Premiums in the car insurance market are settling down. Rampant premium inflation – Latin American-like at times – is over. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
The scrutineers’ numbers paint a good picture. Average premiums are either falling sharply (15 per cent, according to Pearson Ham), dropping slightly (1.1 per cent, Consumer Intelligence), or increasing modestly (4 per cent, Go Compare).
To put these figures into context, Consumer Intelligence says that average quoted car premiums have risen by 117 per cent – that is, more than doubled – since October 2013 when it first started collecting data.
Averages, however, don’t tell the entire story, as reader Tony Anderson points out.
He contacted me following receipt of his renewal notice from the AA – a provider he has been with since December 2021 when he purchased a brand new Volkswagen ID3 electric car.
For Tony, there was no 15 per cent decrease, no 1.1 per cent price drop or 4 per cent increase. The AA wanted him to pay £1,079 to renew – 43 per cent more than last year and triple the £309 he paid three years ago.
Driven to distraction: Average quoted car premiums have risen by 117 per cent – that is, more than doubled – since October 2013
Understandably, Tony, a retired managing director of a forklift truck company, isn’t best pleased.
‘I’ve had a driving licence since age 17,’ says the 83-year-old from Crowthorne in Berkshire.
‘I have not made a claim for at least 25 years and have no penalty points. The only thing that has changed is that I am a year older.’
Like any smart consumer, Tony shopped around for alternative cover – and found a policy with Ageas costing a tad over £600.
He says: ‘I’ve now got near identical cover to that which I had last year, but 44 per cent cheaper than the price AA wanted me to renew at. It’s also 20 per cent lower than the price I renewed at this time last year.’
Not someone to be scorned, Tony will also refuse to renew his breakdown cover next year, ending a 40-year relationship with the AA. ‘You would have thought that loyalty would count for something,’ he says, ‘but it doesn’t. AA thought I would pay whatever it asked for. Well, I’ve called its bluff.’
Anyone who has just received a renewal notice from their insurer demanding a double-digit price increase should do what Tony did and shop around.
Also, please drop me a line with a copy of your renewal notice at: jeff.prestridge@mailonsunday.co.uk.
Don’t let lethargy hijack your fund
As the name implies, investment trusts are designed to generate returns for investors.
Stock-market listed, they are easy to buy and sell, with investors – be they institutional or private – becoming shareholders. Although not all are winners, they can provide super long-term returns, comprising a mix of regular income and share price gains. I’m a fan.
Their company structure means investors can attend annual general meetings (I’ve been to a few in my time) and ask questions of the board and managers (I’ve asked a few). They also get the right to vote. All very democratic.
Yet like all listed companies, investment trusts can attract the attention of predators, especially when their share prices are cheap. And boy, many investment trusts are as cheap as chips, with share prices sitting at deep discounts to the value of their underlying assets.
The biggest predator in town is American fund manager Saba Capital, led by financier Boaz Weinstein. It has built stakes in seven trusts in the hope ultimately of taking them over – Baillie Gifford funds Edinburgh Worldwide, Keystone Positive Change and US Growth; Janus Henderson trusts European Smaller Companies and Opportunities; CQS Natural Resources Growth & Income; and Herald.
Early next year, shareholders in each of these trusts will be asked to vote for the appointment of Saba-supporting directors to the board. If voted on, these newbies will then push for Saba to take over the existing investment contract before seeking to merge the seven trusts. Other trusts – it has disclosable stakes in 24 – could also be targeted.
The hurdle for Saba is a low one. All it needs to start forcing through change is a simple majority of voting shareholders in individual trusts to say yes to the new directors.
Given Saba is relying upon private investor lethargy to get its way, the message to shareholders is loud and clear. Use it (your vote, that is) or lose it (the trust you’re actually quite happy with, despite what Saba says).
Train unions have left us going nowhere
If my experience is anything to go by, there is as much chance of any train you need to catch in the coming days being on time – or even running – as there is of the Government hitting its annual target of 600,000 heat pump installations by 2028. Close to zilch.
Two weeks ago I gave up trying to get home from London Paddington because most GWR staff seemed to be refusing to work – perhaps preferring instead to gorge on the generous backdated pay awards handed to them by the Government.
Off the rails: Unable to get home from London Paddington, Jeff cycled to a crowded Waterloo, above
Instead, I jumped on a bike to Waterloo where I caught an SWR train that stopped at every conceivable station possible between London and my home town of Wokingham. I stewed like one of my late mum’s hot pots.
Last weekend was no different, with massive gaps in services running from Reading to Paddington. When a train finally did turn up, most people couldn’t get on it. Those who did felt like human sardines.
The sad fact is that our railways are not fit for purpose, either in private or public hands.
They are an embarrassment, run by the unions for the good of their members. A travesty.
Time may be up for bungling Starmer
Victimising the elderly has become this Government’s hallmark. First it cruelly removed the winter fuel payment from more than 10 million pensioners.
Then this month it dealt a hammer blow to 3.6 million women now in their mid-60s and early-70s by refusing to pay compensation for being given insufficient time to prepare for a sharp increase in their state pension age.
The Government’s decision is wrong on two levels. First, it flies in the face of a recommendation this year by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.
Concluding the Department for Work and Pensions was guilty of ‘maladministration’ for failing to communicate effectively the change in state pension age, it recommended that those women impacted should receive up to £2,950.
What is the point of the Ombudsman if the Government can ride roughshod over its independent decisions?
Second, it makes hypocrites of all those Labour ministers who in opposition backed ‘Waspi’ (women against state pension inequality) to the hilt, only now to give them the proverbial two fingers.
Revolt is in the air with a Commons vote on Waspi compensation likely in the New Year. Though the Government will win it, the backlash from Labour MPs will be stronger than over winter fuel.
With the economy under siege from the hike in business taxes, the Government is wobbling more than my late Mum’s jellies.
Happy New Year, readers. A new PM by this time next year? Don’t rule it out.