Money Box agenda Saturday 27 May 2017 BBC Radio 4 at midday
Divorce penalty
If you change your status from married to divorced you may find
your car insurance premium goes up. One listener tells us the best buy she was
offered by RAC rose from £582 a year to £919 after she told them she was no
longer married but divorced and changed the status of her (now ex-)husband as
second driver on the car. RAC now says it was a mistake – a ‘glitch’. And the
original insurer has now offered her insurance on the same terms. But whose
mistake was it? We reproduced our listener’s enquiry online with more than 30
firms. Most of them put up the best buy price by 20%-30%.
Tax rise
On 1 June, a week before the election, a tax rise begins which will
bring in an extra £850m a year for the Treasury. The tax on insurance premiums
rises that day from 10% to 12%. Insurance Premium Tax – which has now doubled
in two years – applies to general insurance which protects your home, its
contents, your car, and your pets. Altogether Insurance Premium Tax brings in around £5 billion a year.
Manifestos
Our series of interviews on election manifestos continues. This
week I talk to some of the smaller parties. Plaid Cymru leader Hywel Williams,
Liberal Democrat economics spokesman Vince Cable, and Molly Scott Cato MEP who
speaks for the Green Party on finance issues. Next Saturday is the last before
the General Election on 8 June when we hope to fill the remaining gaps in our
coverage of the party plans.
Rent asunder
Are rents falling? Rising? Or staying pretty flat? The answer, of
course, depends where you live. One national letting agent reports this week
that in four of the nine countries and regions of Great Britain rents charged
to new tenants have fallen over the last twelve months. In the other five they
have risen. If you average out the whole of Great Britain they are pretty flat.
But they are still hard to pay from low wages and help from the government in
Housing Benefit for working people has been cut. Shelter says many are
borrowing to pay their rent.
That will all make for a nice juicy filling for our 24 minute Radio
4 sandwich between the News and the News Quiz. Its best before date, as ever,
is noon on Saturday and it is served up refried at 2100 on Sunday. Or it can be
served up fresh anytime on the marvellous BBC Radio i-Player.
Send us your ideas or problems you want us to look into through the
‘Contact Us’ tab. Or
email moneybox@bbc.co.uk. The website also has background and further
information on all the stories on Money Box and Money Box Live.
I will be trailing one item on BBC One Breakfast on Saturday.
Usually it’s around 0840 but the time can and does change.
26 May 2017
