Red Pennant
As usual, I was arranging our Red Pennant cover for going to France again this year. In 2018 the cost of standard cover was £239 for the two of us - 82 and 80 years of age respectively.
This year that standard cover for us - now 83 and 81 respectively - has increased to £640, with absolutely no change in our circumstances. I cannot believe that the number of CAMC members actually having to exercise use of their cover has been at levels which justify this increase. Unfortunately, I find that going onto the comparison websites is even worse, so it would seem that the CAMC insurance underwriters have members such as us in a cleft stick.
This year I changed my car to a VW Caravelle mid-policy. When the renewal notice came through from the CAMC the premium was £1707. Moving to Admiral for the same protection reduced it to £744.
I can appreciate that insurers have to be practical, but I cannot help but suspect that they apply the worst possible scenario as a blanket cover, and therefore rip off the majority of customers in their quest to maximise profit margins.
Comments
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Le Touriste
There have been a few posts lately regarding the price of Red Pennant, particularly for older travellers. I have yet to discover at what age you get the major jump in premiums. We are in our early seventies so it will be interesting to see whether we are affected by the changes if we decide to go abroad this year. In the past Red Pennant only used to restrict the length of time away if you were over 80, now it seems they are also loading the premium. If it is true that they have changed their underwriters, which some have suggested, this could be the reason. I suppose the Club have to have a balance between the cost to their "average customer" and those in the older age group. To even the price out might disadvantage the average. Have there been any changes to the acceptance of existing medical conditions or is this still quite generous?
David
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The current price is £640 for Motoring and Personal, or £206 for Motoring only. Considering that the previous figure of £239 for M&P must have had its greater portion related to the Personal aspect, the cost of the Motoring side of things seems to have also been heavily loaded.
It would have been much more credible if the higher cost for over 80's had been geared for a good part of the sum to be refunded in the event of no claim being made. I could relate to the good sense of that, but I'm afraid I see this new, extremely vicious increase as nothing more than an insensitive moneymaking exercise on the part of the underwriters.
Of all the over 80's we have met in France, we have heard of very few instances of these folk taking ill, although it is obvious that the occasional illness will happen simply on the grounds of the laws of averages. I would bet that a £50 increase for over 80's would more than cover the risks for the few who have to claim. But a £400 increase is disgracefully obscene.
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LT, I was equally incensed when I discovered the new Red Pennant pricing regime, but like all insurance matters one just has to shop around for alternatives.
My own answer is an annual motor insurance policy which includes both UK and Europe breakdown / recovery cover in the package, plus a separate personal / medical travel policy - and even with a wide search online at your age this latter won't be cheap. The overall cover will in some ways be less than Red Pennant provides, but good enough, and the total cost will be below the £640 you have been quoted.
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I have always gone for the standard package with Red Pennant, so aimed for the basic price for personal insurance and got £347.33 via Age Concern.
Going to my car insurers I got top level cover added to my policy for £55.87. This gives a total of £403.20 for our motoring and personal insurance for France this year, which is almost £240 cheaper than Red Pennant.
Only thing is, I forgot to tell them that I will be towing our caravan. Don't know how that will affect the cost, but if it adds £40 it will still give a £200 saving. Will find out tomorrow.
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That is the problem these days, if you stay put you get ripped off.
It certainly pays to keep moving from one insurance company to another. Same with cars, house,utilities and caravan cover.
A damned nuisance really designed to catch out the unwary.
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Somebody on another forum said he rang the Club today and asked why there had been such a massive increase in prices for over 80's. Apparently they were told that the new under writers did not want to insure anyone over 80 but the Club insisted so it seems the under writers have tried a different method to prevent insuring over 80's. just price them out, or so it seems.
David
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"Apparently they were told that the new under writers did not want to insure anyone over 80 but the Club insisted".
So that begs the question, why did the club use this firm and will they now put further pressure on this firm for the benefit of their members?
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And of course the "Club" made no announcement of the change of underwriters and of the effect it would have on its oldest, long paying members - we were just left to find out for ourselves by hearsay and from others on forums like this one.
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I do still subscribe to the C&CC forum, having once been a C&CC member. I did look on their website, but could not see anything similar to what Red Pennant provides. Have I missed it somehow?
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LT - I have found the C&CC travel insurance, car and caravan. They do cover non-members with a £20 surcharge which seems very fair. The difficulty is that their insurance is for a maximum of 31 days (don't know if that is per trip or per year), but the agent is going to check with their insurers if this period can be increased to 45 days - which is our length of stay in France - and will get back to me in 2-3 days.
Just have to wait outcome now to see whether (a) 45 days acceptable and (b) if it betters the the £403.20 combined costs I have negotiated for separate breakdown and personal cover. Things seem to be getting more difficult for the over80's to enjoy their caravanning, particularly for visiting the EU, and who can say how this may worsen after Brexit?
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Well there’s a funny thing; I have been preparing to renew my travel insurance for some time. For multi-trip personal and breakdown The Club want £688. My MH is 8.06m long and I know this quote includes a £227 loading for the extra 6mm. These are recent quotes.
The other club have quoted £283 for much more flexible travel times and no length penalty.
BUT, just looking at the supporting docs from both quotes and they come from the same company! Astrenksa Insurance. The “what is and what is not covered” info form is exactly the same header and logo’s, but different detail and the club name at the top of the form.
it appears that the CAMC use a firm called Arrow as underwriters and C&CC use Intana.
The difference in the detail of what is and what is not covered is staggering, not to mention the completely different wording, making it extremely difficult to compare products. However, I am going to spend a bit of time with a big note pad and work through it. Initially, some items are better with one club but others are the opposite, very different!
Watch this space!
BillC
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C&CC update - 31 days cannot be extended. Also discovered that adding European breakdown cover (£55.87) to my Admiral car insurance was not satisfactory because, if the caravan was on a campsite and the vehicle disabled somewhere else and had to be repatriated, the caravan would not be collected for return to the UK. Tried Green Flag European cover, but 30 day limit applies.
Latest quote was RAC. This would mean an annual UK membership plus annual European multi-trip cover and a surcharge to C&CC "because they use C&CC equipment. The quote was £164, but would cover repatriation of the caravan if vehicles were at separate locations. Landing in the UK, the outfit would have to be unloaded on a public highway (lay-by?) because they could not go onto a CAMC site. With the Age Concern health cover quote of £347.33, the total comes to £511.33.
My "boss" says it is too messy and that we should cough up the extra £129 and take the Red Pennant quote of £640. She may be right!
Looks like another victory for the rip-off underwriters!!! 0 -
LT - I have a solution of sorts.
I also found the absence of recovery for the caravan in the event of the car suffering a breakdown whilst not attached to the caravan to be off-putting. For a few years I arranged Personal cover elsewhere and covered breakdown with ADAC, the German equivalent of AA/RAC.
However I now arrange my affairs differently. I use Nationwide Building Society flex plus account. An easy access bank account whereby we pay a monthly fee, I think it's currently £11.They do pay you for certain payments made by Direct Debit which reduces the monthly fee (for us to about £5 p.m.). In return the B/Soc provide me with Personal Travel cover, Breakdown and a few other bits and bobs. The breakdown cover gives 60 days Europe cover including the UK and includes cover for the caravan's repatriation when detached from the towing vehicle. I have this in writing!!
Now the bugbear for you will be the age limit for Personal cover which now stands at 70. A current member can pay for an upgrade but I'm not sure whether there is an age limit to taking out the account.
However there's nothing to stop you taking out separate Personal cover as per your obtained quotations.
Of course you may not wish to open a new bank account with Nationwide. However at least you now know about it.
Edit - My personal accountant has just informed me that the charge is currently £13 per month.
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We also use flexplus. It's worth noting that if you keep £2,500 in the account you get a decent rate of interest which in our case reduces the net monthly fee to around £7. I have used the breakdown service (provided by Britannia) a couple of times and it's been fine.
It's what I believe people call a no-brainer (although I find that a very odd description).
We've had our account for some years and are breaking through the 70 barrier. The extra costs for travel insurance still aren't as much as a freestanding insurance cover would be although it's slightly irritating that I don't seem to be able to restrict it to EU countries as I'm sure that is cheaper to insure.
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The age 70 barrier is no problem for Red Pennant. The crunch point of what appears to be an immediate jump to triple fees seems to cut in at age 80, but the Club is unwilling to publish a price list for members to see.
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I bank with Nationwide. Travel insurance - the last time I looked - is limited to 79 or under. In certain industries ageism is not legal, but it seems that the insurance industry isn't one of them. So they can simply cherry-pick to maximise their profits.
I hope that the CAMC are going to pursue this matter until a fair deal is obtained, finding more ethical insurers is a first step. If we restrict our French holidays to 30 days in the future, better European cover can be had through the C&CC.
We were with the C&CC at first, then were members of both C&CC and the Caravan Club - being members of what is now CAMC for the past 17 years. We dropped out of C&CC some years ago because we mainly visit adults-only sites in the UK. We stayed in the CC purely for Mayday and our caravan being insured with the CC. However, I am informed that the RAC operate breakdown cover similar to Mayday, and that Caravan Guard are reliable and cheaper for caravan insurance, and personal cover for visiting the EU can be had through Itana. The 31 days being the maximum stay can easily be accommodated. We are all familiar with loyalty meaning nothing in the car insurance industry, and shopping around for best quotes being an annual practice. Instead of taking a firm hard line with insurers, are CAMC willing to stand idly by and risk members looking around for a better package that could well include changing to 'the other club'? Over to you, CAMC.
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According to Nationwide, there is no upper age limit although over 69 there is additional payments:
"If any person to be insured is aged 70+ you must buy an age extension, which you need to renew annually in order for us to cover you. Only one age extension is needed per account and when you call you will be asked some questions about the health of all insured persons."
I note also that cover can be extended to 180 days but do not know about costs.
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I've also done Red Pennant for last 15 years. On another discussion, eurobreakdown.com was suggested, which looks well priced and underwritten by Allianz. It includes trailer cover and repatriation, so may be an option for those who already have annual personnal travel insurance as we have.
My only fear is that there may be a 'gap' between the two policies which I could fall into.
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