Cost of Motor Insurance

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

I fully agree, and that was why, when the proposal for black boxes came up, I thought it was the ideal solution. It would enable someone to demonstrate that they were driving carefully and not at speed. I thought that could have been the technical solution, or at least could have moved us a bit further on. I cannot for the life of me understand why it has not been taken up by the insurance industry as well as it should have been. So far, Co-operative Insurance and others have offered some voluntary schemes, but they do not seem to have had the take-up that they should have done.

The question, then, is how we move forward. We know that a range of solutions could be put in place, and that a technical solution could be introduced on a voluntary basis to give people incentives and reduce their costs. I believe that the next stage is to bring the matter back to the Government. We have tried exhortation in the past, but we need to try it again, as was said earlier. We need another meeting at which we bring all the insurance companies together and exhort them to consider financial incentives for young people. We have such arrangements in acceptable behaviour contracts in other areas. People could sign up to certain behaviour patterns if they so wished, which would enable us to monitor them using technical solutions so that we could reduce their overall insurance costs.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

I wonder whether, when that is being considered, it might be possible to consider the circumstances that two or three of my constituents have found themselves in. Young people have applied for insurance online and the insurance company has agreed a premium and formed a contract with those young people to provide insurance, but has then come back six or eight weeks later with a much increased premium, ostensibly because something was originally incorrect. That has certainly happened to young women in my constituency with the Diamond insurance company.

[John McDonnell]

It is almost like the policy of excess that has been developed for other insurance costs. I believe that the onus is now on the Government to bring the insurance companies in for a thorough discussion about how we can take forward voluntary arrangements. However, there will come a time, which I believe we are nearing, when if we cannot get in place voluntary arrangements and incentives that work, we will have to introduce regulation.

Like many other Members, I cannot cope any more with driving along the road and seeing shrines to people who have died. The number in my area seemed to be peaking at one point, although I have not looked at the recent statistics. A large number of young people were being killed on the roads, and we would drive down the road and see the bouquets of flowers and the pictures of those young people. It relates to the point that the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) made about youthful exuberance—young people get their first car and are out on the roads, and sometimes it goes to their heads. They might have their friends with them, and unfortunately it often results in tragedy.