Car insurance occupation categorisation

[Electrolytic]

What job title / occupation has your car insurer filed you under? Also which industry / nature of employer's business do you fall under?

 

When I was a Theatre technician at a Theatre it was straight forward.

But now I'm a sound engineer I'm higher risk?

 

I said its an events company, a production company. There were three options; Music production, TV production, Film Production.

[timsabre]

There's often several different job titles you could legitimately use and can be quite a difference in cost.

This is a good website to let you compare how the different job titles affect the price

 

http://www.moneysavi...nce-job-picker/

 

Apparently being a librarian gets you the cheapest insurance...

[d_korman]

According to "Which" this month, plain old "Engineer" is better than any specific type of engineer!

[timsabre]

That website says not - e.g. "Computer engineer" or "Civil engineer" is 2% cheaper than "Engineer", but "Television Engineer" is 10% more expensive - it's based on an average of real quotes.

You can play the same trick with comparethemarket.com but it's a bit of a faff going backwards and forwards through the quote pages.

[Brian]

But what happens when you have a claim which they decide to investigate?

 

I had a total loss claim a few years ago when my car was stolen from the railway station and written off and it was randomly chosen to be thoroughly investigated. Someone came out and interviewed me.

 

I suspect that had I not been entirely truthful about my occupation they'd have declined the claim. Which might have left me in the position of not being insured at the time of the incident which is a criminal offence.

 

Given how insurance companies like to take any reason to not pay out surely they will use anyone's not being accurate about their job as a reason.

[sam.spoons]

Which is where Martin Lewis' quote “Imagine you were asking a reasonable person who knew what you do for a living. Would they say it was reasonable for you to describe yourself this way?” comes into it's own, and a court is likely to agree so if your job description passes that test you should be ok.

[Bryson]

It has to be justifiable, but most people could argue they belong to more than one of those categories, so why not pick the one that is most advantageous? For example, I work as the TD for a city-owned venue, so I put "Local Government Middle Management" rather than "Theatre Technician."

[TonyMitchell]

Taking Brian's very valid point regarding a claim situation, I would say it is vey important that there is parity between what you tell HMRC, Companies House and your Insurer. When the Insurer have a claim against them, you can bet they will look for any possible reason to invalidate it. The former two bodies use SIC codes, do insurers not also use these? (The person whom looks after our Insurances is on holiday, so I can't ask her, but it would seem logical that they do.)

 

http://www.whichlist.com/Support/Standard-Industrial-Classification-Codes.php

 

 

 

 

 

[ImagineerTom]

To reject insurance cover they have to establish a deliberate deceit or fraud on your part. If you're the TD at a local authority theatre but say on your insurance that you're a librarian then you are clearly being deceitful. If as bryson has said you apply a common layman's term to describe your job and it broadly describes what you do then the insurance company couldn't deny cover unless they'd asked further questions when you took out the policy and you deliberate misled them.

 

I'm insured as a company director and that's considerably lower policy cost than "circus monkey" - it's also actually considerably more accurate representation of what I do on a daily basis (I spend a lot of time behind a desk, the majority of my meetings are about marketing strategies, financial projections, product development & compiling endless mountains of paperwork relating to shows and event plans) and I am also registered at companies house as the director of some companies so there can be no doubt that although I work in the circus world my job is actually a close match to most company directors although I am now considering a career change to Librarian.

 

As Eddie Izzard once brilliantly pointed out; even the Death Star must have a canteen full of people employed as dinnerladies.

[Electrolytic]

Taking Brian's very valid point regarding a claim situation, I would say it is vey important that there is parity between what you tell HMRC, Companies House and your Insurer. When the Insurer have a claim against them, you can bet they will look for any possible reason to invalidate it. The former two bodies use SIC codes, do insurers not also use these? (The person whom looks after our Insurances is on holiday, so I can't ask her, but it would seem logical that they do.)

 

http://www.whichlist...ation-Codes.php

 

Which SIC code would most appropriately match the role of sound engineer?

 

 

 

 

But what happens when you have a claim which they decide to investigate?

 

I had a total loss claim a few years ago when my car was stolen from the railway station and written off and it was randomly chosen to be thoroughly investigated. Someone came out and interviewed me.

 

I suspect that had I not been entirely truthful about my occupation they'd have declined the claim. Which might have left me in the position of not being insured at the time of the incident which is a criminal offence.

 

Given how insurance companies like to take any reason to not pay out surely they will use anyone's not being accurate about their job as a reason.

 

Is the important part getting the occupation correct?

 

That nature of the employer's business if that is close enough its ok?

[DrV]

My policy is to discuss what I do with the insurance company and let them choose what to put. Provided I have been honest in the conversation I reckon that's the best way. They always remind me that the calls are recorded so if there were to be a query we could go back to the tape.

[Stuart91]

My policy is to discuss what I do with the insurance company and let them choose what to put. Provided I have been honest in the conversation I reckon that's the best way. They always remind me that the calls are recorded so if there were to be a query we could go back to the tape.

 

I did that a while ago and ended up categorised as being in "Advertising Services". But it was their suggestion, based on an honest description of what I actually do day-to-day.

[Just Some Bloke]

I wonder what the cost would be for a Waste Management Solutions Operative (bin man)?

 

I tend to say I'm a Technical Manager and hope they don't ask what industry. Unfortunately they usually do. :(

[xllx]

I tend to say I'm a Technical Manager and hope they don't ask what industry. Unfortunately they usually do. :(

 

 

Years ago, I said Theatre Technician. After two years the broker happened to ask "which hospital do you work in?"... My premiums went up

[timsabre]

I tried the "ask the insurance company what they think" approach with my business insurance. We agreed a category of business, but later found they had put down a completely different category and wanted to charge us for correcting it. When we asked them to verify what was said on the phone they could not. So if you are relying on a phone call, record it yourself.