After everything we’ve been through recently, I just crashed into something else guaranteed to squeeze the pips out of our household budgets.
I’m talking about car insurance.
And the way motor insurers have become the latest hostages of viral inflation which drives up prices relentlessly – punishing those whose backs are already against the wall. Families in crisis due to a combination of any or all of the following: low pay, food prices, energy bills and mortgage interest rates.
I think it’s high time doctors, nurses, teachers, train drivers and every other Tom, Dick and Harry submit next year’s double-digit pay demands pronto. They must feel their newfound cash (those of the above who have received them so far, that is) draining away already.
That’s inflation for you: unsustainable pay rises drive this vicious circle.
It’s all very well if you happen to have powerful unions fighting your corner and holding the public to ransom. But what of other workers who are genuinely low paid? Those who don’t have the muscle to bring the country to its knees.
Such as community carers, who tirelessly go into the homes of old, frail and demented people, and their colleagues in residential care homes. They provide a public service equal to any of the others, but their voices are drowned out.
The reality is that, in some places, the level of community care to cope with this elderly time bomb is on very thin ice.
Scottish Care warned in The P&J a few days ago that vulnerable people are more at risk than ever. This followed reports earlier in the year that experienced frontline health workers in Scotland were leaving in droves, lured by better money at supermarkets and cafes.
Renewal prices make inflation look like peanuts
I was engaged in my own bit of community care (unpaid, of course, as family support for vulnerable loved ones usually is), when I stumbled across an insurance shock hiding under my bonnet.
My wife and I had temporarily abandoned our Aberdeen home in the middle of a medical crisis facing her sick, 90-year-old mother. We decamped to her house, 500 miles away, and put our own lives on hold; for nearly three months, as it panned out.
We only took enough stuff for a couple of weeks – the local Matalan suddenly found itself very busy.
Sorting out my mother-in-law’s house insurance renewal was a priority.
As our own personal worldwide travel insurance had just been renewed with no premium increase whatsoever, I was basking unwittingly in what turned out to be a false sense of security over my next task: her new house and contents policy.
The broker was apologetic after informing us that my widowed mother-in-law (who has never made an insurance claim in living memory) would have to pay 50% extra compared to last year, making official inflation figures look like peanuts.
I started to have an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach over my impending Saga car insurance renewal. I opened their letter with trembling hands.
They were demanding almost £700 compared with £425 last time – without any explanation, apology or even a by your leave, sir.
Are insurers covering costs or taking liberties?
After some research on the subject, I felt a little sympathy for car insurers. Only a little, mind you.
It seems they are experiencing something many of us have felt for years – being taken for ride by car repairers and vehicle hirers who come into play after crash claims. Prices have shot up globally, including everything from motor components to car paint.
But all I ask them is this: are they really down to the bare bones when offering premiums to frazzled motorists – or is there still some meat and gravy in there to make a nice profit?
Cost-cutting crusader Martin Lewis slammed current car insurance quotes as “ridiculous” just before the weekend; shop around, he urged.
I went to another company with a base in the north-east which gave me a better deal and made me happy; and spoke with me personally, straight away
Boss of Saga Euan Sutherland makes a little recorded speech when you call for the annual haggle to try to knock them down. His soothing tones are meant to make you feel special, but they just annoyed me, as I knew I’d never get through personally to offer him a piece of my mind.
Then they told me I’d be waiting “over 15 minutes” to speak to a real person – all designed to push you online and save them a job.
I couldn’t be bothered, so I went to another company with a base in the north-east which gave me a better deal and made me happy; and spoke with me personally, straight away.
While all this was going on, I could hear ever patient community carers fussing around my fractious mother-in-law, who had arrived home from hospital. Despite our best-laid plans, she wasn’t having it.
You just can’t insure against this type of thing.
David Knight is the long-serving former deputy editor of The Press and Journal