I have a friend (Ali, some of you may have met her at Weston/Newbury) who was asking me about pay as you drive insurance. I looked in to it a bit for her and came across the norwich union website that does PAYD insurance....

They given you a list of critera, most of them make sence:

You are a UK resident' date=' the registered owner of the car to be insured, intend to keep this car for a period of at least 3 months, and are the main driver

Your car is kept in England, Scotland or Wales

You and your drivers have advised the DVLA of any notifiable illness or disability and they have agreed to the issue of a licence

You and your drivers must hold a current, valid, full or provisional UK driving licence

No driver has had more than 2 losses or claims in the last 4 years

You or your drivers do not have more than 2 motoring convictions (including fixed penalties) in the last 5 years, or been disqualified from driving in the past 5 years

No driver has had any criminal convictions, been previously refused insurance or had any terms imposed

No driver of this car will require business use in relation to a driving occupation e.g Taxi driver, courier, motor trader etc

[b']No driver of the car is a professional sports person, actor, actress, model, circus / fairground worker or anyone connected with the entertainment industry[/b]

Your car is not valued at more than £50,000, modified, or registered before 1990

Your vehicle is not a car-derived van or pick-up

Your car is not an Audi A8

What is so wrong with the A8 that they refuse to insure it, given it costs more than £50k new... but surely a used one?

I can understand why you might refuse a clown car insurance, but what about the bearded lady, tight rope walker, knife thrower etc?? All seems a bit random.

I've been thinking about this for a few minutes now and I can't think of anything.

It's just peculiar.

Ah the Circus worker clause. Something to do with the likelyhood of an Elephant trampling your car.

My guess is it could be because the A8 is aluminium but why that makes a difference only NU can tell.

No driver of the car is a professional sports person, actor, actress, model, circus / fairground worker or anyone connected with the entertainment industry

That sounds quite harsh - I sing in amateur choirs in my spare time, and people sometimes pay to come and hear us. Does that mean I'm "connected with the entertainment industry"? :eek:

(I'm sure it would if I was with NU and wanted to claim from them.)

but circus / fairground workers tend to be pikeys and so wouldn't pay for insurance anyway :confused:

Employmentist and Audi-ist! Someone phone the police

P.S. Not a clue.

but circus / fairground workers tend to be pikeys and so wouldn't pay for insurance anyway :confused:

:rofl:

Ah the Circus worker clause. Something to do with the likelyhood of an Elephant trampling your car.

PMSL!! :rofl:

My guess is it could be because the A8 is aluminium but why that makes a difference only NU can tell.

I reckon that will be the reason - i.e parts will potentially be prohibitively expensive in the event of an accident.

... and on the clowns everyone knows that clowns' cars fall apart / explode etc

Am I the only one who saw the thread title , and thought it would be a Womble's observations of the driving standards of luxury car owners?

Oh No ! The cut and paste jockeys have been at it again !

Talking of jockeys, no specific mention of them (Though they are probably covered by sport person !), or come to think of it, members of HM Forces. I have this feeling that "Enterprise" is not particularly renowned for underwriting the commercial risks in that area.

That sort of condition could definitely make life difficult if you were one of those who was "Forced to tour":rofl: - though, any reputable thesp will have a broker who will probably go directly to a syndicate at Lloyds bypassing all that cr*p!

Nick,

26/03/08

I reckon that will be the reason - i.e parts will potentially be prohibitively expensive in the event of an accident.

But isn't that true of other cars and if the parts came to more than 2/3 value of the car it would simply be written off and not repaired?

**WARNING - sweeping sterotype view** Are circus folk excluded because they have "no fixed address"? In fact, I wonder where cars they own would be registered to? :confused:

Chris

I reckon that will be the reason - i.e parts will potentially be prohibitively expensive in the event of an accident.

... and on the clowns everyone knows that clowns' cars fall apart / explode etc

Reckon it's more down to the monocoque being ally than any particular parts, so pretty much any crash will make the whole car more-or-less unrepairable. Only came to the conclusion 'cos Land Rover Defenders have ally bodywork too, but they're not on the list, and a separate steel chassis is the only difference from that point of view...

What this all about ?

Nick,

26/03/08

Presumably the monocoque is made up of pressed pieces spot welded together. What's stopping repairer's getting out the disc cutter and argon welding gear ?

Or are we saying that aluminium is less impact resistant ? Hence every decent crash incurrs more damage than a steel shell and therefore is more likely to be a write-off on economic grounds ? If so, what's its Ncap rating ? Answer: - not done yet ! Ahhh ! But the A6 was 5 star.

There's always the possibility that Audi A8's will be the favoured mode of transport of particular fraternities in some Eastern European destinations (Can't imagine where !) and therefore subject to large scale out-of-area twocing and cloning ? But, I wouldn't have thought they'd been around long enough to generate the claims data to warrant the rating.

Nick,

26/03/08

Sureley It can't be down to being aluminium, insurance premiums on the A2 were good, even for me!

Just plain weird how it is specifically excluded like that!

. . . And the ageing A2 people mover was ally and got a 4 star NCAP rating in 2001 ?

Nick,

26/03/8

Although US derived, the article below seems to indicate that write-offs are going up as a whole. So that a pay as you drive policy for high value cars might, per se, become less attractive to insurers.

Soapbox

In that case, why single out the Audi ?

Nick,

26/03/08

"Anyone connected with the entertainment industry" - so where does that line end? Actors ok, but theatre/cinema employees? A camera man? Someone who works in Choices video?

Heck even NU gives us all a laugh now and again so do their workers count too?

I have a friend

Really? Thats fantastic news!! lol sorry, I coudln't resist!

Seriously though, that is pretty funny! Poor A8 drivers!

PAYD. What's in it for the insurers ? They have to provide and install a GPS receiver/ transmitter type tracking box free of charge (at the moment !). Its targeted at those who do under 6000 miles a year (at the moment) i.e. grannies and students and the selling point is that it promises to save you 1/3 on your premium - only for those doing < 6K. And presumably, is limited in operation to particular satellites' footprints or terrestial stations (Mobile phone providers)?

Given that this is obviously short term sprat to catch a long-term mackerell, they only group they're likely to make any real money on is the students - in line with the similar strategy adopted by the banks.

Hardly worth the expenditure for the kit and the administration on that small a marklet. Apparently, a similiar earlier operation in Texas folded. May not be though, if its being punted on the same basis as IP*Ds and FaceB**k, i.e you're a non-person if you don't have one.

This,of course, will be the entree (Backdoor) for HM Government road pricing. Deep joy ! And a nice little earner for insurers, Satelite and mobile phone operators - taxing out excess demand at the logistics limit in economy. Really necessary and useful.

So, I understand how this might appeal to our correspondent from the Highways Agency !

Some of you may ask of course, wouldn't it be more cost effective to have higher levels of the dreaded direct taxation to moderate demand at first instance, rather than creating phoney non-value adding businesses so that we can all appear to be involved in an economy ! Ooops! - Notice I didn't even mention the Olympics there.

Fortunately, not many students (Or grannies) are going to have Audi A8, new or S/H

Does that constitute a rant ?

Nick,

26/03/08

I can understand why you might refuse a clown car insurance, but what about the bearded lady, tight rope walker, knife thrower etc?? All seems a bit random.

As the Giraffety woman I may not be eligible either:(

Ah the Circus worker clause. Something to do with the likelyhood of an Elephant trampling your car.

I have been warning ppl for some time about the dangers of Elephants. OK it was in the ‘Wait for it thread’ and it was mainly to do with the undercover elephants in Rob Cubbleys garden, but you can see my concern.:eek:

"Anyone connected with the entertainment industry" - so where does that line end? Actors ok, but theatre/cinema employees? A camera man? Someone who works in Choices video?

I get hammered with car insurance as I do Sound or a living. Sheila Wheels gave me a great quote when I said I was a company Director (I work as a ltd company) but I explained I was a sound engineer they asked me to go away:(

It's beyond me completely :confused:

What's the connection between sound engineering and a higher insurance premium?

I suppose if the insurers understood what an ecologist did (ie lots of off-road driving) then my insurance would go up too as my car is insured for business use (though I obviously don't use it that way!!).

My guess is it could be because the A8 is aluminium but why that makes a difference only NU can tell.

I'd guess that is because the huge cost of aluminium welding compared to steel welding and so the much higher cost of repair. As such the premium on an A8 would be massive for one month just in case you did bash it. I would think an A8 would be a full years premium for any sort of body work repair.

Although that does beg the question why not list the A2 also?

Not on the subject of clowns or A8, but I just did a quote to see what money I could save on pay as you drive insurance, without declaring my mods (because they don't do them) it would cost over £3500 a year!! Sod that for a laugh!