14 Havering Extra, Summer 2012


THE past year has brought some welcome relief from the soaring increases in premiums for com- prehensive cover imposed by insurers in 2010/11. According to the AA British Insurance Premium Index, the average quote showed a7.7 per cent rise in the year to March 31. That's ahead of inflation but


pretty good after the record40.1 per cent annual increase imposed in the year to April 2011. With the average quote for comprehensive cover standing at £1,452, the AA says that while afew insurers areheavily discounting to win new busi- ness, others arecontinuing to increase premiums. Since the start of the year,there


has been an overall 1.1 per cent decline in the cheapest premiums. With personal injury claims soar-


ing, and industry costs rising by around 10 per cent per year,fur- ther steep rises for all motorists are almost inevitable, warns Simon Douglas, director of AA Insurance. Simon said: "My fear is that if


prices do continue to drop, we'll see arepeat of 2009, when


Motoring update


industry losses led to premiums suddenly rocketing up following a long period of little movement." For younger drivers thereislittle


prospect of prices falling general- ly.AAInsurancereckons the average young male (aged 17- 22) pays £3,163 for insurance, up 76 per cent since summer 2010. For aman aged 50-59, the com- parable figureis£577. Women in the 17-22 age group pay an aver- age premium of £1,799. This gap between the sexes is expected to


shrink from


December 20, when the contro- versial EU gender directive means insurers can no longer use gender as ameans of calcu- lating insurance premiums. The big hope for motorists lies


in new technology,such as telematics-based policies which gather data from aGPS-linked 'black box' inserted under the dashboard. With the cost of these black boxes covered by annual premi-


ums, insurers -and drivers too - can monitor individual driving stan- dards to assess the level of risk moreaccurately than ever before. Mike Brockman, chief executive


of insuretherbox, the company that pioneered telematics-based motor insurance in 2010, said: "Apart from enabling cheaper motor insurance, the main benefit from telematics is that it should improve driving behaviour." If the vehicle sustains asharp impact at any time, this is regis- tered by the insurer and the poli- cyholder is contacted on their mobile automatically,with acall then placed to the emergency services if no reply is received. GPS technology also allows vehicles to be rapidly traced when stolen. Ablack box can also measure


the impact of acollision, which could eventually help to stem the flood of compensation claims for whiplash injuries which arecurrent- ly costing insurers asmall fortune.


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