The imminence of paying for a 17-year-old to learn to drive brings with it the unwelcome question of insurance. Rather more welcome is recent publicity about insurance revealing yet another conspiracy against the consumer.
Some premiums have jumped by up to 40 per cent. The reason usually given — uninsured drivers for whom we all end up paying — is only part of the story, and not the major one. That honour goes to the automotive ambulance-chasers, the scam whereby accident management companies and credit hire operators are in league with insurance brokers — all three sometimes owned by the same private equity company. They take over the processing of your claim, encourage you to quote whiplash or any other injury that’s hard to confirm and hire you a car while yours is off the road. The hire car and the time taken to repair yours are often neither the cheapest nor shortest possible.
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