7 ms·

‘Quotes were £5000 or more’: electric vehicle owners face soaring insurance cost

46 points by momirlan 3y ago

taylodl 3y ago
I'm not surprised. How many stories have we seen where a seemingly minor accident caused a Rivian to be totaled? Or Teslas waiting for weeks or months to get the parts needed for a repair? I've been thinking to myself what's going to happen to the insurance rates for these vehicles? Take Tesla's gigacasting, for example. Great to bring down manufacturing costs, horrible for repair costs. Insurance covers repairs, not production. If your gigacast vehicle gets in an accident, you're likely to get screwed. It's very hard to do bodywork on those vehicles and there's few people with the experience to do it. That's expensive - and that's what you're asking your insurance provider to cover. Add to it the sensors and cameras and everything else they're adding to these vehicles and they're becoming a nightmare to repair. It kind of pisses me off, in a way. EV's are supposed to be simpler, but what we've done is to actually make them more complex, at least from a repair perspective. All I really wanted was a simple car, such as a Honda Civic, that has an electric drivetrain. Simple. Not a bunch of electronics to go awry, I could take to any bodyshop and have repaired, and I could realistically expect to get 400,000 miles. </rant>
tom_ 3y ago
> whose only change in circumstance was three points on a licence I had this happen to me about 15 years ago, if by "happen to me" you mean "I committed a criminal offence while in control of a motor vehicle". My insurance went up by about 25% for the following 5 years, which was annoying, but I'm not sure how much attention we should pay to the opinions of a convicted criminal when it comes to the punishment for their crime. It's heartening to hear that we are clamping down on these vermin. > "...because who has got that kind of money [£4,500] in one go?" The Tesla Model Y has an RRP of £~45,000, so its owner is probably better placed to answer this question than we are.
- thebruce87m 3y ago
  I have a Model Y through salary sacrifice. It costs me £500/month. I do have £4,500, but not for insurance. Luckily I am covered by fleet insurance.
- hypeatei 3y ago
  This comment has to be rage bait right? Who takes speeding or any traffic ticket this seriously; convicted criminal, really?
  - upon_drumhead 3y ago
    The majority of traffic tickets (including speeding tickets) are civil offenses and generally not considered a crime. It's not until you get into reckless driving, street racing, or similar that they move into criminal classes (misdemeanor/felony)
    - crooked-v 3y ago
      That's also part of the general racket of small-town speed traps: if there were real permanent consequences to nonsense speeding tickets, people would contest them instead of paying to make them go away.
  - tom_ 3y ago
    Speeding in a motor vehicle is a criminal offence in the UK. I think the relevant section is clause 89 here: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1984/27/part/VI https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1984/27/part/VI
  - notacoward 3y ago
    I think there's a bit of sarcasm present in this case, but it really is a common sentiment in /r/fuckcars and similar places - and many of those folks are here as well. To them, any driver is a murderer who just hasn't succeeded yet. Really. Any hyperbole is theirs, not mine. I would not be surprised to see more comments similar to GP's, minus any sarcasm, from people with the privilege to afford housing in one of the few places where all of the driving essential to their lifestyle is done out of their sight. P.S. For those who think cherry-picking is going to win the day, try this search: murder inurl:fuckcars site:reddit.com. I'm not misrepresenting them at all.
    - tom_ 3y ago
      Once you've passed your driving test, and spent a bit of time driving on the roads, you'll change your tune!
- jarym 3y ago
  I’ve read a fair few comments on a UK EV forum where insurers were declining to offer renewal quotes for people that claimed to have no claims and no points on their license. As to your point about RRP.. £45k isn’t cheap but it doesn’t mean the owners (who often lease) will have expected such a huge increase in premiums. I suspect a lot of the issue is due to issues getting parts post-covid which meant costs to insurers went up (since many offer hire cars while repairs are being carried out).
  - martinald 3y ago
    Yeah I've seen some data from Tesla insurance claims and it's absolutely eye watering: Very expensive parts with poor/non existent inventory Limited service network Leading to huge delays in getting repairs done (many months) As such I think a lot of fairly minor claims go to "write off" territory very quickly. Tesla does need to solve this as in the UK at least it's becoming a semi-well known fact that Teslas are very difficult and expensive to insure. Much more so than the ropey build quality.
  - tom_ 3y ago
    The post-COVID supply chain issues is a good point. I'd mercifully blanked the entire tedious experience until now reminded of it, but my car needed an insurance repair in 2022 (not my fault this time!): suspension bits, new wheel and tyre, some bodywork. Not at all an unusual car, nor fancy, with tens of thousands just like it on the road. Still took nearly 2 months.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Analemma_ 3y ago
Is this just a UK thing? I pay $160/mo to insure my Model 3 and I didn't even really shop around for a good deal.
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  My dad saw (here in the US) a fairly hefty insurance bump going from a bells-and-whistles Acura to a Tesla Model 3. The single-cast underbody is a big and expensive single thing to repair if it gets damaged, as is the battery. https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a42709679/tesla-insurance-fixes-expense/ https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a42709679/tesla-insurance-...
  - aetherson 3y ago
    Okay, sure. But £5,000 is like $17million (okay, it's $6000), and why on God's green earth does anyone's car insurance cost $6k per year?
    - robga 3y ago
      Due to a mathematical actuarial assessment of the risk of the individual circumstances: driver risk- age, driving history, speeding history, gender, claim history, post(zip)code for theft prevalence, car storage location (street); vehicle risk- cost, claim history, etc. then add a premium to make the insurer its profit. My bet is that the quote wasn’t an error or a deliberate tilt against EVs but instead a real assessment based on modelled risk.
  - notacoward 3y ago
    So this is Tesla specific? I've certainly seen no such thing with my Nissan Leaf in the US.
    - ceejayoz 3y ago
      The casting may be, but the Leaf definitely has a big battery too.
- 3y ago
PaulKeeble 3y ago
I doubt this is common. The UK press seems to universally be on a hate the EV push over the past year and its often made up garbage. I don't know what the presses issue is with EVs but they sure are making up a lot of problems that owners don't actually have of late. If this was happening to all EV owners we would be seeing them all complaining about it, yet this is an article about one person not a poll showing this is happening widely.
- Symbiote 3y ago
  It's the Guardian, not the Sun. They have quotes from the insurers themselves. > John Lewis Financial Services told us: “Our underwriter has temporarily paused offering new policies and renewals on fully electric vehicles while they analyse the risks and costs entailed. This decision does not affect any existing policies in force, or hybrid vehicles.”
  - tim333 3y ago
    They also give the general figures - 'typical' £959 electric £848 petrol, so it's more the headline that is kind of scary. Though those prices still seem quite high to me. I've paid between £75 and £310 per year to insure a petrol car in the UK over the last decade. But I don't claim much.
    - brianwawok 3y ago
      Did your 75 policy include fixing your car in an accident? In the US at least; the only policies that low only fix the other persons car - not yours, and cannot be used if the car had a loan.
      - tim333 3y ago
        I think it did but I was surprised by the price there as it's not normally that cheap. It was a second car with 'classic car' insurance. I went on a comparison site and got a quote for more than that which I didn't do anything with, and then some guy called me offering to insure for £75. I guess it was a promo to get new customers probably.
imglorp 3y ago
Isn't this why Tesla offers its own insurance? Is it competitive and generally okay? Is it not available in the UK?
- hoelle 3y ago
  Last I looked it's barely available in the US. A dozen states, maybe.
23B1 3y ago
Walled gardens don't just keep enemies out, they keep customers in – and make excellent targets of opportunity for adjacent/supporting industries like lawyers, insurance, PE, and consolidation.
happyjack 3y ago
My car insurance is $14.20 a month.
- jfim 3y ago
  What does that cover though?
  - Freedom2 3y ago
    Their car. For $14.20 a month.
    - ceejayoz 3y ago
      Which, if true, means it probably covers very little.
    - somat 3y ago
      Probably not their car. The single biggest liability you assume driving around is other peoples health, the second biggest is your health. the price of a car is often a minor concern in comparison.
rdtsc 3y ago
> Analysts say claims costs are 25% higher for electric cars, and that they also take about 14% longer to repair than a diesel or petrol equivalent. That seems odd. One of the main things about having an electric vehicle was supposed to be theirs reliably and simplicity compared to the complexity of an internal combustion engine. At the same time insurance actuaries figured something out that is counterintuitive to the general expectations around EVs. Do people in EVs drive more dangerously? I can see the repairs being more expensive due to needing specialized skills, but it would seem higher reliability should have offset that, but perhaps it didn’t.
- Uvix 3y ago
  The reliability under day-to-day usage is higher, but the costs of repairs for issues under ordinary use are borne by the owner. Insurance is only concerned with the repair costs for catastrophic accidents, which involve far more than just the engine.
- coderenegade 3y ago
  I'd put money on it being the difference in failure modes between an ICE and a BEV. If there's even the whiff of a possibility that the battery has been compromised, that's probably a write off. Prangs that wouldn't phase an ordinary car suddenly make a future thermal runaway a possibility, and you have to eat the loss of the value of the car. I'd also question the whole reliability angle. In my current car, the engine is comfortably outlasting the electronics, because engines are easy to service and maintain. The equivalent doesn't really exist for electronics. You aren't going to rewind an electric motor every service interval; you just use it until it fails and then replace it. But the whole point of servicing is to prevent those failures before they happen. And a maintained engine probably lasts longer than electrical components that don't have preventative maintenance done on them.
  - rdtsc 3y ago
    The failure mode makes sense to me. The battery pack replacement, motor replacement, blocks of electronic control systems and so on. Yeah, those would cost quite a bit.
ggm 3y ago
Insurance is a profit driven business. If EV premiums have risen then the actuaries have made an assessment to risk of loss of profits even under re-insurance. When brand specific theft surges, theft insurance for those brands rise. I hate the effect this will have on EV uptake but I caution against assuming there is no factual basis to why insurers are moving. It's like futures markets and one of the reasons why they were invented: to manage farmers future risks, not just to benefit derivatives investors. If premiums are rising, future and current owners need to know why, and EV manufacturers need to be responsive.
anon84873628 3y ago
Just out of curiosity, in the UK can you get a minimal form of coverage that covers injury/damage to other parties, but not repair of your own vehicle?
- Kirby64 3y ago
  Not sure what the populous of folks in the UK is that lease or finance their cars, but any lease or loan requires full coverage so the company protects their asset in case of accidents. I suspect anyone with a brand new Tesla etc is likely to have a loan or would want full coverage.
- jessriedel 3y ago
  Can't speak to what's on offer, but legally you only need liability insurance (the type you described). > You must have motor insurance to drive your vehicle on UK roads. > Third party insurance is the legal minimum. This means you’re covered if you have an accident causing damage or injury to any other person, vehicle, animal or property. It does not cover any other costs like repair to your own vehicle. https://www.gov.uk/vehicle-insurance#:~:text=You%20must%20have%20motor%20insurance,repair%20to%20your%20own%20vehicle https://www.gov.uk/vehicle-insurance#:~:text=You%20must%20ha....
hardcopy 3y ago
My electric vehicle insurance is free; it's included with my renters' insurance. https://www.trekbikes.com/us/en_US/bikes/hybrid-bikes/electric-hybrid-bikes/verve/verve-2-lowstep/p/28300/ https://www.trekbikes.com/us/en_US/bikes/hybrid-bikes/electr...
- callalex 3y ago
  Most of those policies don’t include motorized bicycles.
jacknews 3y ago
" whose only change in circumstance was three points on a licence." LOL, so it seems much more likely the new speeding ticket or whatever had more effect than the Tesla on the price rise. Still maybe something to discuss (getting punished for speeding itself, then by the insurance rise), but a different issue.
danw1979 3y ago
> “I spent weeks on every comparison site as well as trying individual insurers and specialist brokers, but either they wouldn’t cover the car or the quotes were £5,000 or more,” says David, whose only change in circumstance was three points on a licence. David probably got those 3 points from speeding. If you’re going to speed in a £60k supercar-for-dads please don’t also complain about your premium going up.
- fransje26 3y ago
  Let's flip that point around. Why does anybody think it is reasonable that an insurance company be privy to a driver's point history? The only weak argument that can be made is that "David" is a "danger" on the road because he drives too fast, and therefore, is bound to crash his car eventually. Which would "warrant" a higher insurance premium. But the fact is that, if "David" was accident-prone, he would already be penalized by his malus. So now he is being charged extra beforehand, for an accident he didn't commit, just because the insurance company can. In a way, it reminds me of Minority Report..
  - episteme 3y ago
    He has been penalized, he has 3 points. People with 3 points are more likely to get more points than someone with no points, statistics like these are the way that insurance companies make money.
    - fransje26 3y ago
      That's exactly missing the point. He's got 3 points, and so? That's none of the insurance company's business. It's between a driver and the road authorities. Statistically, a non-negligible proportion of medication prescribed to the general population can have an impact on cognitive abilities, and, de facto, make them worse drivers. Yet, car insurance companies are not privy to a driver's medical history. For a good reason: breach of privacy. My argument is that points on a license fall under the same category: privacy, and not-their-business. Then again, they also had insurances in the UK inviting drivers to install phone apps to monitor their driving, and set their premiums accordingly. So, if a country thinks that's absolutely fine, well, what to say..
spants 3y ago
I drive two cars, both over 20 years old. The cars still have value (unlike an ev when the battery pack gets to end of life) and are maintained by me (unlike an ev). My insurance is approx £60 per month total.
- thebruce87m 3y ago
  > unlike an ev when the battery pack gets to end of life Battery degradation is a thing for sure, but I feel like you’re overlooking a lot of issues with ICE cars here. If a gearbox, engine or exhaust goes “end of life” then the car is essentially worthless until it’s replaced, no? > maintained by me (unlike an ev) Why can’t you maintain an EV? Surely things like suspension is mostly the same?
- adrianmsmith 3y ago
  Do you have to pay ULEZ charges? I know this is an issue for many people with older cars.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

46 points by momirlan 3y ago

I'm not surprised. How many stories have we seen where a seemingly minor accident caused a Rivian to be totaled? Or Teslas waiting for weeks or months to get the parts needed for a repair? I've been thinking to myself what's going to happen to the insurance rates for these vehicles? Take Tesla's gigacasting, for example. Great to bring down manufacturing costs, horrible for repair costs. Insurance covers repairs, not production. If your gigacast vehicle gets in an accident, you're likely to get screwed. It's very hard to do bodywork on those vehicles and there's few people with the experience to do it. That's expensive - and that's what you're asking your insurance provider to cover. Add to it the sensors and cameras and everything else they're adding to these vehicles and they're becoming a nightmare to repair. It kind of pisses me off, in a way. EV's are supposed to be simpler, but what we've done is to actually make them more complex, at least from a repair perspective. All I really wanted was a simple car, such as a Honda Civic, that has an electric drivetrain. Simple. Not a bunch of electronics to go awry, I could take to any bodyshop and have repaired, and I could realistically expect to get 400,000 miles. </rant>

tom_ 3y ago

> whose only change in circumstance was three points on a licence I had this happen to me about 15 years ago, if by "happen to me" you mean "I committed a criminal offence while in control of a motor vehicle". My insurance went up by about 25% for the following 5 years, which was annoying, but I'm not sure how much attention we should pay to the opinions of a convicted criminal when it comes to the punishment for their crime. It's heartening to hear that we are clamping down on these vermin. > "...because who has got that kind of money [£4,500] in one go?" The Tesla Model Y has an RRP of £~45,000, so its owner is probably better placed to answer this question than we are.

thebruce87m 3y ago
I have a Model Y through salary sacrifice. It costs me £500/month. I do have £4,500, but not for insurance. Luckily I am covered by fleet insurance.
hypeatei 3y ago
This comment has to be rage bait right? Who takes speeding or any traffic ticket this seriously; convicted criminal, really?
- upon_drumhead 3y ago
  The majority of traffic tickets (including speeding tickets) are civil offenses and generally not considered a crime. It's not until you get into reckless driving, street racing, or similar that they move into criminal classes (misdemeanor/felony)
  - crooked-v 3y ago
    That's also part of the general racket of small-town speed traps: if there were real permanent consequences to nonsense speeding tickets, people would contest them instead of paying to make them go away.
- tom_ 3y ago
  Speeding in a motor vehicle is a criminal offence in the UK. I think the relevant section is clause 89 here: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1984/27/part/VI https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1984/27/part/VI
- notacoward 3y ago
  I think there's a bit of sarcasm present in this case, but it really is a common sentiment in /r/fuckcars and similar places - and many of those folks are here as well. To them, any driver is a murderer who just hasn't succeeded yet. Really. Any hyperbole is theirs, not mine. I would not be surprised to see more comments similar to GP's, minus any sarcasm, from people with the privilege to afford housing in one of the few places where all of the driving essential to their lifestyle is done out of their sight. P.S. For those who think cherry-picking is going to win the day, try this search: murder inurl:fuckcars site:reddit.com. I'm not misrepresenting them at all.
  - tom_ 3y ago
    Once you've passed your driving test, and spent a bit of time driving on the roads, you'll change your tune!
jarym 3y ago
I’ve read a fair few comments on a UK EV forum where insurers were declining to offer renewal quotes for people that claimed to have no claims and no points on their license. As to your point about RRP.. £45k isn’t cheap but it doesn’t mean the owners (who often lease) will have expected such a huge increase in premiums. I suspect a lot of the issue is due to issues getting parts post-covid which meant costs to insurers went up (since many offer hire cars while repairs are being carried out).
- martinald 3y ago
  Yeah I've seen some data from Tesla insurance claims and it's absolutely eye watering: Very expensive parts with poor/non existent inventory Limited service network Leading to huge delays in getting repairs done (many months) As such I think a lot of fairly minor claims go to "write off" territory very quickly. Tesla does need to solve this as in the UK at least it's becoming a semi-well known fact that Teslas are very difficult and expensive to insure. Much more so than the ropey build quality.
- tom_ 3y ago
  The post-COVID supply chain issues is a good point. I'd mercifully blanked the entire tedious experience until now reminded of it, but my car needed an insurance repair in 2022 (not my fault this time!): suspension bits, new wheel and tyre, some bodywork. Not at all an unusual car, nor fancy, with tens of thousands just like it on the road. Still took nearly 2 months.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Analemma_ 3y ago

Is this just a UK thing? I pay $160/mo to insure my Model 3 and I didn't even really shop around for a good deal.

ceejayoz 3y ago
My dad saw (here in the US) a fairly hefty insurance bump going from a bells-and-whistles Acura to a Tesla Model 3. The single-cast underbody is a big and expensive single thing to repair if it gets damaged, as is the battery. https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a42709679/tesla-insurance-fixes-expense/ https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a42709679/tesla-insurance-...
- aetherson 3y ago
  Okay, sure. But £5,000 is like $17million (okay, it's $6000), and why on God's green earth does anyone's car insurance cost $6k per year?
  - robga 3y ago
    Due to a mathematical actuarial assessment of the risk of the individual circumstances: driver risk- age, driving history, speeding history, gender, claim history, post(zip)code for theft prevalence, car storage location (street); vehicle risk- cost, claim history, etc. then add a premium to make the insurer its profit. My bet is that the quote wasn’t an error or a deliberate tilt against EVs but instead a real assessment based on modelled risk.
- notacoward 3y ago
  So this is Tesla specific? I've certainly seen no such thing with my Nissan Leaf in the US.
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    The casting may be, but the Leaf definitely has a big battery too.
3y ago

PaulKeeble 3y ago

I doubt this is common. The UK press seems to universally be on a hate the EV push over the past year and its often made up garbage. I don't know what the presses issue is with EVs but they sure are making up a lot of problems that owners don't actually have of late. If this was happening to all EV owners we would be seeing them all complaining about it, yet this is an article about one person not a poll showing this is happening widely.

Symbiote 3y ago
It's the Guardian, not the Sun. They have quotes from the insurers themselves. > John Lewis Financial Services told us: “Our underwriter has temporarily paused offering new policies and renewals on fully electric vehicles while they analyse the risks and costs entailed. This decision does not affect any existing policies in force, or hybrid vehicles.”
- tim333 3y ago
  They also give the general figures - 'typical' £959 electric £848 petrol, so it's more the headline that is kind of scary. Though those prices still seem quite high to me. I've paid between £75 and £310 per year to insure a petrol car in the UK over the last decade. But I don't claim much.
  - brianwawok 3y ago
    Did your 75 policy include fixing your car in an accident? In the US at least; the only policies that low only fix the other persons car - not yours, and cannot be used if the car had a loan.
    - tim333 3y ago
      I think it did but I was surprised by the price there as it's not normally that cheap. It was a second car with 'classic car' insurance. I went on a comparison site and got a quote for more than that which I didn't do anything with, and then some guy called me offering to insure for £75. I guess it was a promo to get new customers probably.

imglorp 3y ago

Isn't this why Tesla offers its own insurance? Is it competitive and generally okay? Is it not available in the UK?

hoelle 3y ago
Last I looked it's barely available in the US. A dozen states, maybe.

23B1 3y ago

Walled gardens don't just keep enemies out, they keep customers in – and make excellent targets of opportunity for adjacent/supporting industries like lawyers, insurance, PE, and consolidation.

happyjack 3y ago

My car insurance is $14.20 a month.

jfim 3y ago
What does that cover though?
- Freedom2 3y ago
  Their car. For $14.20 a month.
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    Which, if true, means it probably covers very little.
  - somat 3y ago
    Probably not their car. The single biggest liability you assume driving around is other peoples health, the second biggest is your health. the price of a car is often a minor concern in comparison.

rdtsc 3y ago

> Analysts say claims costs are 25% higher for electric cars, and that they also take about 14% longer to repair than a diesel or petrol equivalent. That seems odd. One of the main things about having an electric vehicle was supposed to be theirs reliably and simplicity compared to the complexity of an internal combustion engine. At the same time insurance actuaries figured something out that is counterintuitive to the general expectations around EVs. Do people in EVs drive more dangerously? I can see the repairs being more expensive due to needing specialized skills, but it would seem higher reliability should have offset that, but perhaps it didn’t.

Uvix 3y ago
The reliability under day-to-day usage is higher, but the costs of repairs for issues under ordinary use are borne by the owner. Insurance is only concerned with the repair costs for catastrophic accidents, which involve far more than just the engine.
coderenegade 3y ago
I'd put money on it being the difference in failure modes between an ICE and a BEV. If there's even the whiff of a possibility that the battery has been compromised, that's probably a write off. Prangs that wouldn't phase an ordinary car suddenly make a future thermal runaway a possibility, and you have to eat the loss of the value of the car. I'd also question the whole reliability angle. In my current car, the engine is comfortably outlasting the electronics, because engines are easy to service and maintain. The equivalent doesn't really exist for electronics. You aren't going to rewind an electric motor every service interval; you just use it until it fails and then replace it. But the whole point of servicing is to prevent those failures before they happen. And a maintained engine probably lasts longer than electrical components that don't have preventative maintenance done on them.
- rdtsc 3y ago
  The failure mode makes sense to me. The battery pack replacement, motor replacement, blocks of electronic control systems and so on. Yeah, those would cost quite a bit.

ggm 3y ago

Insurance is a profit driven business. If EV premiums have risen then the actuaries have made an assessment to risk of loss of profits even under re-insurance. When brand specific theft surges, theft insurance for those brands rise. I hate the effect this will have on EV uptake but I caution against assuming there is no factual basis to why insurers are moving. It's like futures markets and one of the reasons why they were invented: to manage farmers future risks, not just to benefit derivatives investors. If premiums are rising, future and current owners need to know why, and EV manufacturers need to be responsive.

anon84873628 3y ago

Just out of curiosity, in the UK can you get a minimal form of coverage that covers injury/damage to other parties, but not repair of your own vehicle?

Kirby64 3y ago
Not sure what the populous of folks in the UK is that lease or finance their cars, but any lease or loan requires full coverage so the company protects their asset in case of accidents. I suspect anyone with a brand new Tesla etc is likely to have a loan or would want full coverage.
jessriedel 3y ago
Can't speak to what's on offer, but legally you only need liability insurance (the type you described). > You must have motor insurance to drive your vehicle on UK roads. > Third party insurance is the legal minimum. This means you’re covered if you have an accident causing damage or injury to any other person, vehicle, animal or property. It does not cover any other costs like repair to your own vehicle. https://www.gov.uk/vehicle-insurance#:~:text=You%20must%20have%20motor%20insurance,repair%20to%20your%20own%20vehicle https://www.gov.uk/vehicle-insurance#:~:text=You%20must%20ha....

hardcopy 3y ago

My electric vehicle insurance is free; it's included with my renters' insurance. https://www.trekbikes.com/us/en_US/bikes/hybrid-bikes/electric-hybrid-bikes/verve/verve-2-lowstep/p/28300/ https://www.trekbikes.com/us/en_US/bikes/hybrid-bikes/electr...

callalex 3y ago
Most of those policies don’t include motorized bicycles.

jacknews 3y ago

" whose only change in circumstance was three points on a licence." LOL, so it seems much more likely the new speeding ticket or whatever had more effect than the Tesla on the price rise. Still maybe something to discuss (getting punished for speeding itself, then by the insurance rise), but a different issue.

danw1979 3y ago

> “I spent weeks on every comparison site as well as trying individual insurers and specialist brokers, but either they wouldn’t cover the car or the quotes were £5,000 or more,” says David, whose only change in circumstance was three points on a licence. David probably got those 3 points from speeding. If you’re going to speed in a £60k supercar-for-dads please don’t also complain about your premium going up.

fransje26 3y ago
Let's flip that point around. Why does anybody think it is reasonable that an insurance company be privy to a driver's point history? The only weak argument that can be made is that "David" is a "danger" on the road because he drives too fast, and therefore, is bound to crash his car eventually. Which would "warrant" a higher insurance premium. But the fact is that, if "David" was accident-prone, he would already be penalized by his malus. So now he is being charged extra beforehand, for an accident he didn't commit, just because the insurance company can. In a way, it reminds me of Minority Report..
- episteme 3y ago
  He has been penalized, he has 3 points. People with 3 points are more likely to get more points than someone with no points, statistics like these are the way that insurance companies make money.
  - fransje26 3y ago
    That's exactly missing the point. He's got 3 points, and so? That's none of the insurance company's business. It's between a driver and the road authorities. Statistically, a non-negligible proportion of medication prescribed to the general population can have an impact on cognitive abilities, and, de facto, make them worse drivers. Yet, car insurance companies are not privy to a driver's medical history. For a good reason: breach of privacy. My argument is that points on a license fall under the same category: privacy, and not-their-business. Then again, they also had insurances in the UK inviting drivers to install phone apps to monitor their driving, and set their premiums accordingly. So, if a country thinks that's absolutely fine, well, what to say..

spants 3y ago

I drive two cars, both over 20 years old. The cars still have value (unlike an ev when the battery pack gets to end of life) and are maintained by me (unlike an ev). My insurance is approx £60 per month total.

thebruce87m 3y ago
> unlike an ev when the battery pack gets to end of life Battery degradation is a thing for sure, but I feel like you’re overlooking a lot of issues with ICE cars here. If a gearbox, engine or exhaust goes “end of life” then the car is essentially worthless until it’s replaced, no? > maintained by me (unlike an ev) Why can’t you maintain an EV? Surely things like suspension is mostly the same?
adrianmsmith 3y ago
Do you have to pay ULEZ charges? I know this is an issue for many people with older cars.

deleted 3y ago

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