Car Insurance -- address blacklisted?

[GoSeigen]

Having just moved to a new address, I was told by my car insurer that they could not continue our policy at the new address for anything less than ten times the price paid when we bought the policy at the last address. Suspecting some kind of computer mistake I enquired as to the reasons. I was told that the current underwriter would not provide a quote for the new address so a different underwriter had to be used and theirs was the much higher quote. So then I asked why that underwriter's quote might be so much higher and was told it must be because of the change of postcode, no other details of the quote are different.

So I investigated a bit myself using a comparison site, and I can't understand what is happening. First, I should say the new property is spitting distance from the old in the same quiet rural village. But here's the even weirder thing: if I get quotes based on my former two addresses in different postcodes (in the same area) the best quotes are £x; if I get a quote using a former address we occupied in the same postcode as our new home the best quote is also £x. But if I get a quote at the new home address the best quote is £2x and from "dodgy" insurers only.

Thus it seems to me my quote is worse based only on the specific address I have moved to, not the postcode or anything else, yet I believed that addresses could not be blacklisted, only people or postcode areas. Is that belief wrong? Having googled extensively I've found no previous examples of this problem.

Now I happen to know the previous occupants have had a couple of very large claims on their home insurance in recent years, perhaps a few car claims too. Is it possible that their bad claim history is associated with their address and affecting our quotes?

Does anyone have experience of this or know how the underwriting process works?
Any ideas as to the best way to resolve the issue? Ideally I'd like my current underwriter to remove whatever is stopping them from quoting on this address and offer me insurance on similar terms to my existing policy. However I bought the policy through an intermediary (RAC) and they showed no inclination to help in dealing with the underwriter.

TIA

GS

[MyNameIsUrl]

Any ideas as to the best way to resolve the issue?

I suggest you try contacting a broker - a proper old-fashioned service. They will engage with underwriter, and they won't deal with 'dodgy' firms. It may cost you a bit more than £x, to get the service, but it should avoid the computer-generated multiples of £x.

[swill453]

The "addresses can't be blacklisted" thing, you're probably thinking of credit scoring, where it's not allowed as the credit record refers to a person not an address.

For insurance I would have thought they'd be quite entitled to use it as a measure of risk. If, for example, the address had been a frequent target of thieves* then why should they suppose the risk would be any less with a new occupant?

I agree with the advice to get a broker or do lots of shopping around.

*- and this could be home or car insurance, and could for be because of unique features of that particular house, maybe backing onto open land or something.

Scott.

[IanSmithISA]

Good morning,

I may be a little bit out of date but I developed admin and quotation systems for insurers between 1998 and about 2006.

At that time, and as the the insurance industry moves slowly, is probably still the case altering premiums based on a specific address could not be done.

Most insurers calculate premium based on a series of steps

Staring with a Base Premium and multiplying or adding to it for each risk factor; driver age, postcode, vehicle type, claims history etc.

The post code part of the quotation calculation would take the the post code and increase or decrease the premium calculated so far based on table such as

Post Code   Multiplier
WR1              1.0    (Worcestershire)
WR2              1.1    (Worcestershire)
W1                2.2    (London)

Some insurers may go into more precise postcodes such as WR1 1LA, WR1 2LA etc.

However none could have ever used the address as at the time the address was not even passed to the quotation calculating engine.

When calculating premiums insurers gradually increase the price when the don't want the business and then at a certain point they will decline to offer a quote at all, which may be why you got the silly £10x premium. Where they switch from ridiculous to decline is insurer and brand dependent.

What seems more possible is that the "non dodgy" (using your description) insurers are generating a quote at £1x and then going to something like the Insurance Fraud Register (http://www.theifr.org.uk) and deciding that they don't want the business.

The insurers who are quoting may simply be taking a different approach to possible fraud, they will take you business and if you claim will send their best fraud detection agents out where as the no quoting simply don't want the bother.

So they may be quoting on your specific address by having a step in their premium calculation that says check an external database and if there is no entry as for most addresses then do nothing to the premium. I would suspect that it unlikely that the insurers own their own database of addresses that they would not want to quote on as admin would be hell.

To an outsider the difference may be trivial, who cares owns the blocking record?

Don't expect the RAC to help, they are a seller of someone else's commodity insurance, once an individual decision is required the policy becomes loss making for both the RAC and the underwriter.

LATE EDIT
Expect difficulties if you want to find out if your address is on the mentioned register, as you name won't be and this is a private data base.

Bye

Ian

[GoSeigen]

Thank you all for very useful feedback. Am working with current insurer and a broker to find out what the issue is. Our theory at the moment is that the problem is our new address not being verified either in an electoral roll check or with the credit agencies as we have so recently moved. Does that seem a reasonable cause for certain insurers declining to quote?

Landlord confirms no recent car theft claims and only the one house policy claim, both under their names of course, so I don't think there is a poor claim history at the address.

GS

[DrFfybes]

Have you tried getting a quote for next door to see if it just your particular address?

[swill453]

Thank you all for very useful feedback. Am working with current insurer and a broker to find out what the issue is. Our theory at the moment is that the problem is our new address not being verified either in an electoral roll check or with the credit agencies as we have so recently moved. Does that seem a reasonable cause for certain insurers declining to quote?

Possibly.

Have you looked it up in the Royal Mail postcode finder https://www.royalmail.com/find-a-postcode ? And ensure you're giving it in exactly the same format to the insurance companies.

Scott.

[GoSeigen]

Thank you all for very useful feedback. Am working with current insurer and a broker to find out what the issue is. Our theory at the moment is that the problem is our new address not being verified either in an electoral roll check or with the credit agencies as we have so recently moved. Does that seem a reasonable cause for certain insurers declining to quote?

Possibly.

Have you looked it up in the Royal Mail postcode finder https://www.royalmail.com/find-a-postcode ? And ensure you're giving it in exactly the same format to the insurance companies.

Scott.

The details we were giving were correct; here's an update on the situation.

Followed some sensible advice from a friend. He suggested to stop engaging with the call centre, and instead to send snail mail notifying change of address with enclosed proof of new address. This would serve the dual purpose of providing the requisite notice in writing and also giving some breathing space until the insurer bothered to reply.

This worked well. Received a reply more than a week later repeating inability to insure at new address with current underwriter, and telling me to call the call centre. This was great as I could reply saying I'd already spoken to the call centre and had asked them to initiate a human review of the computer quotation, and could they inform me when this review would be complete.

Still no reply from that message, so the clock is ticking and they are still insuring me, albeit under my previous address but having been notified in writing, with evidence, that I have moved.


Meanwhile, today I tried again to get an online quote and this time, plenty of very sensibly-priced quotes! I can only conclude that one or more underwriters confirm your address on an online database and if they see no sign of you having lived there they refuse point blank to quote. I guess after a few weeks my new address has finally hit the system.


Lessons learned: Notify change of address some time before moving, if possible. If not possible, delay changing insurance until new address hits the system. Delay by sending new address by snail mail, second class, with evidence of the new address and leaving the ball in insurer's court.


I'll update what finally happens with my insurer when they get back to me.


GS

[didds]

top efforts GS

Thing that occurs to me is... you can;t be alone in being someone movi9ng and "you" and "new address" not showing on "the systems". It can;t only be you.

So whilst your suggestion is definitely plausible something is till not adding up. This must be the case for everybody that moves that needs to update their insurers!

didds

[GoSeigen]

top efforts GS

Thing that occurs to me is... you can;t be alone in being someone movi9ng and "you" and "new address" not showing on "the systems". It can;t only be you.

So whilst your suggestion is definitely plausible something is till not adding up. This must be the case for everybody that moves that needs to update their insurers!

didds

True, didds, but a few things perhaps conspired in my case:
1. I moved in a hurry and hadn't told anyone yet when we moved.
2. I notified my insurers almost immediately after moving, before doing electoral roll and before doing virtually any other address notification.
3. I had the unique advantage of having previously lived in a different house in the same postcode so could prove it was not just the postcode that was causing the problem.
4. The distance moved was small and the price difference massive. Perhaps it happens to others but they move into quite different areas and their new quote is higher but not so high as to ring alarm bells, or they put extra charges down to "fees for changing the policy".
6. It might be a recent change to the way insurers do their quoting.

I've documented my experience in case anyone else wonders why they're strangely getting a higher insurance quote after moving house.

Incidentally I have had analogous problems with certain stockbrokers and other financial businesses who have restricted my account temporarily because they could not obtain online confirmation of my new address. They write asking for further written evidence or for me to wait for them to receive their electronic confirmation before derestricting my account.

At least they offer an explanation and alternative route rather than the baffling "Computer sez no" proffered by the car insurer!

GS