Are there an unusual amount of people in Ontario who have no idea how insurance works? Or are their reps not divulging this stuff.
Every time we get a new car or move, routine questions questions include using vehicle for commuting and commuting distances. Luckily in Alberta it's not all no fault and 'people who drive this car model have accidents' based premiums.
Our house insurance provider is also proactive in informing us if changes and requirements. It's also common knowledge to have your house checked every 24 - 48 hours when you go away.
https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.4673094
2 things people ignore..
ReplyDeleteThe make and model of the car (does it have a history of being a lads hoon car? are they stolen often and easily, is it unsafe and accident prone?)
Suburb - (you might be a night person .. but the other 20 houses in your street are occupied by morons)
I once applied for full insurance on a restored 1936 chev..
The quote I received was from memory only $60 a year.. I questioned it,,, and was told "ever heard of anyone ever crashing one of those things? we don't have one on our books ever damaged, insurance is cheap on your car"
I was happy.
Yes we have categories but not specific brand evaluations. Also if you drive more than 10 K to work your premium goes up.
ReplyDeleteWe had this moving from our old house into an apartment, and then again moving from the apartment into the new house. The rates are based on zip codes and theft rates per zip code. We went from low theft to high, back to low and the rates were rollercoaster. We have a better rate now than when we first started.
ReplyDeleteI do recall hearing about postal codes being used by insurance companies to determine car insurance rates a while ago. ICBC does not do this in B.C. from what I understand.
ReplyDeleteMake and model of a car does affect insurance rates. If insurance companies are not taking into account the number of vehicles out there and only using the number of claims, then I don't think they are doing the risk calculations correctly. Obviously there will be more claims with more popular cars. They should look at the rate a make or model has a claim. Maybe a less popular car has claims at a higher rate than a more popular car, but there are fewer claims because there are fewer of those cars out there.
I've never heard of any distance travelled for work questions asked of me with regards to insurance.
ReplyDeleteI can see how it should though, more K on the road, greater risk of needing insurance.
Lordy For my car insurance in B.C., driving to/from work greater than 15km is a distance category that is taken into account. I saved a bit of money once I moved closer to work so I'm less than 15km now.
ReplyDeleteI'm in Australia Gene Chiu
ReplyDeleteWe may not have that on our insurance.
I live 2 K from work, I start in 7 minutes, I better go, seeya.
Lordy I can leave for work at 6:54 and get to work for 7:00. Living close is awesome.
ReplyDeleteCass Morrison Lordy It takes me 15 minutes just to walk from my parking spot to my office. That's after a 25-minute drive for me.
ReplyDeleteGene Chiu - when i moved from Port Moody to Maple Ridge, my car insurance went down.
ReplyDeleteOh god, the questions they ask us now in Ontario. How far to work (got a look when I said 1.81km ... they thought it oddly specific. I said that's what the GPS tells me when I ride my bike.), do you use winter-specific tires, do you use your vehicle for ride sharing (Uber), I think the last renewal was 2 pages of that crap. And god help you if you're looking at a small car vs. an SUV. They're more likely to get written off in an accident, so the claims are higher! Best insurance line I ever heard was when my uncle called to ask why his premiums doubled, having a perfect driving record with no insurance claims in decades. They told him it had been too long since his last accident, and he was "due" for one! SERIOUSLY!! He changed companies.
ReplyDeleteChris Pollard From what I have been told, before 1973, insurance companies in B.C. would just not renew your policy because they thought you were due for a claim.
ReplyDeleteWe changed insurance companies on the cars a year or two ago..
ReplyDeleteRang the old one to cancel and when the guy asked why we were cancelling after all these years I said "because we were offered a far better deal elsewhere"
He came back with "We can do yo a better deal no problems"
I replied "If you can, then you obviously don't value me as a client"
He's like "pardon sir? why do you say that?" (obviously a bit taken back with my response)
I explained "If it takes me requesting that you stop taking payments out of my account and to cancel my insurance before you'd offer me your best price, then you don't value or need me as a client, because if you did value me, you would have contacted me and offered me the lower rate already... you didn't, so no thanks"
He apologised.. he said I was right..
Lordy I feel the same way about employers (and employees) that use quitting as an pay increase tool. By the time you tell them, the decision has been made. I guess you're negotiating your price but...
ReplyDeleteIn B.C., we have a government owned auto insurance company. You must buy the basic, mandatory insurance from them. The optional coverages you can buy from them or from a private insurance company. The public insurance company has a base rate that depends on your vehicle, region and use. There may be a few other factors. Then it is modified by your driving record. There is a table that is published that shows the modified value based on your driving record. If you have no chargeable claim the previous year, your rate goes down a step. If you do have a chargeable claim, it goes up a few steps.
ReplyDeleteDown one for good behaviour, up a few for bad ... sounds about right! lol No public insurance in Ontario ... no matter how long people have screamed for it. But I don't think it's all it's cracked up to be either. All insurance companies are little more than government-sanctioned (and required) scam artists. They're all about serving you - until you need to make a claim. Then god help you at renewal time.
ReplyDeleteChris Pollard There are also downsides to government run insurance companies. It can be manipulated by the government for political reasons. If you look at our rates, you will often find that prior to a provincial election, the rates tend to not go up very much. After an election, they tend to go up more than usual.
ReplyDeleteChris Pollard I believe a provision in the free trade agreement makes it extremely difficult to implement a new public insurance company now. The government would have to compensate private insurance companies for their loss of business. Anything existing is still grandfathered like in B.C.
ReplyDelete