Cars & Motorbikes Comprehensive car insurance

I’ve been with AAMI for years & have had to claim..... happy to say the process was as painless as one could reasonably expect.

I’ve found they are reasonably competitive on price too. Ie. $650 for 2 yr old car now worth ~30k but that’s not in Sydney..... postcode premiums can be high.

 

@Simon Hampel
I think this is where the concept of "Moral Hazard" comes into play.
Because the car is that old, the risk of moral hazard increases as people may be more likely to deliberately write off the car in an attempt to get a higher value than what its worth. Not saying that's something you would do, but because there are unscrupulous people out there, insurers do need to take that into account - probably a case where minority ruins it for the majority.

You might be able to get a higher sum insured in exchange with a higher excess, but probably requires a phone call instead.

I'm insured with Suncorp and I've found them pleasant to deal with... but you do the odd stupid person from time to time.

 

I've heard nothing but bad things about Woolworths and Coles insurance. Coles especially..

 

Great - I've got one car with Woolworths & PPoR with Coles. I did have to ring Woolworths call centre once and found them easy and helpful to deal with, but I've never had to make a claim with either of them (touch wood!).

 

I got bingo today for haft of the price compared to allianz racv

 

Thinking outside the box here but what about Shannon's? They specialise in "special" cars. I suspect they'll be expensive but might be worth a call all the same?

 

Currently with progressive direct, online reviews aren't great but I've found them easy to deal with. I've had 3 claims processed no problem. Premiums about 20% less than the big names (even better if you're insuring 2 or more cars).

Note: they aren't affiliated with the American group anymore, and I haven't had to claim since the new ownership.

 

Back of envelope, could be way off but I'd say conservative:
- you pay insurance company $500
- they take it and invest in bonds earning 2-3%
- end of year report they generate average earnings of say 10%
- very rough estimate they have operating expenses of abother 20%.
- if they are generating 30% gross returns on premiums they have a payout ratio of around 70%
- for every $1 you give them in your lifetime you can expect to see 70c back. (Compounding year on year, and again I reckon that is probably optmistic, plus I would say a disproportionate amount of the payouts would go to a smaller pool of repeat problem drivers, higher risk individuals you are subsidising)

Better:
- Invest your $500 each year in bonds yourself, or, better yet shares in QBE or IAG. Renivest all dividends.
- Around 10 years later you have $15,000 worth of QBE shares and a car that has depreciated to about $5000 anyway.
- If you have a car crash in that time, and you write it off, and it is your fault or you can't recover the funds from another driver then you need to dip into this fund. So you break even.
- more likely, nothing happens and you now have $15,000 of shares paying $750 franked dividends perpetually. You can now go back to paying car insurance if you want for the rest of your life for free!

 

Sure, that could happen, but it probably won't, at least not with a frequency that would justify the lifetime premiums. Also I wouldn't say that it is meaningless that you have a flawless driving record, just adds weight to the self-insurance argument.

Don't get me wrong, I have insurance on things that would cripple me financially if they happened, houses, third party, public liability etc, but for car, pet, funeral, extended warranties, etc etc I am near certain I will get a better outcome over my lifetime retaining and investing those premiums and just paying for bad things if/when they happen.

 

Don't forget he would still be liable for the damage, It's just you rather your insurer that would have to initiate the action with him or his insurance company.

 

Resurrecting this thread in case anyone is interested.

Claim for hail damage was completed last month, all really smooth and the repairers completed everything in less time than they quoted. Car came back clean and with no damages.

Fast forward to last week, my car was stolen. I called Bingle because I had difficulty filling out their online form for my circumstance, the woman I spoke to was AMAZING. Handled it all for me and had a hire car sorted for me the same day.

Car was recovered and I met with their assessor to check out the damages this morning. I then called Bingle as my hire car initially only had 14 days on it - they've extended it out for me another 2 weeks until we hear back from the assessor and I have the car either until they decide it's a write off or until repaired.

With all the calls I've had I've never had to wait long to get hold of someone, everyone I have spoken with have been so helpful explaining the process and what I need to do. They've answered all my questions and haven't made me feel like an idiot for asking so many questions.

I had to pay my excess upfront, but because an arrest was made they refund that to me and it doesn't effect my claims bonus as besides the hail damage I've never made a claim with anyone.

On the flip side I called AAMI who I have portable contents cover with. I initially went with AAMI a few years back because they were great to deal with as the third party - I cancelled my car insurance with them based on price, but left the remainder of my policies with them.

I called them to get an idea on what I need to do for a potential claim, I was bounced around to a couple of different people and spent a while on hold (it wasn't a stupid amount of time, but wasn't quick either) the woman that answered was having a conversation with someone else and I was on the other end thinking "hello?!" she was quite rude and not at all helpful. The attitude seemed to be "why are you calling me to ask questions?" - I don't think it would be unusual for someone to ask questions if they're in a situation they've never been in before and they're not aware of the process or how to submit a claim to prove that certain items were in the car that are now MIA.

Anyway, highly recommend Bingle and I will be keeping my policy with them even if I need to purchase another car based on the service I've received to date. Just in case anyone is interested as I know a lot pick based on price and never have a claim, just the find the process difficult when required. So that's my experience so far

 

My advice .. ..... Don't ever own a car!

That's some ridiculous bad luck!

 

It is, when we moved out of Sydney our car insurance (same cars, same insurer) halved.

 

I've had this hire car since Monday last week and I've already done 1,000km - I think Uber would love me if I didn't have a car

At the end of the day it's just a car. More upset about the belongings I had in the car and the fact I've got to run around and replace what can be replaced and just suck it up for the stuff that can't be.

When checking the car I discovered they took everything, from the littlest things like my car charger and hair ties - all the way up to my bloody service history book. Who does that?! Work signage, sunglasses, car mats (but not the driver seat one?), spare wheel... you name it, it's gone. Funnily enough they did find my number plates yesterday - on another stolen car.

 

Was with AAMI for long time. Got new car recently and went with Allianz based on choice repairer and good feedback from the local panel shops. Slightly more than AAMI but bit more peace of mind one would hope if I ever need it.

 

Are you sure 15k is the real number. Similar cars to yours are advertised for just over $10k and you can knock a few thousand dollars off that definately. You can also take your accessories with you if they are available. Pricing is always a bit hit and miss, I know people with 80k agreed value paying $1200 and $6000 paying $900 - both NRMA.

If the other party is at fault and insured - I think you could get away with managing it yourself (to the full economic value of your loss - it may be better to do this even if you are insured as you claim more than your "agreed" value)

If they are uninsured then without insurance you are screwed.

 

Realistically, low K's doesn't make too much difference to price, it's just a sweetener for a quicker sale. Trust me, I just sold a car which was less than 2 years old and had only 20,000 on it, I got 30K (I lost $15K in under 2 years) for it, my expectation started at 36K but the market just wasn't shifting them, it's more about what the market is doing than how good or bad my actual car was.

https://www.carsales.com.au/dealer/details/Toyota-Aurion-2010/OAG-AD-15576926/

https://www.carsales.com.au/dealer/details/Toyota-Aurion-2010/OAG-AD-15631687/

https://www.carsales.com.au/dealer/details/Toyota-Aurion-2010/OAG-AD-15886127/

The good news is, you could replace your car for 12 or 13 so you could drop the amount you insure it for .