Car insurance doubled? Want to know where the money goes? Here's the shocking truth of how drivers are being taken for a ride
Adam Luck, Live Magazine
Eighteen years ago, the average car insurance premium cost £333 and was spent on fixing cars after a crash. Today, it is £1,510 – much of which feathers the nests of claims companies and their lawyers... and even the police are in on the game. Live reveals how Britain’s scandalously exploited motorists are being taken for a very expensive ride
Marek Majewski is an accountant who drives a Renault Espace. He is not the kind of person you’d associate with reckless abandon when behind the wheel of his car.
Nonetheless, the unblinking Leviathan that is the modern motor-insurance industry took a very different view when he and his wife Wendy, a 52-year-old NHS advisor, dropped in on a close friend at a pub in Balham, south London, last August.
Wendy realised their car had brushed the front bumper of a parked taxi as Marek had pulled into the kerb. She could see that the right-hand side of the bumper had rubber marks on it from their tyre. As they got out of the car, the taxi owner approached them.
The last year (2010-11) has seen a 40 per cent increase in insurance premiums, according to the AA, with the average premium up from £633 to £892
‘My husband took a picture of the damage and we swapped details. The idea was to get a price because there was no point in going to the insurance company. As far as we were concerned it was sorted.’