something a bit fishy - many more Highway policies going through than was normal - the same day, and asked the underwriting team to look into it. Hastings' underwriters, for whatever reason, were happy that everything was fine and so a vital opportunity was missed to mitigate the situation at the outset.

10 days and nearly 2,000 underpriced policies later, the IT department brought another report to the attention of their management, and finally on the 26th of June a major error was discovered in the postcode rating data and immediately fixed.

At this stage the 1,880 policy holders had paid an average of £220 too little for their car insurance, and Hastings had a big problem. Luckily for them, the vast majority of the policies sold had not come into force, and so, they made up the difference on the few that were on cover, and hastily decided to try and cancel the remaining 1,850.

The FSA was critical of this decision, as whilst nearly all insurance companies have a clause allowing termination of cover with 7 days notice, most of them only use it if the customer has failed to tell the insurer some pertinent information, like a conviction or claim, lied about where they live or similar. The FSA managed to dig up evidence that Hastings had been told by the Financial Ombudsman Service that this was (in their opinion) an incorrect use of the clause.

And Hastings' compliance department even sent an email to their customer services saying:

"I think the feeling from talking with others some of whom are ACII [Associates of the Chartered Insurance Institute] is that it is unfair cancellation of the contract, however, can appreciate the need to balance this up with commercial consideration due to the numbers involved"

But, despite clearly knowing that they were doing something dubious, they went ahead and did it anyway.

Because of the circumstances in which it usually happens, most insurance companies do not look too kindly on customers who have had an insurance contract cancelled, and may charge a higher premium, or even refuse to offer cover - so by doing this Hastings was well and truly shafting its customers.

But it got worse.

At this point Hastings must have decided to check through their systems for any other data entry errors, and sure enough on July 11th 2007, they found a biggie, which had been causing an unrelated misquoting error dating right back to January 2006 and meant that customers living in high-risk postcodes had been receiving quotes that were significantly underpriced. Another error, dating from the same rate input, was discovered in quotes for 19 year olds drivers was discovered on the 20th July - they had been on average paying £539 too little. The FSA refers to these errors as "Highway Two".

The errors in these quotes affected nearly 4,000 policies, and at the time of discovery, 3,449 were still in force.

Hastings decided they could make up the difference on the policies that were nearly finished, with less than three months to run, but this still left them with 2,978 policies. Highway told Hastings that if it wanted the customers to remain on cover, they would have to find £1.37m to cover the difference. Hastings board decided to cancel all the policies on the 7th of August, using the same 7 day notice condition as before.

The big difference this time being that these were actual policies, some of which had been on cover for nearly nine months.

The FSA's conclusion was that Hastings should have tried harder to think of a different solution.

"Prior to making the formal decision to cancel, in the FSA’s view, Hastings did not fully and properly consider the possible alternatives, and did not adequately take into account the implications and consequences of its decision. In particular, it did not consider other possible ways of continuing the policies to the full term such as alternative sources of funding for the premium shortfall or re-broking the policies within the IAG UK group. (Blogger's note: IAG also owns underwriters Advantage and Equity Red Star)"

The FSA was also unhappy that they were not made aware of the situation until five weeks after the initial errors were identified and one week after Hastings had made the decision to cancel policies and started doing it. This meant that it was too late for the FSA to offer any input into the decision making process.

Although Hastings paid out pro rata refunds to the affected customers:

"All affected policy holders had to fund new insurance before receiving the refund for their cancelled insurance policy."

And in regard to compensation:

"Hastings placed too much weight on the fact that customers had enjoyed a period of cheaper motor insurance of up to a year, did not consider paying compensation to all affected customers for the effort of re-arranging their policies early and awarded redress only where customers complained and cited stress and inconvenience."

For those who had lost out on an extra year's no claims discount after many months of claim free driving:

"Hastings compensated customers for the difference in premiums which they were forced to pay as a consequence of losing their NCD, although this was done only where customers actively took steps to complain to Hastings and request compensation for their loss of NCD entitlement. Hastings did not carry out any later exercise to identify those customers who would have been entitled to a full year's NCD had their insurance not been cancelled mid-term."

For a 19 year old, a year's worth of no-claims could be worth many hundreds of pounds. The situation was not helped by Hastings customer services team giving out misleading and inaccurate advice on many occasions identified by the FSA, with untrue statements such as "most insurance companies would accept proof of NCD in months," and "there is no point in speaking to the FSA/FOS as they told us to do [the cancellation]."

And although Hastings produced a letter explaining to future insurers that the cancellation was not the customer's fault, these were only sent out when a customer specifically asked for one.

The FSA also noted over 100 cases of mis-selling when customers called up to re-broke their policy.

This catalogue of errors led to the massive fine, particularly in respect of the second "Highway Two" error, as the FSA considered:

"Hastings, having already been confronted with the issue in relation to Highway One, should have been in a better position to appreciate whether it was appropriate to invoke the seven day cancellation clause... Hastings simply focussed on the cost ... and failed to properly consider its TCF [Treating Customers Fairly] obligations with the result that most Highway Two policies were cancelled mid-term."

By choosing to cancel, Hastings may have caused considerable problems for their erstwhile customers, which may leave them with higher premiums for years to come. Aside from the loss of no claims discount accrual, the more serious problem is the mere fact of the cancellation itself. Notwithstanding the letter mentioned above (and that Hastings have now been told to send to all affected customers) many companies will not consider the circumstances of a cancellation before deciding that they won't quote the list, and online quotes are going to be out of the question in most cases, I would imagine.

Although a specialist broker, (like us) would be able to consider the individual circumstances and could arrange competitive cover, that still seems to me to place an undue difficulty on the customer and a restriction on obtaining insurance from certain providers or over certain channels.

Well lets hope that everyone in the insurance community learns some lessons from this. But there is one more damning indictment of Hastings still to come.

According to the FSA:

"In relation to Highway Two, Hastings arranged for a limited number of customers to remain on cover on the basis that they were the most likely to escalate their complaints and cause Hastings the 'most problems.'"

Or in other words, Hastings had a two tier system in operation, and if you were prepared to make a fuss, they would give you better treatment. It seems the moral here is that if you ever find yourself in this situation, or on the receiving end of some poor service from Hastings, make sure they know you are prepared to cause them problems if necessary.

The worst aspect of this sorry saga is that the people who were most disadvantaged were the customers that just accepted what was going on with resignation.

I'm sure the fine has given Hastings something to think about, but I wonder, given their evident concern for their bottom line, whether the fine was enough. Shouldn't it have at least covered the £1.37 million shortfall that Hastings refused to make up?

Are cars better than buses? Judge for yourself.

All of the environmental advantages of taking the bus to work are negated by two things:

First, hundreds of freeloading pensioners, who 'need' to get their shopping at rush hour, taking all of the seats.

Second, drivers like these:

Dumb Parking

If you are seriously, awfully bad at parking you'd better watch out, because Crap-Parking.co.uk has its beady eyes on you.

If you're a selfish idiot and think you can park where you like and balls to everyone else, then this site is here to expose you. Anyone can park the car a little bit badly, and I expect we've all parked a bit further from the kerb than we'd have liked, or strayed an inch into the next space and said to ourselves "That'll do."

These selfish muppets, on the other hand have absolutely zero consideration, and presumably a matching amount of shame, as they brazenly park their cars like this:







So next time you see someone parking in a seriously dumb way, why not take a photo with your mobile and send it in, so at least they can be mercilessly mocked.

And how about this:



This not-so-smart parking warden's Smart car is equipped with a retractable, 15 foot high spy camera, ready to take pictures of parking offences in the NCP car park. Unfortunately, the dumb driver forgot to retract the camera when he left the car park, caught it on the barrier, and before you could say cheese, he was the one caught on camera...

By the way, this post is the 200th post on the Fluxposure blog. I hope everyone is still enjoying it. Your comments are always welcome, and I'm certainly looking forward to writing the next couple of hundred - if you can bear it.

No Flat Tyres (Didn't we already do that)

I recently got sent an interesting piece about some 'new' tyres Michelin have produced - they call it a Tweel.



The blurb is reproduced below, but the interesting thing is that these tyres have already been covered in our Influx car magazine and on this blog - over two years ago!

"These tires are airless and are scheduled to be out on the market very soon.The bad news for law enforcement is that spike strips (aka stingers) will not work on these tires.
This is what great R&D; will do, and just think of the impact on existing technology:
A. no more air v r compressors at gas stations...
C. no more repair kits...
D. no more flats..."

OK, what happened to B???

Of course, any adrianflux customers who read our original piece on the Tweel in issue 1 of influx, may already know that the big problem is excessive road noise over 50 mph and the wheel is not expected to be in production until at least 2015.

But how did we know? Well, some of the Flux Babes have a very close relationship with the Michelin man:

Flux Team Theme

Once again, June is our month of fun here at Flux HQ, and one of the competitions this year was to come up with an Adrian Flux company theme tune.

Here is Richard Rowsell's winning entry.

Pimped Ride - literally...

Undercover police in Miami had the easiest bust in their lives when they were offered a ride in a heavily modified stretch limousine bus cruising through South Beach. Their $40 'fare' got them on board a mobile brothel, where another sort of ride cost somewhat more.

Click here to see the video news report.

So if anyone's interested in acquiring a modified stretch bus, the Florida police have one available at a knock down rate, and if you need to insure it, make sure get a specialist modified car insurance quote.

Getting Sky TV in Focus

According to the Yorkshire Police, thieves in Leeds have been nicking car stereos from Ford Foci (or Focuses if you prefer) under the mistaken impression that they contain a magical chip, which, if soldered into your Sky Digibox will allow you to watch the movies and football for free.

Now, I know people in Leeds must be desperate to watch a real football team again, but this is so obviously a load of rubbish that you have to wonder who is falling for it.

Reminds me of the spate of drain cover thefts we had here a couple of years ago, following an untrue rumour that the scrap metal price had gone through the roof.

Still even that is more believable than this recent magazine article which is dodgier than the coffee I had at the French Car Show yesterday morning.

Auto Express Survey

The results are in in the Auto Express Driver Power insurance survey for 2008 and we were pleased to finish in a creditable 11th place in the survey, showing last year's rise from 40th to 17th wasn't just a flash in the pan.

With this result being the outcome of actual customers responses, we're especially happy that our customers seem to have a good opinion of us, a testament to all the hard work which has been done in improving the customer experience over the last few years, even though we certainly think there's room for further improvement.

I think the results are even better for the fact that, as a broker, a certain amount of the customer experience is out of our hands and relies on our panel of insurance providers. Particularly so when you consider that the unusual and specialist cars we often cover are much harder for the insurance companies to deal with, especially if there is a claim.

Because of that, I think the value of dealing through a decent broker is demonstrated when you see that some of the companies on our panel are languishing in the bottom 10 of the rankings - so it seems that you really can get demonstrably better value AND better service by going through a broker, despite what Direct Line would have you believe.

Of course, the broker you choose has a big impact - otherwise Endsleigh, Budget, the AA, Swinton and the Post Office wouldn't be in the bottom ten.

And now, a la Jeremy Clarkson, I'll explain why we actually did even better. The top four companies are all, in a way, cheating. I don't mean that they aren't doing really well for their customers, because they are. It's just that if you aren't an elderly trade union member living in the country, you won't be able to get a quote with all four. SAGA and RIAS concentrate on the 'mature' markets, Frizzell targets only union (and similar organisation) members, and the winner, NFU, will only quote drivers with a rural postcode.

Obviously that's fair enough, but it does give these companies an easier ride in the survey stakes, because they can tailor their products and their customer experience to their very specific niche. In our case, managing the conflicting expectations of classic car owners, high net worth individuals and modified jap import enthusiasts, for example, is much more of a challenge. Our staff have to learn about hundreds of products, and then have to deal with customers who are so dramatically diverse that they need treating in quite different ways. And it even comes down to things like the hold music - which everyone complains about, but for different and often opposite reasons.

So, all in all, an impressive showing, and for anyone who might have been disappointed by our service in the past: we've got much better - it's official, and we're aiming to improve even further, so perhaps it's time to consider giving us another go.

Pay As You Drive (Through the nose)

Norwich Union sorry, Aviva* have announced that they are pulling the plug on their Pay As You Drive Car Insurance product, after disappointing sales and low take up of their tracking technology.

The idea behind PAYD is that you install some GPS telemetry gubbins in your car, so that Norwich Union can track where you go, when you go and how you get there, and in return they charge you a variable rate per hour of between 5p a mile and £1 a mile, depending on whether you're on a leisurely drive through the Cotswolds at noon or caning it through Brixton at midnight.

The problems with this are manifold. Do you really want your insurer to know how fast you are driving on every occasion, where you go to regularly? Privacy is a major concern for many people with any kind of pay as you drive mechanism, and who is to say what NU would use the info for, or even if they'll sell it to the highest bidder?

Even Norwich Union's own marketing spiel could only come out with a statistic as underwhelming as this :

"24% of "Pay As You Drive"™ Pilot customers would have saved up to 30% compared to a standard Norwich Union Motor Insurance premium"

I'm not sure if that means that 76% were worse off, or no better off for choosing PAYD, but in any case you would expect bigger savings than this from the hot air they spouted when they launched the product.

In any case, ans as we previously pointed out, a limited mileage policy is a better, lower tech solution for most young drivers, and offers the added advantage of a set monthly bill, so no sudden stings or big fluctuations when you have to travel more than in an average month (like many students travelling long distances a couple of times per term.) What's more, in many cases the savings with a limited mileage policy can be quite substantial, and you don't have to worry about fitting an ugly black box to your pride and joy. (Hmm. I wonder if you have to declare a telematics unit as a modification.)

Despite Aviva's attempt to spin this failure as a result of fears of a surveillance society, I think the real problem is that the product was quite gimmicky and did not in fact offer drivers an attractive way of using their cars, and so it was doomed to failure.

The 10,000 policyholders are now being substituted onto other policies, which means in a week or two we will be seeing uproar on the forums as someone gets stung for a massive premium increase. Oh dear.

*(incidentally, we told you that piece of news aaaages ago - before they did, in fact)

Fast Car + Flux Babes = Our Hottest Video Ever

Since the Fast Car photoshoot at the office a couple of weeks ago, I've spent every spare moment (I don't get that many, which is why it has taken 2 weeks) looking at the hours of footage we took on the day and editing it down into something you might actually want to watch - here it is:

Fast Car Fluxbabes Photoshoot

Last Friday we had an interesting day at the office as FastCar descended on East Winch Hall to take some photos of the Fluxbabes. Scary and Trev from the mag, along with photographer Dan and make-up artist Holly Newberry - yes, that Holly Newberry (!WARNING! Links Are Not Safe For Work!).

Babes, Charlie, Jemma, Laura, Sam and FluXFactor winner Gemma were chosen to represent the Flux Babes for this shoot, and all did really well in front of the cameras.



We shot a behind the scenes video, which we are editing at the moment, and will post that on the Flux Babes site, along with photos from the day.



Meanwhile, look out for the Flux Babes on your newsagents shelves in the next couple of months, and don't forget, you can see loads of them at the French Car Show on the 22nd of June.

Worst Car Insurance Advert - Ever

If you thought the wall to wall car insurance adverts on daytime tv, were bad, wait till you see what our American cousins have to watch in their commercial breaks. This advert is worse - much worse - than anything Admiral, Confused, Elephant or even Hastings Direct have ever put out.

Having said that, for all that it is really, really bad, it is still, somehow, less annoying than Harry Hastings, the Admiral and their drama school reject chums who clutter up the British airwaves.



Weirdly, their website looks completely nondescript and corporate!

French Car Show Videos

With only 38 days left until the Adrian Flux French Car Show 2008, at Rockingham on June 22nd, we're working flat out to help make sure that this year's show is the best yet.

For us that means taking an unprecedented number of Flux Babes, getting an even bigger and better Scalextric circuit, and sorting out free popcorn and candy floss, plus loads more besides.

Can't wait for the next one...

FSA Criticises Car Insurance Comparison Sites

Insurance comparison sites are springing up at a rapid rate, as new entrants emerge onto the market every day to give confused.com, moneysupermarket and gocompare a run for their money.

But how valuable are comparison sites?

I've previously looked at sources of bias, and lack of market coverage, but this week the FSA came back with their assessment of the state of the market, and in particular how it affects customers.

It's the specific examples of bad (and good) practice that are interesting, as the problems will resonate with anyone who has spent much time on the different aggregator sites.

Here are some of their findings of bad practice by car insurance comparison sites:

Some sites have...

"Notification that assumptions have been used to generate quotes, but no indication of what those assumptions are."

Helpful if you click through only to find out you are not eligible for that particular quote because of that SP30 you picked up 2 years ago.

"Using price as the sole basis for "comparison", but not advising consumers that they should consider other factors, and that the difference in price is likely to reflect the different levels of protection offered by the policies."

This is pretty major. Anyone can put a policy together that's cheap, as long as they leave out most of the features that normal people might actually want. Even Swiftcover, who compete as aggresively on price as anyone, know that, as demonstrated by their own news release on unwitting assumptions made by drivers on levels of cover.

"Not listing all benefits provided by the policy, and not providing information on the basis for listing the benefits nor advising consumers that policies may have other benefits not listed."

Not listing all the benefits makes it very hard to do a truly fair comparison without ringing the insurance companies concerned, which would kind of defeat the point of the aggregator site. Imagine if you had two quotes around £10 difference in price. What the FSA are saying here is that the second place quote could have free breakdown, legal and accident cover, but you would never even know.

"Not making it clear that the policies listed did not all contain the provisions or benefits specifically requested by the consumer."

Can you believe this. You've asked the comparison site specifically for quotes with protected no claims bonus, and then the site ignores you and returns policies with and without the feature you'd asked for. And this actually happens. It's easy to see some very tricky situations developing here in the event of a claim.

"Providing a figure for the "total excess", when in fact this is only the voluntary excess and a further compulsory excess will need to be applied. In one case, a further compulsory excess of £320 was applicable. The compulsory excess figures quoted on the site were provided as the actual level of excess to be applied, but were shown to be incorrect when compared to the broker's or insurer's website. In one case a figure of £100 was given for the compulsory excess, but in fact the actual compulsory excess applicable was £475."

Ouch! This may just be poor programming, but it comes across as dishonest. By the time you would find out about this you are probably well into the 'winning' quote's site, and would probably be dubious about checking the other results in case the same happened again.

"The quote given on the comparison site differs from the quote given on the brokers or insurers website, but no information has been changed and no additional questions asked to warrant a change in price."

This is the one that most people notice, and possibly stems from a different set of assumptions (but why?). Again it comes across as being something like a con if the price has 'revised' upwards.

"The information provided by the consumer to the comparison site is incorrectly passed to the broker or insurer."

The whole point of comparison sites is that 'You only have to enter your information once' so this just seems shoddy.

"Figures given for the cost of optional extras are incorrect. In the majority of cases seen where the cost was incorrect, the comparison site underestimated the cost of the optional extras."

Why? Are they just guessing, or do they not think anyone cares about the price of car insurance optional extras?

"The quote given by the comparison site excludes certain features (for example legal assistance and breakdown cover), but these features are then automatically added to the final quote price when proceeding through to payment on the broker's or insurer's website."

I think we have to let the comparison sites off this one, to be fair. The fault here is the broker or insurer applying the old thetrainline.com tactic of whacking on all the optional extras by default, which is annoying, but hardly the aggregator's fault.

So what can you do about this?

Well as the FSA have decided, in their wisdom, not to 'name and shame' the aggregator sites which are getting away with these poor quality features, it's down to you as the customer to keep an eye out and beware of misleading information. Saying that, it is true that insurance comparison sites perform an important service, and help you narrow down some of the thousands of options and get a ballpark figure for your quote. Saying that, I would also recommend that everybody should ring a couple of direct insurers, and at least one specialist insurance broker (like us for example - if you need a quote, call us on 08000 83 88 33).

There are many companies that still don't appear on comparison websites, despite the misleading claims (according to the FSA) of almost total market coverage by some of the aggregators.

What's more, specialist brokers may well have a specialist scheme that fits your situation, and here at Adrian Flux we have over 200 such schemes with 40+ insurers on our panel, so you may well be special without realising it, and that could save you lots of money. The third reason you should consider a broker, is that the broker can take many more factors into account than any comparison site, and more importantly, we only need to ask the questions that are relevant to your situation. Some of this can only be done over the phone, when we can talk to you direct and treat you as an individual.

In any case, if the FSA is to be believed, you need to be careful before accepting comparison sites at face value.