Confused.com, Comparethemarket.com, Moneysupermarket.com, Tescocompare.com, Gocompare.com, Zurich Connect, Direct Line, Norwich Union, Swinton Insurance, TheAA.com.

Just a few of the websites and companies offering car insurance and there are literally thousands of other insurance providers out there in the high street, on the telephone and on the internet.

Which offers the best price? What offers are they giving (such as 12 months for the price of 10 months)? Which offers the best support services? Which offers the best accident claims service? Which is the most financially stable and therefore likely to be in business for the coming year?

Just a few of the questions you will be asking when it comes to renewing your car insurance.

Well, whichever you choose, you need to satisfy yourself that the product you are buying meets your needs.

Write down those aspects that are most important to you in your policy and don’t be afraid to ask the difficult questions. Ask them to explain the policy exclusions and don’t let them put you off by trying to change the subject.

Most certainly, don’t let yourself be sold a policy that you are not 100% satisfied with.

You’re the only one who will lose out!

The weather of late across the UK has not been very driver friendly and many will have noticed themselves slipping, sliding or aquaplaning.

This can generally be attributed to incorrect tyre pressures, excessive speed, poor driving or worn tyres.

The minimum legal requirements for the amount of tread on tyres has been set for a reason - it is to assure public and driver safety and should not be ignored. Fail to comply and your personal safety and driving licence can be at risk, both of which can affect your insurance premiums.

The law requires that a tyre must comply with a number of legal requirements.

As the car driver, you are responsible for ensuring the correct fitment and condition of tyre, tread depths etc.

You are recommended to check your tyres on a weekly basis at least for tread depth, tread condition, inflation pressure, tread/sidewall damage and any signs of irregular wear.

If in doubt, get a specialist tyre supplier to have a look as soon as possible.

 None of this will take very long once you have done it a few times and more experienced.

The penalties for having illegal tyres are currently up to a £2500 fine and 3 penalty points PER TYRE!

As a guide:

• Do not mix your tyres – all radial or all cross ply is recommended

• Tyre size - ensure the tyre is the right size recommended by your car manufacturer

• Tyre pressures – again, ensure your tyres are inflated to the recommended pressures laid down by your car manufacturer

• Cuts/damage -  A cut longer than 25mm or 10% of the section width of the tyre , whichever is the greater, measured in any direction on the outside of the tyre and deep enough to reach the ply or cord would deem the tyre illegal.

• Cord showing - If any cord is exposed, the tyre is illegal and should be replaced immediately

• Lumps/bulges – if you notice any on your tyre – get it checked out immediately

• Depth of tread - A minimum of 1.6mm in a continuous band throughout the central three-quarters of the tread width, throughout the whole of the circumference is the required minimum requirement

• Spare tyres – the sensible thing is to apply the same rules to your spare tyres although some manufacturers now supply spares that may be of a smaller size and marked “Temporary Use Only”. When driving with one of these fitted to your vehicle, speed should be restricted to 50mph

Living in the UK, most will have heard of Lloyds. Not the bank, the insurance market but few will understand how it works.

Lloyd’s is actually the world’s leading specialist insurance market, with 46 managing agents and 75 syndicates, offering specialist underwriting expertise and talent without equal anywhere in the world.

Lloyd’s is not actually an insurance company but comprises of many members who form a syndicate to underwrite insurance. These syndicates can comprise of either corporate organisations, or individuals, and employ professional underwriters to assess and accept a risk.

The funding is provided by investment institutions, specialist investors, international insurance companies and individuals.

Lloyd’s members conduct their insurance business in syndicates, each of which is run by a managing agent.

The syndicates operating within the market cover many speciality areas including:

• Marine
• Aviation
• Catastrophe
• Professional indemnity
• Motor

It is important to note that just like in the high street, these syndicates compete for business with what is known as “mutual” associations and “proprietary, composite” insurers (proprietary in the sense that it is a publicly owned joint stock company and composite in the sense that it carries on both life and non-life* insurance) thus offering choice, flexibility and continuing innovation.

Syndicates may elect to cover all or just a part of the risk.

At its most basic, insurance is designed to help reduce the financial impact on an individual or business of a risk occurring.

While insurance can never remove the risk, it will provide the policyholder with some security should an event happen that would cause the financial stress.

A business that offers cover against certain risks (the insurer) agrees to take on the risk on behalf of the business or individual concerned (the insured).

It does this by providing the insured with an insurance contract, usually known as a ‘policy’.

The contract will lay down what risks the insurer has agreed to insure against and how much it will pay if the risk happens offering the insured assurance that they will be put back into the same position as if the risk had not happened.

The policy usually also includes a list of things that are not insured against (the exclusions).

So, for example, if one buys insurance which includes cover against their car being stolen, the insurance may have exclusion against payout if the insured was careless and left the keys in the car.

In return for offering the policy, the insured pays a fee (the premium).

The insurer pools funds from many insured people and invests it to make the pot of money grow. In the event of an insured claim, the insurer pays out from the pool of funds.

Like any business, the insurer is trying to make a profit so they hope the premiums received in any one year exceed the monies it has to pay out.

Insurers in the United Kingdom and in most countries are very closely supervised to make sure that they do keep enough money to pay all their claims.

The insurer will consider the product or person wanting to be insured before offering a decision and indeed, fee, and this whole process is called ‘underwriting’.

Underwriters are specialists employed to carry this out and they will consider how likely the insured event could happen, what steps the insured has taken to reduce the risk and what are the actual financial consequences if it happens.

Rightly or wrongly, the no-win, no-fee system has proven a success - at least for personal injury solicitors and the companies created to support the ever increasing compensation culture developing within the UK.

There are most definitely benefits for the customer as compensation claims are now escalating to frightening financial levels costing insurers and policyholders more than £1.5 billion per year.

Companies set up purely to offer Accident Management and compensation recovery from guilty parties is big business and many solicitors, having recognised the lucrative earnings on offer, spend a great deal of money setting up such companies and advertising across all media’s.

However, no matter how good an idea, it is important to ensure you read the small print of any contract you sign up to.

Whilst acknowledging that these accident management companies and solicitors will work through a table to establish the likelihood of recovery before pursuing a case, the “no win, no fee” offer may not always ring true.

What they mean is that if they don’t win, you will not have to pay them anything. However, this doesn’t mean to say that you will not be responsible for the other person’s legal fees if you lose and everyone knows, this can be quite substantial.

The recommendation therefore is explore the possibility of insuring against liability for any third party legal costs just in case you lose your case otherwise you could end up even worse off. Most solicitors or accident management companies should be able to offer such insurance or point you in the right direction.

Accidents are frequent on the road and your insurance is designed to protect you from their financial costs.

Within the UK, the Road Traffic Act 1988 Part V1, Section 143 defines the compulsory insurance requirements for motor users. Fail to comply and you could face stiff fines, points on your licence and possibly even a custodial sentence. In short, fail to comply and like any other illegal activity, and you should expect to be prosecuted.

Every person driving a motorised vehicle on a UK road, irrespective of whether they are the car owner, registered keeper or just using the car for the day, must ensure both they, and the vehicle, are insured against liability for injuries to others (including passengers) and for damage to property resulting from use of a vehicle on a road or other public place.

Whilst you could be prosecuted for driving without insurance even if you were the innocent victim in the car accident, if you are deemed to be at fault, the consequences are much more severe.

You will find yourself not only liable for the cost of any damage to the other car or property but you could find yourself legally responsible for the cost of providing care and compensation to anyone injured and with the cost of compensation for injuries now costing £’000’s on average.

If your policy has run out and/or you simply don’t have the funds to purchase insurance at them moment, lay the car up (off road) and do not let your peers pressure you into driving it around uninsured.

It is, quite simply too big a risk and ill advised.

The UK is now the ‘whiplash centre’ of Europe with claims in the UK some 40% higher than the European average.

The Association of British Insurers (ABI) advise that whiplash claims have increased by 25% over the past 5 years with more than 430,000 people claiming for whiplash injuries in 2007. That equates to more than 49 people every hour claiming whiplash injury every day of the year.

Whiplash is now the biggest injury claim category accounting for two-thirds of all personal injury claims made in the UK.

Anyone who has suffered such an injury will offer testament to the fact that these injuries can prove extremely painful, debilitating and can often take some time to recover so if the consultancy costs and NHS services are added to these costs, the true cost escalates even higher.

In 2007, the insurance industry paid out a staggering £1.9 billion in compensation with an average payout reputed to be around £4,000 per claim the cost is now equivalent to £66 for every car insurance policy held in the UK.

There are many inferences that a percentage of these claims are fraudulent in one way or another (either by exaggerating the extent of the injury or completely faking it) and this claim for compensation culture has not been helped by the ever growing number of solicitors, companies and organisations offering the American style “no win, no fee” schemes which has encouraged many claimants who may have perhaps either settled for a lot less or not even claimed otherwise to appoint legal representatives to fight their case on their behalf.

To avoid your insurer having to pay out for such an injury putting your no claims bonus at risk is to take precautions when driving and avoid driving too close to the person in front and allow plenty of stopping space.

Britain is recognised as being quite a safe place to drive around with reasonably good quality roads.

However, The UK’s reputation is starting to suffer due to more and more foreign drivers venturing onto our roads without knowing or understanding the meaning of our road signs and the Highway Code and our general traffic regulations.

Frequently, there are accidents caused by foreign drivers driving on the wrong side of the road, but more worrying is the fact that the number of foreign drivers arrested for drink driving offences has increased significantly in recent years.

This escalating problem may be due to poor knowledge of UK traffic regulations or just the fact that we drive on the left hand side of the road, but neither can said to be acceptable excuses and address the arrest records surrounding drink driving offences.

A lot of the eastern European workers arriving in the UK are of the younger generation who are statistically more likely to be involved in serious crashes. 

East Europeans are  also twice as likely, compared with other drink-drivers, to be serious offenders and get arrested for exceeding the legal alcohol limit by 2½ times or more.

Some local authorities have now started to issue information leaflets to drivers in Polish and other eastern European languages. The driving theory test is now even available in Polish and learner drivers are now permitted to take a friend or interpreter with them during the practical driving test.

It is said that some councils have even tried using road signs in Polish.

With the credit crunch squeezing everyone, and everything even further, new car sales continues to slow down as it appears more and more people are settling for second hand cars rather than buying the very latest brand new models.

Many people may also be considering buying more economical vehicles and with this in mind, the intention here is to provide a list of some of those vehicles with the lowest car group rating and therefore likely to be cheaper to insure.

There are numerous websites offering their opinions on the cheapest cars to insure but none will cover the whole spectrum of insurers and none will be able to guarantee offering the cheapest rate for all cars, for all age groups.

There are of course many other factors affecting insurance premiums such as a person’s accident, conviction and medical history so in this article you will find details of the more popular low car group vehicles.

If the vehicle you are considering buying is not listed, you can establish its group rating by visiting the Parker’s Car Insurance Groups website and select the make, model or Search by Group categories.

Group 1 vehicles:

Citroen C1 1.0L (05 on), Citroen C2 1.1L (03 on), Fiat Panda up to 1.0L (83-95 & 04 on), Ford Ka 1.2L (09 on), Ford Fiesta 1.25L (08 on), Toyota Yaris H/B 1.0L (06 on), Vauxhall Corsa 1.0L (most 1.0L versions)

Group 2 vehicles:

Austin Mini 850-1000cc (85-92), Daewoo Matiz (95-08) Fiat Panda 1.2L (83-95), Ford Ka 1.3L (96-08), Ford Fiesta most 950-1.4L (77-89 and 02-08), Nissan Micra most models (03 on), Peugeot 206  1.1L (98 on), Renault Clio 1.2L (98-01), Seat Ibiza most 1.2L (93-on),  Vauxhall Corsa (most 1.2L versions), Volkswagon Polo (Most 1.2L versions).

Roadsafe, creators of Intelligent Speed Adaptation (ISA) are claiming that their system could reduce the number and associated cost of car insurance claims.

The system, which is capable of automatically preventing drivers from exceeding speed limits forms the basis of their argument for trying to encourage manufacturers to start equipping their vehicles with Intelligent Speed Adaptation (ISA).

It is well proven, reported fact that speed is one of the biggest causes of accidents and fatalities on the UK roads.

There are of course opponents to manufacturers fitting it as a matter of course. The Association of British Drivers quite rightly warned that ISA could lull drivers into a false sense of security.

Of course, any business would like to have their product installed in every car manufactured, so perhaps a compromise can be reached whereby manufacturers offer the system as an extra.

Insurers can also do their part and perhaps acknowledge the effectiveness of the technology by offering those drivers with such a system installed and operating in their vehicle, a discount on their insurance premiums, just like they do for someone holding the advanced driver qualification.

Any discount on insurance premiums would be welcome, but to offer a discount for something which could save lives would be more than commendable and also show insurance companies doing something to help keep insurance premiums down.