Why you should check your car insurance every time you renew.

I've managed to become the go to person when people's insurance bills come up for renewal. Often people can save hundreds of dollars by shopping around. One thing I consider a trick used by insurance companies, is if you ask for a better price, they'll suggest increasing your excess to lower the price. They aren't offering any discount to you since you could have increased your excess anyway. The insurance company isn't reducing your price, just moving you to another option.

Three tips. One is if you take out a new policy with the same company online, you'll often get a discount. So don't renew. Take out a new policy to get a better price. The second is look at your excess. I've found for example if you increase your excess by say $150, the premium may drop by $50. In the first year you've saved $50 and each future year you'll save another $50. If you can afford the extra $100 if you have an accident, which isn't that much really, look at how much you can increase your excess before you feel the risk is too much. Finally, shop around. It's easy to do online and it could save you hundreds.

Here for example are the quotes for a Mazda CX5 I got last year for a person in their 80s. The policy was with Coles and the premium had increase considerably. The result was moving to AAMI with an excess of $1,300 for $1,074.74, with a saving of $765.16. Keep in mind these are last 2023 prices.

Coles renewal
$1,839.90, Excess $1000

Coles online with 15% online discount
$1,953.40, Excess $800
$1,818.23, Excess $1,000
$1,429.82, Excess $1600

Changed age to 84 instead of 85 to see how age affected the premium.
$1,853.49, Excess $850
$1,889.98, Excess $800

Woolworths
$3,233.73, unlimited kilometres
$2,392.53, 8000km
Agreed value $21,000
Excess $800

$1,854.58 excess $1,500
$1,650.12 excess $2,000

AAMI
Up to 10,000km
$1,284.72, $900 excess
$50 online discount
Amount covered $21,100

$1,323,82, $845 excess
$1,074.74, $1,300 excess

RACV
$2,380.10, $825 excess
$2,004.31, $1,500 excess 

GIO
$1,304.83, $950 excess
$1,021.56 $1,750 excess

Budget Direct
$1,448.68, Excess $800
50+ age 

$1,371.70 less than 8,000km
$1,450.89, $18,800 agreed market value

A final thought is that Coles or Woolworths offer either discount or points for car insurance. You really should check if the value of the offer exceeds the difference with their higher premium. In our case the supermarket offer was less than the savings that could be had by moving to another insurance company.

Kelvin

Update: 29/09/2024
This year's (2024) renewal information. This year the easiest and what we considered the best option was to simply renew and existing AAMI policy. Unlike previous years, taking out a new policy was a couple of hundred dollars more expensive.

AAMI
$1,114.20, renewal

New policy
Save $50 first year
Image of car looks like GIO site
5,000-10,000km
$1,349.58

GIO
Up to 10,000km/year
Covered $17,100 can cover $12,825 and $22,230
$1,372.09, excess $950
$1,254.31, excess $1,150
$1,074.21, excess $1,750 

 Coles
$50 off your shop
15% off first year's premium
Tow bar/Tinted windows
10,000km
50+ age restriction
Low mileage
$1,519.17, $900 excess, market value
$1,622.36, Agreed value $16,725, excess $900
$1,413.06, $1,300 excess, Agreed value $16,725

South Australia/Adelaide mobile phone detection cameras now fining drivers.

The South Australian/Adelaide mobile phone detection cameras as of today are no longer in trial mode and people will start to be issued fines.

To find out where the cameras are located, you can visit www.SpeedLocations.com.au, select SA and then Mobile Phone/Seatbelt or go direct to the page www.speedcameralocations.com.au/mobilephoneseatbelt/?state=sa.

For those who wish to receive alerts whilst driving, try the new Speed Limit Alerts page which also provides alerts for fixed cameras and mobile cameras reported by others (www.speedcameralocations.com.au/speedlimitalerts/?state=sa).

Safe driving

Kelvin

Is a sodastream worth it? I decided to record my usage and share the results.

For a long time, I resisted getting a SodaStream and I'll explain why shortly. However, if someone gives you one for a present, that changes things. Who doesn't love a present?

My reasoning was fairly simple. First the SodaStream unit costs money. Then there's flavouring at $7 a bottle that makes 9 litres. That's 78 cents a litre just for flavouring. I'd estimated from online research people were getting around 20-30 litres from a SodaStream cylinder. Exchange cylinders at $19 which means 63-95 cents per litre. So, with just the cost of the cylinder and flavouring the cost per litre I'd estimated to be $1.41 to $1.73 and that's not taking into account the cost of the SodaStream itself.

I decided now having become the owner of a SodaStream this would enable me to do some testing. The first cylinder that came with the SodaStream I used to determine how much gas to add to my drinks. I tend to be a light fizzer. The second bottle I recorded each time I refilled the bottles. So how did it go?

I have 500ml and 1L bottles. For 500ml bottles I'd pump for one second three times. For 1L bottles I'd pump for one second five times. At the end I had to use triple the number of pumps for about three 1L bottles and then the cylinder was done. Yes, I didn't use twice the number of pumps for 1L compared to 500ml. That's just how it worked out for me, for my tastes.

500ml bottles - 33 refills of 3 one second pumps
1L bottles - 16 refills of 5 one second pumps
Plus, at end of cylinder life about 3 1L bottles so equivalent of 5 one second pumps.

That's a total of 194 one second pumps. In terms of litres if I'd just used 1L bottles that would be approximately 39 litres and for 500ml bottles, that would be 32 litres.

The cost per litre for my usage works out at 49-59 cents per litre, or an average of 55 cents per litre. People who prefer more fizz will find the cost per litre greater.

Sadly, if you add the 55 cents to the 78 cents for the cost of flavouring ($1.33/L) that's more expensive than home brand drinks from Woolworths, Coles, or Aldi.

But wait, there's savings to be had.

First, I wait until the flavouring have been on half price specials and then stock up. That means the cost has been 39 cents/L, reducing the cost to 94 cents/L.

I've tried other brands of flavouring but haven't been a fan.

Cordial can make a good drink with the carbonated water. Aldi cordial is $2.69 a bottle and makes up 10 litres. That's 27 cents per litre for flavouring.

Getting creative with lemon and lime trees.

Yes, we all have someone we know that has a lemon tree, and sometimes a lime tree. Often people are happy to give away excess fruit.

I found dissolving a cup of sugar with a cup of lemon/line juice plus half a cup of water, produced a very nice syrup for flavouring. There are about 5 cups of sugar in a kg of sugar. A Coles 2kg bag of sugar costs $2.85 so the cost is 29 cents per litre. OK. Aldi cordial is cheaper than making your own. Didn't know that until now but isn't that the point of testing.

At say 30 cents per litre for cordial/syrup plus 55 cents per litre for gas, that's 85 cents per litre.  Keep in mind, that's not taking into account the cost of the SodaStream

Comparing that to Coles home brand fizzy drinks at $1.20/1.25L less 10 cents refund on the bottle, that gives us 1.10/1.25 = 88 cents per litre. Slightly cheaper in Aldi.

So, in summary, if you use full price SodaStream flavouring it simply costs more to use a SodaStream for drinks than buying home brand drinks. Yes, the flavouring from SodaStream are name brands like Pepsi/Pepsi Max, but to me they're not the same as the bottled versions, so in effect I'd put them on par with the home brands. That's just how I see it, you may not.

Add the cost of the SodaStream appliance spread over say three years at my usage (about 30 cents/L) and it's costing more than home brand drinks. Also, I purchased additional bottles which don't come cheap. SodaKing bottles are cheaper and also work.

There is one advantage that is worth noting. Your groceries are lighter each week if you don't buy the pre-bottled drinks.

The bottom line. Drinks made using the SodaStream, from my testing, are more expensive than home brand bottles of fizzy drink. That's just the way it is.

Kelvin

NOTE: The full SodaStream cylinder weighed 1,168g. Empty cylinder weighed 744g. Weight of gas/contents 424g.

Australian drivers using dashcams to dob in other drivers.

Today I read this article about Australians dobbing in their fellow Australians for breaking the road rules and using dashcam footage and reporting the footage to police.

Aussie road users hit with more fines as drivers use dash cam to dob others in (yahoo.com)

I find this quite perplexing as those dobbing in others are likely to also be breaking the road rules quite a bit of the time whether they realise it or not. The dobbers should realise that if the matter goes to court, they may be required to give evidence, and their personal details could become available. 

Common ways I see people every day breaking the road rules are: crossing single white lines, not stopping at a stop sign (rolling through it is not stopping), not stopping on amber when they could, driving over the white stop line, exceeding the speed limit whilst overtaking, etc., etc. We all see drivers every time we go out driving who break the road rules.

Don't get me wrong. I would dob in a driver if that driver caused harm to another person or their property. But it is easy to ramp people up, to get them angry at other drivers, to get them to dob in others. We need to remain tolerant and be considerate to others on the road. To have patience. Yes, others will drive in a manner that you're not happy with (those who cut in early when changing lanes, those who speed past at a zip merge making it dangerous), but you can only control what you do.

If everyone dobbed in everyone else who did something wrong on the road, it's only a matter of time before you get dobbed in. I'm thankful to those who have tolerated me when I've made mistakes.

For those interest Yahoo published the survey result and here's what it showed when I did the survey. Credit to Yahoo for the graphic.

It is interesting to see around a fifth of people answering the survey have dobbed in someone else. That's interesting and good to know about our fellow Australians.

www.SpeedCameraLocations.com.au

NSW to start trialing point-to-point cameras for cars/bikes using Heavy Vehicle cameras.

I often thought it was only a matter of time before the cameras used to monitor heaving vehicles would start to be used as point-to-point cameras to monitor speeding cars. The cynic would say it's a quick, cheap and easy way to increase fines and revenue for the state governments. The less cynically would say the more people that get fined the more people are likely to comply with the speed limits, thus increasing road safety.

The following article appeared on the News.com.au site today.

https://www.news.com.au/technology/motoring/on-the-road/huge-change-coming-to-speed-cameras-in-new-south-wales/news-story/ac96220175163bca36612c5f5816e490

Across NSW there's quite a large number of routes where there's point-to-point cameras that by current legislation can only be used to monitor heavy vehicle traffic. It makes sense to extend this network of cameras to cover light vehicles. The hardware is already in place and only software needs to be changed, albeit at what would be a sizeable software contract.

The word trial is used and I have to say this misleads me. I think of a trial as meaning to test something out and if it doesn't achieve the results, to then cease the trail. I've come to understand that a trial when used by the government is more likely to mean, a testing phase followed by going live.

For example, if we use the stats provided in the article, we can instantly see the effect on the road toll will hardly be noticeable. Over a four-year period there were six deaths and 33 injuries on the two lengths of road nominated for the trial. Speed is considered a factor in 44% of road fatalities. That means each year, based on these figures we'd expect to see the road toll reduced by 6 deaths /4 year * 44% which is 0.66 of a person. We should keep in mind the injuries are also important and would equate to 3-4 per year. This is not a significant outcome in terms of road safety. In terms of revenue, that will be significant.

As this change permeates across Australia, as the heavy vehicle monitoring is Australia wide, I'll update the Speed Camera Locations site to also include the heavy vehicle point-to-point cameras as speed cameras.

When driving it is a good idea to use an app such as Waze (or my own Speed Limit Alerts web app) to help comply with the speed limit. It's easy to make a mistake, drive with the flow of the traffic, and get a fine for doing so. As cars are updated these features will be built into the cars, but for now, there's a few software tools that can help.

www.SpeedCameraLocations.com.au