Insurances, the necessary evil in life, throwing away your money to some company that says they are there to help you through any potential bad times in your life, what they don’t say is, they create them as well!!  I want someone to make sense of this little story for me, please, if you know someone within the insurance industry that can think for themselves and feels they can justify what happened, please forward a link to this blog to them, I’d love to hear from them!!

It’s Monday morning and I have a car insurance renewal policy sitting in my in-tray awaiting my attention from AMI (yes I am going to name this company ).  This year is not like the rest because I introduced my car into my business just prior to Xmas, so I thought I would do the honest thing and let my insurers know, thats when the fun began.

“How often will you need you vehicle for your business?” the friendly voice on the other end of the phone asks.  ”Typically I will require the car for at least 4 days each week” I reply.  At that point I get told, yes you will need commercial cover.  The lady at the other end of the phone then goes and works out how much my new premium will be ………….. wait for it …………………. wait for it ………………….I hope you are sitting down ……………….. an extra $250.00!!!

That equated to an increase of over 50% – for the same car, driven in the same town, by the same driver!!

Being of the Scottish persuasion, you can image how much this upset me, $250!!  Please explain to me why this is, I am likely to average only 8,000km per year (thats 10,000km less than the previous year when I used it for personal use), I will only be driving around Christchurch and it is likely to sit in my garage for at least 2 but more likely 3 days each week (again, unlike last year, when it was probably used almost every day!!).

The reason it is more expensive is that you NEED it for your business, unlike a residential vehicle where the owner is likely to be able to take alternative forms of transport if their car is off the road, like a bus.  So what you are saying is, for an extra $250 I will be covered by you for the supply of a temporary vehicle if my work one is damaged and needs fixing?  No apparently that is extra still, I would need to pay another $50 over and above the $250 for that service and even then I would have to pay $30 per day for the car.  Really, am I the only one that has a problem with this?

So to summarise, going on the mileage I have recorded in my driver log book, this year I will be driving approximately 10,000km less, I wont be driving my car to places like Akaroa, Hanmer, down to the In-laws in Ashburton (now thats risky!! ) or any other tourist destination where it is likely to get pranged.  It will be sitting in my garage for 43% of the week, oh and my no claims bonus is no longer protected (as it was last year) all for an extra $250!!

Come on AMI, for an Insurance company that prides themselves on being 100% Kiwi owned, you really have little clue or respect for all those smaller business operators out there doing their bit for themselves and our society.  It’s too easy to hide behind the word “commercial”, when really many of us smaller sized businesses that require a vehicle to get from A to B (as opposed to requiring a vehicle to deliver goods or perform contracting work) are of no more risk to you than the average family car.

If you are going to insist in hiding behind that word “commercial” then at least ensure you are actually giving something of value back to your customers, if I had been told I would have a rental car made available to me when my car was off the road, I could almost justify the cost difference and not have this awful feeling of being ripped off by some mindless large corporate institution!!