This is not a pricing problem. It is a trust problem.
Motor insurers just paid out a record £3.2bn in claims, yet a third of UK drivers say they are too scared to claim.
Hold those two facts together, because they tell you more than either does alone.
The ABI’s Q2 numbers show the average claim at £4,900, up 4% in a single quarter, while the average premium rose just £6 to £566. Claims inflation is running well ahead of pricing. That gap will not last forever, and when it closes, it will close through premiums.
But the number that stopped me was CRIF’s: 35% of UK motor policyholders fear that making a claim will push up their price. Higher than the European average. And rising.
Brian Hanrahan’s Falklands report is still my model for making numbers count: “I counted them all out and I counted them all back.” The audience did not need the number, they needed the meaning. So here is the meaning. We are running an industry that pays out record sums to customers who are frightened to ask for what they have paid for. Record payouts to frightened customers. No amount of claims spend fixes that on its own.
Sources: ABI Q2 2026 claims data; CRIF research via Insurance Business UK.