{"id":314637,"date":"2026-02-24T11:58:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T11:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/314637\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T11:58:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T11:58:07","slug":"i-didnt-expect-bereavement-to-come-with-a-e200-surcharge-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/314637\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I didn\u2019t expect bereavement to come with a \u20ac200 surcharge\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

We heard a bizarre story from a Dublin<\/a> woman who was recently widowed and found herself being charged extra by her car insurance<\/a> provider AIG<\/a> as a result and she wants to know if it is possible that she is actually being billed for her husband\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

She begins her mail by saying she was \u201cwidowed within the last year, and this is my first time renewing my car insurance since my husband passed away.\u201d<\/p>\n

She says the cost of her premium last year was \u20ac415 and this year she was quoted \u20ac660. <\/p>\n

\u201cNaturally, 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 \u2018lost my spouse discount\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m unsure if this is a backward Ireland \u201cyou need your husband\u2019s permission\u201d thing, or if they think single women unchaperoned are risky \u2013 but essentially it appears that I need my husband\u2019s name on a policy to get a better price,\u201d she writs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe polite enough customer\u2011service agent sounded almost as bewildered as I was. Unfortunately, knowing my widowed status, he refused to add my husband\u2019s name back on to the policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Allianz mileage mix-up costs reader hundreds of EuroOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Our reader ended up paying under pressure of the renewal deadline but after that she did some checking through various comparison sites. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd sure enough: if I quote for myself \u2013 46-years-old, driving licence since 2000, zero claims, zero convictions, zero penalty points \u2013 the premium is around the same \u20ac620.<\/p>\n

But when I run the exact same quote and simply add my late husband\u2019s name back on, the price magically plunges back to around \u20ac450,\u201d she says. \u201cIt 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can imagine how this feels. Navigating life alone with my young children is challenging enough but I didn\u2019t expect bereavement to come with a \u20ac200 surcharge from the insurance industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

She expresses the hope that we might \u201cbe 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\u2019m open to teaching the dog to drive if it gets me back my \u2018multi-driver discount\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Incidentally she also pointed out that as she is now \u201csolely 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.\u201d <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

The company declined to publicly respond to the specifics of her case and instead issued the following statement. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we do not comment on individual customer cases, single-driver and multi-driver policies can carry different risk profiles, which may impact premiums.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We heard a bizarre story from a Dublin woman who was recently widowed and found herself being charged…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314638,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[146987,72,943,615,61,5167,60,14835,9825],"class_list":{"0":"post-314637","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-aig","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-cost-of-living","11":"tag-dublin","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-insurance","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-motors","16":"tag-pricewatch"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}