lexus LS?

I dunno. Seems to me Nom's correct in a way, except that the premiums are less than the payouts and the interest on the premiums between renewal and payout are what converts a negative into a positive.

But that's possibly out of date, finance-wise.

Either way, none of the insurance companies are making huge pots of money and none of them can whack up insurance premiums unless they all are, and if they do, one of them will undercut the rest unless this is statistically a genuine risk. That's the way of market forces as Maggie Thatcher espoused. So long as there isn't a monopoly or suchlike, the margins reduce.

Yes, but burning the camera before it is emptied is a tad extreme.

Lawyers cost silly money, and I can't think of another, other than having the car registered in the name of a dead person.

Earned premium = £3.565Bn. Gross claims = £2.644Bn

Therefore for every £1.00 taken £0.74 is paid in claims. 26% gross margin - safe.

They invest the premiums in the stockmarket etc. That's why September 11th was a *killer* for the insurance industry. It wasn't so much the substantial cost of all the associated claims, but when the stockmarket bombed, the industry lost all their cash.

Let's say you pay £1000 a year, for five years. Then you have a claim, so they pay out £4950 (according to the 100:99 premium:claim ratio). So you'd think they've only made £50 profit from you. But they've had £1000 each year from you, upto a total of £5000 for the final year, to invest. That's where their profits come from.

2003's figures live at - you can see that in that year, they made *zero* profit from the premiums they took ! ie, a margin of 0% !

No no, that's one single insurance company out of a frillion, and it's including lots of other profitable insurance services (ie, things other than motor insurance !).

You need to see

- they hold the average data for the whole industry.

is a good read. Note "Despite average premiums for both comprehensive and non-comprehensive cover increasing by 71% since 1996, the motor insurance sector as a whole has only achieved underwriting profits in two of the last ten years" - ie, since 1996, the UK motor insurance industry has paid out MORE in claims than they've taken in in premiums, in every year except two !

"While premiums have risen steadily since 1995, the growth in premiums has been outstripped by the growth in outgoings (both claims and administration). As a result, the underwriting result (or profit/loss before investments) for the market as a whole has remained negative i.e. a loss for most of the period."

People just assume their motor insurance is a rip-off, and they're being taken for a ride - but it's simply not the case. The real cost of your premium is made up by ambulance chasers - if you ever meet one, then kill them - they're costing the UK (ie, you !) billions of pounds per year. All the ridiculous no-win-no-fee ads should be made illegal forwith. Infact, it should be illegal for no-win-no-fee folks to canvass for business in any way whatsoever.

Bribe the CPS to fumble the paperwork? Is the judge a freemason?

Being realistic, the police must think they have a case that will stand up in court, so asking for the calibration certificate is a waste of time.

> Therefore for every £1.00 taken £0.74 is paid in claims. 26% gross>> margin - safe.

And another quote from that same report: "During this time some individual companies have regularly made underwriting profits, while other firms, through profitable investment returns have made profits overall."

So whether or not this statement was, or is, true, it's what I thought I'd read.

It's a whole different ball game on home insurance, where profits are higher as claims are comparatively rare, plus a lot of home insurance is bundled with mortgage and admin costs and stuff to make it easy to wind up the premiums without losing customers quite so quickly.

[...]

But thorough and neighbourly.

...or in Lichtenstein, home of the false tooth.

A

Yeah I looked at those figures - but it seemed to convenient...

non-comprehensive

Awwwwwwwwwwww. Bless 'em.

Yeah, we should all live in a communist state.

Well, that's how it is I'm afraid :)