Car insurance vs car sales best practice

I read in today’s Insurance Times that the FSA is concerned about insurance brokers failing to disclose financial relationships with insurers. Apparently this is having an adverse impact on consumers, as you might expect.

For example, broker A could receive contingent commissions from insurer B if he placed a certain amount of business with it, thus making him more likely to place that business with that insurer, whether or not it was in the client’s best interests.

The FSA is looking at forcing brokers to make a full disclosure of all commissions to put the spotlight on potential conflicts of interest.

Keep going FSA and perhaps the same open and accountable business values might enter the car showroom arena. Too many women motorists feel vulnerable here and I think it is appalling that there is clearly one price for those that don’t haggle but a lower one for those in the know.

Only a matter of time before ‘fair for all’ becomes a regulated selling norm, surely?

With us it’s personal…

My blog title is the Royal Mail’s trendy strapline which presumably cost them an arm and a leg to commission.

I have just received a letter from government owned Royal Mail asking if our business PO Box details are correct?

If the address is correct, they say ‘please ignore this letter’ but, if it needs amending ‘please write the new details in the spaces provided on the return card - no stamp is necessary’.

My point is, if the PO Box details were incorrect, I wouldn’t be reading their letter and vice versa.

In a nutshell, this mailing is a waste of time and money.

They then proceed to volunteer their address management services to help me maintain our motoring club’s membership database of women drivers…

I doubt I could afford the luxury of their services, unless their rates would be paid for by UK tax payers of course - as today’s meaningless mailing and redundant stationery was.

Back to my FOXY business now where every penny counts.

Yours grumpily today

FOXY Steph

Poor bank

In a valiant attempt to create a new and increasingly topical oxymoron I can find no sympathy whatsoever for ‘poor’ banks like the Royal Bank of Scotland. Yes I think it’s fair that their shareholders are expected to contribute towards the lean after so much fat but when the share price instantly rises due to financial speculation it looks like a pretty safe bet to me.

My interest is in how this affects their car insurance brands and the knock on effect for women drivers.

The wise companies, I’m thinking about the likes of LV= here, were ahead of the game, despite catching a financial cold. No more credit cards post 2006 and no new loans in 2007.

How come they could see what was coming yet Northern Rock and RBS presumably couldn’t.

Let’s see how Barclays fares later this week…

FOXY Steph

Be foxy - check before you buy a used car

I am always amazed at the number of female motorists who join our club after buying a nearly new or used car with fairly major problems that they didn’t spot before they bought it. More about this subject in this link…

Females fear fraud when buying cars online?

Fortunately we can help them (usually) but more women drivers need to be a bit less trusting in future I’d say! And pay a small amount for a critical car check, like the HPI check, to be sure that their new car is all it claims to be.

FOXY Steph

Spring weather in Sussex

How beautiful Sussex is in the Spring.

I have just returned from a business meeting in Surrey and thoroughly enjoyed the drive through a combination of country lanes and the winding A24.

OK so I was held up by a brick bearing lorry for a few miles but apart from that, and the speed cameras of course, this was the first day for some time that I’ve been encouraged by the weather… and the business meeting was a productive one too.

Roll on more of this, especially through the school holidays when I’ll want my screen-ager son to get out of doors for some fresh air.

Good luck Lewis on Sunday. And may the best football team win tomorrow (Portsmouth vs West Brom - I don’t support either but I’m delighted to see lesser teams having beaten the traditional Top Four).

Feeling happy today and looking forward to the weekend.

Yours foxily

Steph