EV insurance
John Lewis has stopped offering insurance to electric car drivers amid fears over the cost of repairs.
The department store’s lending business John Lewis Financial Services has put a temporary pause on customers taking out cover or renewing existing policies on battery-power vehicles while its underwriter, Covéa, analyses risks and costs.
Insurers are facing rising costs for vehicle repairs, which are eating into profits. According to the Association of British Insurers (ABI), vehicle repair costs rose 33pc over the first quarter of 2023 compared to 2022, helping to push annual premiums to record highs.
Electric cars can be particularly expensive to repair, costing around a quarter more to fix on average, compared to a petrol or diesel vehicle, according to Thatcham Research, the motor industry’s research centre.
Particular worries surround the batteries, which are commonly mounted on the floor of the vehicle. This placement can make it more likely that it will be damaged even in a minor accident such as mounting a kerb.
Will other insurers be folloing them - or will EV premiums be loaded even more ?
Comments
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Within the last three weeks I have just renewed the insurance on our Skoda Enyaq EV, fully comp obviously, myself and wife as named driver ( me main driver), 10k miles pa, business cover for both.
And our Toyota Aygo 1.0 we keep as a Toad to take behind the van. 2.5k miles pa, fully comp, SDP & Commuting but no business cover, both of us insured to drive.
Skoda = £211
Aygo = £187
Given the Skoda is worth nearly four times the Aygo and doing 4 times the mileage that doesn't surprise me.
Plenty of scare stories out there, most of them are total rubbish......
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My eldest (23) took insurance on a 72 plate Zoe last month. 6k miles a year on a 20000 mile car. Worth 15k, paying £340 a year with no no-claims discount.
Seems reasonable to me given a 2015 Kia Picanto (worth about 1k) is costing over 800 for her sister (18).0 -
I think there are to many variables to come up with a real answer.
It could be seen as an over generalisation, but expensive EV's are more likely to be owned by mature high earning professionals who are seen as lower risk and hence premiums might have been artificially low, until a recent re-appraisal of these vehicles.
18-21 year olds are high risk. By 25 the risks are seem to have dropped. Females used to be cheaper insure, but this got changed some years ago with the weighting moved more towards job/occupation.
I believe there is also a critical annual mileage where less is not seen as better.
The Skoda premium does seem low but I'd ay the Aygo premium is high. We pay £139 for a VW Up, 6K miles with wife, self and our 34 year old son who lives elsewhere.
Colin
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"I think there are to many variables to come up with a real answer"
i agree, e.g. for us prices seem to be much higher in the South of England than what we paid in the North of Scotland, but have seen a lot of headlines in the press stating that insurance for ev's is on the increase due to the high cost of repair, apparently underfloor damage to the battery can be quite extensive if you are not careful when going up and down a kerb, or even speed bumps, they are also rxing a lot of bad press, e.g. pictures of brake down trucks with ev's onboard with smoke still pouring out of the vehicle, a bad fire in Liverpool last week with people reporting "it was like rockets shooting into the air" , I also read a report where a guy using a normal 13amp socket in his garage to charge his EV was woken by his fire alarm and found the socket smoking, apparently, this is quite common if you leave on charge for a long period of time, can cost £1k for specialised charging unit to be fitted.
for me, I am about to spend £500 to iron out a couple of scratches and bumps and get a small paint job done to preserve the life of of 2013 Kia Sorento, best not tell the insurance co, or they will no doubt increase my premiums.
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"I also read a report where a guy using a normal 13amp socket in his garage to charge his EV was woken by his fire alarm and found the socket smoking, apparently, this is quite common if you leave on charge for a long period of time, can cost £1k for specialised charging unit to be fitted."
I find it hard to believe anyone wanting to charge an EV at home wouldn't get the appropriate charger installed. Using the 'granny charger', ie via a 13amp socket (with maybe too small a capacity extension lead), can take 15 hours or more and the cost of 7kw chargers - which charge in a fraction of that time - can be far less than £1k.
Whatever the method, the alleged incidents of 13amp charging causing fires at the point of charge isn’t likely to affect the cost of car insurance for EVs.
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"Electric car charger installation cost The average cost of installing an electric car charger is £1,000 (or £650 if eligible for a government grant)."
i found this when i was doing some costings....i spend approx £50 per month on diesel for OH's car if had to pay £1k that would be nearly 2 years of motoring using OH's ice.
with regards to insurance, if it is found that charing an EV at home poses a fire risk whether it be within the car or perhaps the garage/porch way etc housing the charger, and i dont think there is positive evidence to suggest this is the case, then the insurance companies will load insurance premiums either on the property or the vehicle
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