Compare The Market has put together a data tool which looks at regional variations in the average car insurance premium. Although prices can vary depending on your age, postcode, job, marital status, convictions and more, it is interesting to see how expensive particular areas are.
It’s no surprise that out of the top ten most expensive areas, nine of them are in Greater London. Manchester sneaks in at 8th place. The cheapest? Mostly the rural South West of England, such as Devon.
You can enter your own postcode and compare your car insurance costs aginst the typical batting average, which is useful to do just before renewal time.
The results will show how much you are saving, or overpaying when compared to some with the same value car and the same age, living in the same town or city.
What can we take away from this? Obviously it is cheaper to live in a less densely populated part of the UK. That means the biggest risk factor is the number of people nearby, not your age, your job, or whether you got divorced in 2012. The difference in premiums can be as much as £400 a year, even for someone aged over 30.
What the tool proves is that car insurance is long overdue a complete re-think; the old TPF&T and Fully Comp options need dismantling, people should be rated as the primary risk, not the vehicle and especially not the vehicle’s value. Everyone in the industry knows that the bulk of the claim cost is the admin, loss adjustment, legal partner bill, car recovery, storage, hire car, repair cost per hour etc – not the actual cost of the parts.
The sooner an individual’s trackable driving/location data history becomes the primary risk rating factor, the better.
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