We heard a bizarre story from a Dublin woman who was recently widowed and found herself being charged extra by her car insurance provider AIG as a result and she wants to know if it is possible that she is actually being billed for her husband’s death.
She begins her mail by saying she was “widowed within the last year, and this is my first time renewing my car insurance since my husband passed away.”
She says the cost of her premium last year was €415 and this year she was quoted €660.
“Naturally, I asked why a policy with fewer drivers on it should cost more, and the only explanation I was given was that removing my husband meant I ‘lost my spouse discount’.”
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She says that the couple only ever had one car and she was always the main driver on the policy and the car owner. Her late husband had always been a named driver.
“I’m unsure if this is a backward Ireland “you need your husband’s permission” thing, or if they think single women unchaperoned are risky – but essentially it appears that I need my husband’s name on a policy to get a better price,” she writs.
“The polite enough customer‑service agent sounded almost as bewildered as I was. Unfortunately, knowing my widowed status, he refused to add my husband’s name back on to the policy.”
[ Allianz mileage mix-up costs reader hundreds of EuroOpens in new window ]
Our reader ended up paying under pressure of the renewal deadline but after that she did some checking through various comparison sites.
“And sure enough: if I quote for myself – 46-years-old, driving licence since 2000, zero claims, zero convictions, zero penalty points – the premium is around the same €620.
But when I run the exact same quote and simply add my late husband’s name back on, the price magically plunges back to around €450,” she says. “It appears that being widowed makes me a significantly higher risk than being married to someone who, in reality, is no longer alive to drive anything.”
“You can imagine how this feels. Navigating life alone with my young children is challenging enough but I didn’t expect bereavement to come with a €200 surcharge from the insurance industry.”
She expresses the hope that we might “be able to help untangle this. Is there really a defensible underwriting reason for this? Or should I consider remarrying solely for insurance purposes (and possibly for my own driving safety)? Failing that, I’m open to teaching the dog to drive if it gets me back my ‘multi-driver discount’.”
Incidentally she also pointed out that as she is now “solely responsible for my two kids and myself a few widow friends had previously discussed how we had noticed our driving behaviours have changed significantly (for the better) as a result.”
We contacted AIG for find out why it was charging a recently widowed woman more for cover than it was charging her when her late husband was also attached to the policy.
The company declined to publicly respond to the specifics of her case and instead issued the following statement.
“While we do not comment on individual customer cases, single-driver and multi-driver policies can carry different risk profiles, which may impact premiums.”
