Collective cost of altering car insurance policies crippling

A recent report has shown that collectively consumers in the UK are paying crippling sums of money to insurance firms in order to make simple changes to their insurance policy mid-term.

It is through that insurance firms are making around £333 million as a result of drivers making changes to their car insurance policies.

The report suggests that around 60% of drivers, which equates to around fourteen million drivers, make changes to their policy mid-term.

Average costs charged by car insurance companies for various changes made to policies include £12 for the provision of duplicate documents, £17 for making adjustments such as name or address charges, and around £38 for the cancellation of a policy.

The Insurance Code of Business previously contained a clause relating to extortionate charges to customers, but this was removed from the code, which many feel has left the system open to abuse.

One industry official said: “These ‘hidden charges’ and cancellation fees certainly seem excessive and there is a clear need to reinstate the rules around what is a fair charge to really put consumers’ needs first. Consumers need to know where they stand and the easiest way to do this is for the amount providers charge to be consistent across the insurance industry.”