A recent comparison of car insurance premiums in Ireland was published by the Financial Regulator in November 2011.
Many people are renewing car insurance in January – so we thought it would be a good time to analyze the results.

The comparison showed once again that the price of car insurance premiums can differ by large amounts and households can save significant amounts by shopping around.
If you get a renewal notice – don’t just accept it – get a few more quotes.

In the survey – the high cost of insurance for learner drivers was highlighted – with prices as high as €2550 a year for a provisional licence holder.
Some insurers didn’t even quote for learners.

Getting young drivers named on a parents policy can reduce costs a bit – but they can still be pretty expensive (€1490 a year for a father and his 20 year old son )

The biggest price difference in the comparison survey was for a 20 year old student driving a 2003 Seat Ibiza  who had  recently obtained a  full licence.
The lowest quote for fully comprehensive insurance in this case was for €1250 from AXA. The most expensive quote was €2424 from RSA – a difference of  €1174 a year (almost double).

Overall – the comparison survey obtained 28 quotes each from 8  insurance companies.  They covered both comprehensive and third party insurance for males and females.
Axa Insurance and RSA came out best – both had  the lowest price in 8  of  the 28 scenarios .
Quinn was next best – with the lowest quote in 7 cases.
Aviva had the lowest price in 5 cases and FBD for just 1 (same price as AXA )
Zurich, Allianz and Chartis Direct didn’t provide the cheapest quote for any of the scenarios in the survey.

Chartis Direct performed the worst in the comparison – they provided the most expensive quotes in 10 cases  and refused to quote on 16 cases!
Zurich  insurance also did badly with the highest price in 8 cases.

The survey only used direct insurers. You may well get even cheaper prices from online Brokers such as AA Insurance - they will get quotes from several insurance providers.

Ref – http://www.itsyourmoney.ie/costcomparisons

How much does it cost to get car insurance in Ireland  for a provisional licence holder ?

A recent survey of  eight insurance providers found that quotes for learner drivers ranged from €1076 to  €2550 a year.

Several insurance companies wouldn’t even provide a quote for a 20 year old student driving  a 2003 Seat Ibiza with a  provisional licence and no previous driving experience.
Allianz, Chartis Direct , RSA (through 123.ie) and Zurich would not provide cover.

For a male – the lowest quote for fully comprehensive cover was €1888 from AXA – this included a €600 excess. The highest fully comp quote came from FBD at €2550 with a €350 excess.

Female provisional licence holders were quoted lower prices for insurance in all cases  – with the lowest quote for comprehensive insurance coming in at €1233 from AXA. This is €655 cheaper than the quote for a male in exactly the same car and with the same circumstances.
In one case – the quote for a female was  €1083 cheaper than that for a male . Quinn insurance quoted €2384 for a male and   €1301 for a female.

Quotes for Third Party, Fire and Theft  (TPFT) are normally cheaper because this does not cover any damage caused to your car in an accident that is your fault.
The difference in price between fully comprehensive and TPFT for a 20 yr old provisional licence holder was around €300 euro – but strangely with Aviva it was cheaper to get fully comp instead of Third Party insurance. (€96 less a year).

The survey was carried out  in November 2011 by the fiancial regulator and covered the following insurance providers (not brokers)

Allianz , Aviva , AXA , ChartisDirect , FBD , Quinn Direct , RSA Insurance, Zurich

Quinn Healthcare are increasing the premiums on their plans by upto 22% on 1 April 2011. New prices will apply to all new and renewing customers.

This follows Aviva’s 14% price increase to  their individual and family plans on 1 March 2011. (For all all new and renewing customers.)

VHI started the latest round of health insurance price increases  when increased their premiums as much as 45% on 1 February 2011. Their most popular plan B Options  increased by 45%.

Tip: Existing customers of health insurance companies -  when increase are announced just cancel and then join again before the increase comes in to effect . Then you will will get another year at the current rates.

As always – “shop around ” is the best advice when buying or renewing car insurance. You could save hundreds of euros by going with one insurance company instead of another. In one example in a recent price comparison of Irish car insurance by the Financial Regulator – one car insurance quote was almost  double the cheapest quote for the same client.

In the October 2010 survey -  different quotes were obtained for car insurance for 34-year-old driver of a 2005 VW Golf,  recently unemployed, previously  worked as a medical sales rep for 6 years and their  motor insurance on a company car was covered by employer.

Eight insurance companies provided quotes for a male and female driver for both comprehensive and Third Party Fire and Theft.
Out of 32 quotes -  the lowest  quotes in each category were all from Axa Insurance .
The lowest comprehensive quote was from Axa – for a female at €383  a year. In comparison – the highest price for female fully comp insurance was from Quinn – at €663 – a difference of €280 a year.
For a male – with comprehensive insurance cover – Axa quoted €433 while Quinn wanted €833 – almost doubleat €400 more . The nearest price to the Axa quote was from RSA at €570 – still a difference of €137

Other comprehensive quotes  from FBD : €687  -  from Allianz :  €574 and  €705 from Zurich.
The lowest Quotes for Third Party Fire and Theft were from Axa too – at  €332 male and €331 female.  Quinn wanted €663 for the male – almost double again!

Comparing comprehensive car insurance quotes for a 61 year old male retiree from Portarlington, Co. Laois. driving a 2005 Opel Vectra -  the lowest premium found was €524 from Axa Insurance again  . Next best was from  RSA at at €586  with the most expensive quote being from Chartis  at €856. Again – a considerable saving  of €332 between the cheapest and the most expensive quotes.

All figures quoted are from a Financial Regulator Survey in Oct 2010.

The Government have announced plans to sell off the Irish Health Insurance company VHI.
It always seemed strange that the goverment was responsible for providing “free”  public healthcare and also running a private health insurance company  as well as regulating the health insurance market.

VHI – which is Ireland’s biggest  health insurer in terms of people insured. will be privatised and probably broken up in the process.
VHI insures a bigger proportion of older people than Quinn Healthcare or Aviva. Older people tend to get sick more often than younger people – so VHI are less profitable as a result.

The Government want to introduce risk equalisation – which will mean that  companies with larger numbers of older subscribers would receive financial payments, via the regulator, from their rivals with a younger membership profile.

They tried to intoduce legislation previously – but the other insurance companies protested about having to hand over €20 – €30 million  to the VHI .
BUPA challenged it in the Supreme Court and the government lost . BUPA have since pulled out of Ireland and Quinn Insurance took over their operations.

Mmany of the legal challenges  to   risk equalisation scheme centred on the argument that making commercial companies pay sums of money to a State-owned enterprise (VHI)  represented a form of State aid.

So – one way around this is to privatise VHI.  We wrote earlier this year about the problem of VHI Solvency – and avoidance of regulation which still have to be addressed.

Before selling off the VHI – the government will have to boost it’s reserves sheet by a “substantial” sum -  probably  in excess of €100 million.

Quinn Insurance has had well publicised solvency problems too – and is  in administration – ( it will probably be sold  too).

Aviva seems to be the only sound insurer in the health market in Ireland at the moment.

You know how every advert for something financial in Ireland always ends with  “ we are regulated by the financial regulator” – well that is something you will not hear at the end of a VHI advert.
VHI – the state owned  health insurance body – has again managed to avoid coming under regulation by the Financial Regulator. The proposed date for regulation to be put in place for VHI has been postponed by the Government until January 1st, 2012. If they were to come under financial regulation – they would be probably fail under solvency rules.

The Irish Government  faces court action by the European Commission for failing to implement an adequate regulatory regime to oversee the State-owned VHI.

This is at least the fourth deadline set by the Irish Government for such a move. All previous deadlines have been missed.  They initially set a date of  September 1st 2009 for the State-owned company to be authorised by the regulator – a deadline that was later extended to December 31st and subsequently to March 31st 2010.

With Quinn Insurance in administration because of poor solvency – and now VHI failing again to meet regulatory requirements – the only  health insurance company  in Ireland that seems to be in good financial order and regulated and authorised by the Financial Regulator is Aviva .

Aviva Group Ireland plc is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Aviva Group plc, the world’s fifth-largest insurance group and the biggest in the UK with 55,000 employees serving over 50 million customers worldwide.

The Irish Financial Regulator has placed Quinn Insurance  into provisional administration and is expected to push for this  administration to become indefinite at a hearing on 12 April.

The Regulator has been concerned about the  Quinn Group since December 2009  when Quinn Insurance said the group was seeking a waiver from commitments to pay back certain debts by the end of last year. Sean Quinn was a major shareholder in Anglo Irish Bank – which is now in the hands of the state and making massive losses.

Quinn Insurance is Ireland’s second biggest insurer -   Quinn Insurance has around 23 per cent of the health insurance market in Ireland – they took over BUPA’s Irish operation  when BUPA pulled out.
Although the regulator has said that Quinn-Healthcare  customers do not need to do anything -  many of them will be looking into switching insurers to avoid any possible problems.
There are only 2 alternatives to Quinn for health insurance in Ireland – AVIVA and VHI.
You can transfer from one health insurer to another at any time – you do not have to wait for a renewal noice . If you switch from Quinn to another health insurance company you  are entitled to a full refund for any period of insurance that you have not used.  Here is a letter you can use to inform Quinn Insurance that you wish to cancel your Policy. It makes sense to take out any new policy before you cancel your old one – it is better to have a couple of days overlap than a few days with no cover at all.

Aviva have a promotional rewards package on offer for anyone who switches to them before April 15th 2010. This promotion was announced befor the problems with Quinn. You can get vouchers for things such as free cinema tickets, a free round of golf, free beauty treatment and lots more.

When you switch health insurance provider – if the new policy offers the same benefits (or a lower level) you will not have to serve any extra waiting period before claiming.
If your new policy has higher benefits the new company can insist on a waiting period before you are eligible for these extra benefits.

We did a quick price comparison of some similar health insurance packages for a family of 2 adults, 2 children & 1 student.

Quinn Insurance Essential   – cost €1620
Aviva Level 1 Hospital  €1685
VHI Plan A  – cost  €1789.05

There are minor differences in all the health insurance packages – so exact comparisons are not easy. Excess payments are one of the big differences – this is the amount you have to pay towards any claim in a year. In the 3 examples above – the lowest excess was from Aviva at €250 per family. With Quinn – the excess was  €470 and with VHI it was €250 per person (a possible €1250 in the example family) . Higher excess levels will  mean you are less likely to reach the threshold where cover kicks in on the smaller items like Physio or GP visits.
In the above comparison – ony Aviva would cover the full cost of a private room in a public hospital. Quinn would want €55 per night from you and VHI would not cover the full cost either.

Any driver in Ireland can be in with a chance of winning a brand new Opel Corsa worth €17,500 Euro – and a year’s free comprehensive car insurance.

LAST DAY TODAY – Offer ends 31st March 2010
No purchase required – entry is free. All you have to do is get a full quote for car insurance on or before 31st March from Aviva and you will be entered into the prize draw.

Once you enter the basic details for the quote and see the price options – select a price – you then press the Proceed button and then enter some contact details.
When you press “Review Your Policy” you will be entered into the draw . Click Below to get your Aviva quote now.

What are you waiting for? Get an Insurance Quote Now – you might even find that they are cheaper than your current insurer. You have nothing to lose and the possibility of winning a FREE CAR.