NEW Martin Lewis

The Martin Lewis column

He’s the UK’s leading money saving expert - a journalist and presenter who has kept millions of pounds in people’s pockets as well as lifting the lid on the threats and dangers we need to be aware of as consumers

MONEY ON MY MIND...

In a new column beginning in this issue, Martin Lewis discusses the perils of car insurance.

The cost of motoring is highly topical right now. From soaring fuel prices to electric cars right the way through to low emission zones, we’ve perhaps never had to fi ght our way through so much commotion and noise where our wheels are concerned.

While so much seems fl uid as far as the affordability of our cars goes, one thing that seems constant – constantly high – is the cost of car insurance.

I’m always asked what people should look for when they are searching for car insurance, and above everything else I would recommend they focus on price.

I think there’s a slight myth in the insurance world that if you pay more you are going to get a better claim. If you’re going for a high-street insurance policy and you pay £300 or £500, don’t assume that the £500 will be a better product.

Price should and will always be the core driver for most people because car insurance is a grudge purchase.

As for securing that best price, while most insurers are on price comparison sites, some – Aviva, Direct Line etc. – are not, so check between the two and always try to go through a cashback site to bring down the price further. Finally, a word about gender equality on car insurance premiums. A few years ago regulations came in designed to make things more equal, but all the evidence shows there is still a large disparity between prices for men and women.

I’ve wrestled with this a lot – car insurance prices represent a behavioural difference between a man and a woman, so why should we be stereotyped that we will all behave like the rest of our gender?

Having said that, should we not be allowed to discriminate on age as well because an 18-year-old drives in a different way to a 58-year-old?

Ultimately, insurance is a risk-based product and there are always winners and losers in these things. Funnily enough, in the fi rst big campaign for gender equality in insurance, the big loser was young women because their prices went up, which is perhaps not always what people think of when they talk about equality campaigns: women losing out. So, there’s a balance between principle and practice here, and I think principle can win at practice’s cost.

Martin Lewis is the Founder and Chair of MoneySavingExpert.com. To join the 7.5 million people who get his free Money Tips weekly email, go to

www.moneysavingexpert.com/latesttip

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