RAC says car contents targeted by thieves

Car insurers the Royal Automobile Club (RAC) revealed yesterday that thieves were increasingly targeting car contents as well as the vehicles themselves.

RAC spokesperson Liz Kennett said: “Cars now have sophisticated alarms and immobilisers so these days it’s actually really difficult to steal someone’s car unless you have got a pair of keys.

“Quite often it’s about the prestige cars, where people are stealing them to order, rather than your average family car. It’s much harder to steal the actual car itself which is why [thieves] are much more interested in the possessions inside the car.”

Ms Kennett added that increasing sophistication among the criminals had also been detected by the club: “More cars are now being stolen by thieves getting the keys before hand. They are actually stealing them to order.”

However, she added that “theft from vehicles probably won’t drive up car insurance premiums because people don’t claim for the items. They would only claim for the damage to the vehicle for example if the window had been smashed.”

Statistics from the Motor Insurers’ Bureau from 2006 show that a total of 36,000 uninsured claims were reported – a reduction of almost five per cent on the previous year.

Tags: car insurers, uninsured claims, Automobile, car contents, previous year, alarms, Business Finance

Consumers could save money on home insurance

A number of studies carried out in relation to consumer trends with buildings and contents insurance have shown that a large percentage of consumers could save a small fortune on the cost of their insurance premiums by taking a few simple steps. A recent survey was carried out by Tesco, and the results indicated that many consumers could be paying up to twenty five percent too much on their premiums for buildings and contents cover.

In many cases consumers are failing to shop around for good deals on home insurance cover simply because they think that they have to take the insurance cover that is offered by their mortgage provider, which is not always the case. The head of insurance at Tesco stated: “Many consumers are apathetic about their home insurance or believe it is an integral part of their mortgage. Others suspect the saving made by shopping around won’t be worth the effort but that isn’t true.”

As part of a survey, around 125 consumers were asked to shop around when it came to renewing their home insurance, and out of these a quarter discovered that they were paying around seventy five pounds more than they needed to on the cost of their premiums. The other seventy five percent from the survey also discovered that they could make some form of saving on their cover simply by shopping around.

In addition to shopping around, Moneysupermarket.com has advised consumers to ensure that their home is made secure through the fitting of security locks, burglar alarms, and other security devices, as this could also help to slash the cost of insurance premiums through reduced risk. Consumers may also find that purchasing a combination package of buildings and contents cover could save them money on the overall cost of their home insurance.

Tags: home, contents, buildings, cost, security