Car insurance news
The postcode effect on Reading motor insurance quotes
Motorists from Reading are flummoxed by the postcode system that means living in one street could mean a motor insurance quote is £200 more than if they were living in the next.
Some motor insurance quotes were carried out by the paper icBerkshire to investigate just how dramatically the cost of car insurance would be for people living in different areas of Reading.
They found that a person living in West Reading would be set back £686.99 for Ford Fiesta insurance, whilst an identical person with the same car who lived in Woodley would get a motor insurance quote for £479.99.
It was also found that if the fictional Ford Fiesta owner moved from Pangbourne to nearby Mapledurham, their motor insurance quote would rise by £60 to a total of £555.
The Association of British Insurers (ABI) explained that there are a number of risk factors attached to postcodes which are taken into account when calculating the cost of a car insurance premium.
The first of these is the crime rate of the area, which is likely to have an effect on whether the car is going to get stolen or vandalised, whilst the second is the car insurance claim rate of people who live in that postcode district.
A spokesman for the ABI advised: "Shop around is an old cliché but it's definitely true. You can save a lot of money."