Great Chitter Chatter - Stories from Loud Voices

Car insurance premiums have been going up so rapidly in recent months that some young drivers are being quoted as much as £2,500 per year to insure their cars.

Insurance companies blame fraudulent claims for the 40% average rise in premiums over the past 12 months and suggest that further hikes are inevitable in the not too distant future.

New car drivers are being stung the worst with the average premium going up 51% for those between 17 and 22. Men can expect to pay £2,500, women the same age pay a bargain basement £1,400.

The British Insurance Brokers Association told the government’s transport select committee that the increases were due to the number of fraudulent insurance claims made last year as well as the number of successful accident compensation claims made against them. This, they said, along with the current economic climate was the reason why an estimated average of £80 was added to every insurance policy.

Nick Starling, director of general insurance at the Association of British Insurers, estimates that 10% of every pound spent on insurance goes to people working in the law. “If somebody runs into the back of you, you are an extremely valuable property, it is a dysfunctional system – people have to ‘play’ the system as it exists.”

Shopping around for the best insurance deal always helps if you’re trying to keep costs down if you’re going to start playing. Find your best quote and then invite your current insurer to beat it. If they can’t go, if they will, great!

It might be tempting to be, shall we say, disingenuous if you’re looking for shared insurance by putting a reliably safe driver as the main driver when they aren’t. This is called ‘fronting’, it’s illegal and will void your insurance if you need to make a claim. Insurance companies look out for it specifically and do tend to catch people who try it.

Another great idea would be to avoid having accidents, keep your nose clean and don’t pick up points on your license. Get to the end of your first year spotless and you could see the premium drop by a third next year, from then on you’re also picking up no claims too.

I’m lucky enough to have three housemates who I genuinely like and get along with, I’ve lived in shared houses where we’ve detested one another. Like the guy whose pet rat escaped and rather than try to catch it, he let another one go instead. I eventually found one dead in a kitchen drawer but only after it had eaten through cables and washing machine hoses. Another was a guy who moved in before telling us he had problems sleeping whose bedroom was immediately above the front door facing a reasonably busy street. Since the rest of us were students and pub-workers we usually came home late so we started using the back door rather than get screamed at once more. On one occasion he burst into the bathroom to tell my girlfriend off for making too much noise while washing her face and another time he yelled and hollered at her for opening the kitchen cupboards too loudly.

Currently I live with three girls. Two of them aren’t the best of friends but we all seem to get along fine. But the clichés of what it’s like to live in a house full of women are up-side-down! It seems to be me, the guy who empties and re-fills the integrated dishwasher every day, cleans down the work surfaces, my life is a constant battle against crumbs! Our house doesn’t have such things as integrated washing machines or condensers tumble dryers so we use clothes horses, it’s often impossible to get from one end of the kitchen to the other without tackling knickers that have been drying so long they’re starting to collect dust! The bathroom is often a disaster area with damp towels piled on the floor, make up and shower products forming escarpments and parados lining the tub seemingly designed to prevent me from getting into the bath. The same bath I have to release from scum and hair every time I wish to use it. So the myth that blokes are the dirty, messy lazy ones who expect their women to rush around cleaning up behind them stops here!