Refusal of insurance due to safety rating

[jimmypoggin]

The RAC of WA informs me it will not insure my 2 year old Nissan Patrol wagon because it only has a safety rating of three!
Has anyone else had this unfortunate experience?

[Clunk]

Sounds like bull to me, I've got both my 93 & 94 GQ's insured through RAC, unless they've changed something when it comes to new policies

[4bye4]

Just looked up the ratings. If they won't insure cars under 4 stars, that would include Landcruser 70 series, Nissan Navara, Suzuki APV, Nissan Micra, Ford Transit, Isuzu 4x4 and 2x4, Colorado, Mazda BT50 and Ford Ranger as well as many others. Are your sure that's what they have said. After all the rating is out of 5 and 3 out of 5 should be OK. Part of the assesment is the number of air bags. Any vehicle without side airbags is going to be 3 star or less anyway.

[the evil twin]

Yeah, I've been a member for yoinks and I was talking to them a few months back and the subject of Ancap ratings came up

I know RAC won't do new car loans for vehicles with less than 5 star ANCAP but first I heard of knocking back insurance.

May be a rule for new insurances and they will still honour existing ones?

[Stropp]

that seems odd, plenty of more reasonably priced insurance companies will insure it mate, i have mine through shannons.

[4bye4]

I have been thinking about this since it was first posted and I can't see the logic. The AMCAP rating is done doing controlled tests and using crash test dummies to measure the injury/death potential in each vehicle. 5 star is the top and 1 star is the bottom, meaning if you hit a wall or whatever in a 1 star vehicle you are more likely to suffer and injury than if you hit the same wall in a 5 star vehicle. However, all the vehicles are still legal, and as such are for sale new and used. Now the insurance companies are mostly concerned about how much and how often they will have to pay out, not so much about the level of trauma that will be caused in an accident. Surly then it would be to their advantage to not insure say commodores for example, as there a a lot more of them and as they are so common, there is more chance of parts being available to repair them at the insurance companies cost. Rating a cars safety by counting the number of air bags and how the front collapses in a crash, does not indicate the "safety" of a vehicle or the likelihood or a crash. Many other factors come into the equation, such as the power of the vehicle and the number of them on the road. The likelihood of two ford falcons having a collision at an intersection, costing the insurance companies many $'s is probably much higher than say two 1 star rated Chinese vehicles coming into contact at the same speed. Agreed if a 1 star car does have an accident, the injuries may well be worse than a 5 start rated car in the same situation, but it is also true that the 5 start car may well be going faster and have instilled a false sense of security in the driver than the 1 star car. Not insuring a car, be it a 4x4 or not because the occupants may suffer more injuries in the event of an accident does not make sense to me. End of rant, thank you for listening.

[the evil twin]

It makes a heap of sense actually and some of you guys are missing the point a little bit. Ancap isn't just solely crash test data and air bags.

You can have the best SRS system in the world and still not get 5 star if you don't have ESC for example

To get 5 star the vehicles have to have, ESC, Seatbelt reminders, full lap sash belts and a mix of some blind spot monitoring, EBD, pedestrian safety, adaptive cruise, autonomous braking etc etc.

That means there is a lower risk assessment of the vehicle damage or even being in a crash, less injury scale and therefore less $ at risk for the insurer.

Before anyone arcs up about 'cars don't crash, drivers do' or whatever don't blame the messenger and you can still get insured somewhere... at least for the time being.

[Avo]

I own a 2010 and are insured with them aswell,they will also insure my gq so I cannot understand where they are coming from

[the evil twin]

I own a 2010 and are insured with them aswell,they will also insure my gq so I cannot understand where they are coming from

They are probably doing you a favour in a weird way.
Higher risk would mean higher premiums then it depends on how they want to amortise the cost as to who it affects

If I understood their corporate babble correctly from when I was talking to them when I was looking at pre-approved arrangenment for a new vehicle yet to be decided it was 2013 and on must be Ancap 5 or no deal.
Some of the models I was considering at the time weren't 5 which is what caused the kerfluffle.

Even after escalation to a retention manager RAC were adamant that they weren't interested unless the prospective new vehicle was Ancap 5.

So, Pffft to RAC, even when I ended up with a new vehicle that was Ancap 5 I didn't go back and got the very slightly better rate elsewhere and a significantly better premium at Shannons.

[TPC]

They are probably doing you a favour in a weird way.
Higher risk would mean higher premiums then it depends on how they want to amortise the cost as to who it affects

If I understood their corporate babble correctly from when I was talking to them when I was looking at pre-approved arrangenment for a new vehicle yet to be decided it was 2013 and on must be Ancap 5 or no deal.
Some of the models I was considering at the time weren't 5 which is what caused the kerfluffle.

Even after escalation to a retention manager RAC were adamant that they weren't interested unless the prospective new vehicle was Ancap 5.

So, Pffft to RAC, even when I ended up with a new vehicle that was Ancap 5 I didn't go back and got the very slightly better rate elsewhere and a significantly better premium at Shannons.
I am surprised you got a better rate from Shannons, they quoted me double the premium i pay with RAA.

[Avo]

They are probably doing you a favour in a weird way.
Higher risk would mean higher premiums then it depends on how they want to amortise the cost as to who it affects

If I understood their corporate babble correctly from when I was talking to them when I was looking at pre-approved arrangenment for a new vehicle yet to be decided it was 2013 and on must be Ancap 5 or no deal.
Some of the models I was considering at the time weren't 5 which is what caused the kerfluffle.

Even after escalation to a retention manager RAC were adamant that they weren't interested unless the prospective new vehicle was Ancap 5.

So, Pffft to RAC, even when I ended up with a new vehicle that was Ancap 5 I didn't go back and got the very slightly better rate elsewhere and a significantly better premium at Shannons.

Not quite ET,sgio wanted 1252 to insure for 36 500 and RAC came in at 683 insured for 42 500...I was also a new cutomer as I came from sgio..only been with them since july..this also includes 2 claims in the last 2 years

[jimmypoggin]

The RAC told me that that since 2012 have have not accepted 3 star It was not clear whether that was the year they decided and would not insure later models while continuing to ensure previous models. THis would make little sense, but as they say it goes not have to make sense OR they decided in not to not insure older models either. Which makes even less sense. I suspect the former

[Avo]

hey jimmy try getting an online quote mate?
https://racinsurance.rac.com.au/QuoteMotor/Question/Questions/bda86dbf-1832-42fa-84ab-f73f6711b924

[the evil twin]

The RAC told me that that since 2012 have have not accepted 3 star It was not clear whether that was the year they decided and would not insure later models while continuing to ensure previous models. THis would make little sense, but as they say it goes not have to make sense OR they decided in not to not insure older models either. Which makes even less sense. I suspect the former

Yep, got pretty much the same story.
RAC would not approve some of the 2013/14 vehicles I mentioned as they had low or no Ancap rating.
They were happy to work with 5 star but flat out wouldn't have a bar of 3 (dunno about 4 as I didn't ask).
They were also happy to continue taking my money on an existing vehicle policy for 3 star as long as I kept it.

Allianz would not insure my previous Patrol due to mods but TCIS (now merged with OAMPS) happily did with even more mods and the policy was underwritten by Allianz.
It was the Allianz top of the wozza 4WD policy with a couple of extra's thrown in.
I never could figure that one out IE Allianz wouldn't insure me 'off the street' but would thru a broker.

In 2013 OAMPS jacked the premium by nearly 1/3rd but as OAMPS like TCIS are insurance brokers not underwriters at least some of the rise must have stemmed from Allianz and any other firms OAMPS dealt with shedding risk by upping price.

I moved to Shannons when I got my current Patrol (all mods disclosed).
My new daily drive I bought 2 weeks ago is also with Shannons at very good rates.

I am still quite happily an RAC member for roadside assistance purposes on my Patrol but all my insurance business is now with Shannons and will stay there while ever they do the right thing by me.

[mudnut]

Why won't they insure the vehicle. Rego insures the occupants . The higher ANCAP rating would make it way dearer for the insurance mob to fix the vehicle in the event of a crash, wouldn't it? They would have to repair the air bags, sensor and sundries on top of the body damage.

[the evil twin]

snip...
The higher ANCAP rating would make it way dearer for the insurance mob to fix the vehicle in the event of a crash, wouldn't it?

Thats the point I was trying to clarify in the thread earlier.

In basic terms a high Ancap means there is less likelyhood of having the crash in the first place because of stabilty control, brake assist, etc etc
You cannot get a 5 Ancap without the fitment of certain stability/braking/driver assistance no matter how good the SRS systems and crash test results.
Hypothetically a 12 airbag car with no ESC may get a 3 and a 6 airbag car with ESC may get a 5.

The path RAC are taking is if it is a circa 2012 or later car with low Ancap we don't want your business as there is an increased likelyhood of a collision and physical damage.

[the evil twin]

hey jimmy try getting an online quote mate?
https://racinsurance.rac.com.au/QuoteMotor/Question/Questions/bda86dbf-1832-42fa-84ab-f73f6711b924

On the online quote form:
You can choose a Patrol Y61 up to MY11.
In MY12 you cannot choose any Patrol at all.
In MY13 and MY14 Patrol reappears as a model option for the year but only Y62