How to Save on Insurance by Not Guessing the Answers
>> Monday, November 23, 2009
When faced with a seemingly endless series of questions to get a motor trade insurance
quote, many people might become a little tired and start to guess some of the answers… but it's not a good idea…
Firstly, wrong information can invalidate the insurance should you ever have to claim. If the wrong information is proven to be "materially relevant" to the claim - for example, you get the age of a driver wrong, then you've got a pretty good chance of facing some difficulties.
Less common knowledge though is that insurance quotes are calculated by following a set of rules, and those rules can work against you, or with you, depending on how you answer certain questions.
For example - most motor policies have a voluntary excess option (very simply - if you have a claim, and your voluntary excess is £200, you agree to pay the first £200 of it). When the broker is calculating your rate, he might ask you how much voluntary excess you want - but he probably won't tell you that £100-£150 might be worth 5% off, £151-£250 is 7% and £251-£500 is 10%…
Annual mileage is another big driver of rates - if you estimate or round up to 10,000 a year and the insurance rates are bracketed 0-9999, 10,000-20,000 then you've just put yourself into a higher insurance bracket that you might need to have been and inadvertently cost yourself an extra 5% per year.

If you get a question that you’re not sure of that might have options, ask for an explanation. A classic one there is the type of vehicle security device you have fitted. If you just say “alarm” you won’t get much of a discount, but if you can honestly say that you’ve got a Thatcham category two device then you might be up for more possible discounts.
Where you’re faced with a question that you can choose the answer to, like voluntary excess, it’s always a good idea to ask the salesperson what the difference in premium would be for changing the value to something else. You could even be so bold as to ask what the brackets are - there’s no point paying more for 10,000 miles if you could reasonably state that you do 9,999 a year after all!
Finally, armed with the knowledge above, it’s important not to try and second guess the insurer - what they think is a good risk (i.e. can be underwritten more cheaply) and what you think is a good risk might be two completely different things! Remember - you have a legal requirement to answer honestly, but there’s no reason why you can’t ask what effect your answer will have on the premium.
Insurance quotes are all about the details - so take care of them and where possible TALK to an insurance broker!



