What Happens to Your Vehicle Insurance Premiums Once You Have Paid?
Most of us have a rough idea how vehicle insurance premiums work; companies create a pool of funds to compensate policyholders who suffer a loss in one form or another.
Does this mean that when you pay your car insurance premiums, that they go into a bank account? And do they stay here where they wait for you or someone else to have an accident? And does the insurance company use these funds for compensation?
It’s not as straightforward as this in practice because there are some other things insurers use your monthly premiums for; these are some of them.
Vehicle Insurance Premiums and Claims
As we’ve mentioned above, insurance houses create pools of funds for claims payment. Does this seem unfair?
Imagine that you’ve been a policyholder for just a few months, and someone steals your car. So you make a claim with your insurer expecting them to replace your vehicle.
The vehicle insurance premiums you contributed are not enough to buy a new car. But the combined contributions of many policyholders will be more than sufficient to make the purchase.
Vehicle Insurance Premiums and Administrative expenses
Besides financing claims, insurance firms use your and other policyholders’ cash to keep the lights on and pay salaries. Payments are used to meet the usual costs of running a large business and are the companies’ primary source of income.
When you sign up for a car insurance policy, someone must receive your information and draft a contract. Even writing the contract itself requires expertise in the insurance field. For instance, producing the contract requires a computer, a printer, printing paper and the electricity needed to power the machines.
The monthly contributions pay for all this.
Vehicle Insurance Premiums and Legal fees
Legal costs are another major consumer of the money that companies raise from premiums. If there is a dispute arising from an incident in which your car was involved, your insurer might have to seek legal counsel or even prepare for a court case.
Contracts and other binding documents will need a legal team to prepare. Your premiums partly go into paying the firm’s lawyers for this kind of work.
Vehicle Insurance Premiums and Brokers
Intermediaries often send customers to the insurance companies. These brokers not only set up the account for the client but they also, in most cases, help with the claims process and other queries.
As you would expect, they don’t bring in business or offer these services to the insurer for free as they receive payment in commissions by the insurance company.
To be able to provide more attractive premiums, some insurers have come up with a model to do away with brokers and deal with their customers directly.
Vehicle Insurance Premiums and Investments
The money the insurance companies collect in premiums doesn’t just sit idly somewhere waiting for an accident to happen. Insurance firms are in business for profit. Therefore they will seek to enlarge the pool of funds they collect by investing the money in stocks and other instruments. These investments help them to cover their operational costs comfortably and still be able to pay claims.
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All info was correct at time of publishing October 17, 2018
