Trick for cheaper car insurance.

[Jacqui Harvey]

Got this email from my daughter this morning.  Thought I would pass the information on.  Hope it help someone.
............
So I was just doing our car insurance quotes.  I went and had a check on the money saving site and saw that changing your job description could save you money. Not lying about your job but using a different description. I had local council worker. I changed it to civil servant and its taken £100 off the cost of our car insurance!
.................................

[JohnF]

You need to be soooo careful doing this.  If you give an insurance company any chance to null a policy (in the event of a claim) they will do it.  Generally speaking, the major insurers will often just make you pay the difference (in the premium), however some of the smaller, more aggressive, syndicates will quite happily cancel your policy due to either non disclosure or providing false job employment details.

This is an old quote, but valid nonetheless:

The Financial Ombudsman Service says it sees cases from consumers who are upset when they find their claim is not going to be paid because of the way they described their job.
"If you have been upfront with the way you described what you do, then the insurance company should pay up. But if you have deliberately misled them, it is unlikely you will be covered," says spokeswoman Emma Parker.

In law, an attempt to cheat an insurance company is fraud. If a customer provides the insurer with false information, the customer could be added to a fraud list, and then would struggle to get any cover in the future.

Source: BBC

JF

[Jacqui Harvey]

My daughter IS  a Civil Servant.  She works in the offices of our local council.  She originally used to drop down menu to name her job.  She has no problems, as far as I can see.
My son is a self employed Plumber, running his own busness.  Perhap he should be a Sanitary Consultant.   

[JohnF]

Is she? 

"The civil service in the United Kingdom only includes Crown (i.e. central government) employees, not parliamentary employees or local government employees. Public sector employees such as those in education and the NHS are not considered to be civil servants."

Ok, it's from Wiki but it illustrates why you need to be careful.  She is a local government employee, not a member of the civil service.

JF

[Jacqui Harvey]

She is   

[kevin3]

   I would have thought your son was a Freelance Aquologist  Jacqui.     

[Jacqui Harvey]

Yes he could be, will ask him   

[KKOB]

Insurance companies will use any excuse not to pay a claim and if you've told them just the smallest fib in your application, they'll find out and use it against you.

[devindazzle]

I was under the impression insurance quotes were logged (hence all the followup calls or emails that you get flooded with after you've retrieved a quote) and so a follow up application in which details have been changed could  be investigated.

[Jacqui Harvey]

This is the page and I am sure Martin Lewis and his staff of lawyers know what they are advising.
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/insurance/car-insurance-job-picker/
Whether you do it or not is entirely up to you.   i am not getting into long arguments or discussions.   I am just passing on some information.
I would also say, I was always annoyed that drop down menus did not contain my job.  Antiques Dealer and I always had to ring up.  One company told me that had no job description for me, and would put me down as an Art Dealer... which I was not.  Also Phil was exactly the same. There was no where on the drop down menu to say Oil Company Manager.  When he rang they said he would have to be an "Office Manager"

As an aside to this.  A couple of weeks ago my daughter was parked in her Council Car Park. A woman visitor backed into the space next to her (only back in's allowed) and hit my daughter's car.  There was a lot of damage.  The woman who had a hire car from the NHS who she works for, told my daughter she did the same thing in February in another Council Car park.  It did not seem to bother her, as she just got another hire car from the NHS.
It just so happens my daughter has to renew her insurance shortly. Everywhere requires her to put that she was at fault for the woman running into her car, because the claim has not yet been settled on the database.  This adds £60-£100 to her insurance. She has asked if the money would be returned to her once the computer updates and she has been told No.  So, for an accident that was not her fault, she has to pay.